Secrets of the Heart - 心の秘密 Chapter 15 Prologue

Hi, can I tell you something?
Can you promise not to tell anyone?
Why?
Because it’s a secret.

I believe a lot of us grew up listening to this sentence.
It was so common during our younger days when we felt that secrets were something which is very special and should not be told to another person unnecessarily.

Instead, our secrets were traded.
“I’ll only tell you my secret if you tell me yours, first”

To our young and innocent minds, we often believed that secrets we said will not be told to another person. How wrong we were.

As we grew older, we don’t believe in that anymore.
We will feel that a secret is something which we will only tell certain people.
Perhaps we would only let our parents, our love ones or a very best friend know.

There are times however we realized that even our very best friends would not keep the secret that we entrusted to them.

We felt the hurt when someone else came to us asking about it.
As we entered adulthood, our secrets became a very personal thing.

These secrets are something which might has happened to us a long time ago. It could have been something unpleasant, something that we don’t want to rake it up all over again. It could have been a past relationship which you would not want your present partner to know.

For whatever reason it may be, we won’t really want to talk about it.

And so we sealed & locked our secrets away, buried deep inside our hearts.
Fearing that we do not have the courage to face it.

As more secrets were buried, our hearts slowly become a hurt locker waiting yearning for attention.

Over a while, we tend to forget about them and move on with life.
Until something happened that made us think back and pondered over the secrets that we buried deep.

What sort of secrets do you have?
Will you tell someone or will you bring it to you grave?
Will you smile knowing that it’s safe because no one else knows about it.

All of us have secrets, deep inside our hearts.

We kept them deep not because we don’t want anyone to find out, we are only waiting for the right person to tell…

[Our Parent’s advices]

A lot of us take advice seriously from our friends, our colleagues or classmates.
It could be regarding a new job offer or the girl whom you always want to know.

What should you do, how would you do it.
It’s not new to you because we are doing it almost every other day.

Our parents were among the first person we approached for an advice.
Most of the time, they would tell you what you shouldn’t be doing.

My mum is a typical negative minded person.
She would oppose in almost anything I want to do.

Like the design course I wanted to apply after O levels.
Like my choice of friends and the places I wanted to hang out.

She would say no to almost everything that came out from my mouth.
To her, having a steady job means more than anything in this life.

My passion, my dreams were something that is unpractical and perhaps unreasonable.
So I grew up my life listen to all her rejections even until this very day.

All my ventures, my proposals simply went down the drain the moment I speak to her.

My father on the other hand, never gives any advice.
He would only listen to what I want to say then let me say all the things I want.
Then he will not comment on it.

Normal reactions would be “Can do arh?”

You can say he’s more constructive in a way because he’s mentally challenging the possibilities in the problem.

There’s only one advice which he told me and sadly until today I still didn’t the importance of his advice.

“When are you going to get your driving license?”
I remembered he told me shortly after I came out from the army… almost 10years ago.

I would think it’s a bother to go through all the lessons and exams without the need of wanting a car. However, a license can be useful even if you don’t have a car.

My dad had the foresight and asked me to go for it.

I didn’t then, I had to now…

Looking forward, how will I advice my son one day?
If he comes to me with a problem, how would I help him?
If he comes to me with a passion, will I brush his hope away?

I hope not.

A lot of us failed to understand how much influence we have on others.

You'll never realized how much you can affect another person's emotions just by behaving negatively infront of him/her

[ Leaving Home ]

“When are you finally going to clean up your room?”
My mum will nag about this all day long as I sank deep inside my own world.

“Maybe tomorrow…. ”
I guess this answer would come almost immediately as the dreadful noise pollution continues.

“If I feel like doing it….”
This would be the heart’s answer.

How I miss those words.
How I miss the 30 over years that I’ve stayed with my parents.

Maybe some of us will laugh at the fact everyone will go out and build their own home at certain points of their lives.

Being independent and growing up.
That’s adulthood and the true facts of life.

Recently I’ve finally moved out from my parents and have a place of my own with my wife. It took us a lot of effort to raise the funding to purchase our flat.

The first night of our stay, I couldn’t sleep.
I remembered that telling my wife that I missed mum’s nagging.
She would always nag across the room before we go to bed.

It would either be about my messy room, about me being overspending or simply complaining what a hard life she is having. Sometimes I would answer back with a sense of rebel and most of the time I will end up at the losing end.

It was all quiet as we switched off our lights.

No nagging, no complaining, no sound.

I know all of us always have the urge to leave home one day.
We know we will be the kings and queens of our own little palace.
We can cook whatever we want and we can always leave the cleaning to tomorrow.

That’s probably the good side.

I’ve realized there are so many things which I won’t have know until I moved out.

Doing your groceries shopping is an art.
Some days you can be at the supermarket and realize that there’s no vegetable at all.
Buying the correct things at the correct supermarket can save you some dollars.

Cooking is not putting in all the ingredients and expects it to turn nicely as how our mums would cook. Doing laundry and mopping the floor exerts more energy than climbing stairs.

As we slowly get use to managing the whole house ourselves, I learn to appreciate all the nagging that I used to have.

As far as I hate nagging, it is still a communication skill that only women perfect the art.

It is an art of driving a message across your ears, bypassing your logic senses and directly hit your brain and memory.

Somehow no matter where you go, how far you’ve been, you will always remember your mum’s nagging.

These days, we only go back on Sunday.
She doesn’t really nag anymore.

“When you step out of the house, you are an adult now. Soon you are going to be someone’s father; I don’t need to nag at you anymore”

I know I might be labeled a sissy in front of my friends
(ok never mind that, all of them don’t read my blog)

I missed her nagging and miss her.

Thanks for all the nag that I’ve received in my life.

You’ll never know how much you miss it until you missed it.

[A Letter to My Child – Part II]

Dear Son,

Time seems to move very fast when you are busy.
You are in your 31st week and we’ll be visiting the gyne later on.

Your mum and I have decided on your name.

You know, a name is the actually the first emotional gift that a parent gave it their child to unify the bond between them. Every individual child’s name is special in their parent’s ear and every name has a different meaning.

Perhaps due to the fact that I was born in an uneducated parents and being Taoist, there wasn’t any English name for me.

One of the earliest questions that I was ever asked was, “What’s the meaning of your name?”
I went home and asked my parents as I was totally unaware.

“Oh, cos one of cousin was named Wen Yi, so we followed his “Yi” and named you “Shun Yi” loh” my mum explained.

“Har? Like that only arh?” and I thought I was special.

“No lah, we want you to be filial and righteous that’s why we named you “顺义” which is 孝顺，讲义气!” my mum followed after seeing my dreadful look.

31 years on, I looked back and asked myself whether I’m a filial & righteous guy.
I hope I’m, I wish I’m more.

Your mum’s name” 红梅” was named by her grandfather.

Her explanation of her name’s origin was based on the first sight of the newborn where your great grandfather resembles one “林黛玉” character in Dream of the Red Chamber 红楼梦.
I never had a chance to ask him why he wanted to name her this way.

Both your dad and mum grew up using our English name rather than our given name.
But we’ll never forget the story and meaning behind our name.

We hope to give you a name which is meaningful yet unique and easy to call.
We want to name you “Alvy Lim”
It may make you sound like a branded bag but there is a special meaning behind this name.

Alvy is Anntonii Lim Vanilla Yu

[ A Letter To My Child - Part I ]

Dear Son,

The date is 20th July 2010 and if everything goes smoothly, you will witness the world in 3 months time.

I don’t know when you will be able to read this.
Maybe in a few years time,
Maybe when you are older and perhaps bump onto my website while you surf one day.

I don’t even know your name yet.

Daddy & Mummy just want to let you know that having you is the greatest thing that ever happened in our lives.

The first time when I realized that your mum was pregnant, I was too lost for words.
Fear and uncertainty soon creeps upon me slowly.
What was I suppose to do?

Am I financially capable of giving you the best education like the rest of the kids?
Am I able to guide you as you learned your first lesson?
Sometimes I wondered how my own dad overcame his anxiety, he probably don’t care anyways.

Your mum was not really well during the first 3months while you had you.
All she ate was only porridge and vegetables.
No matter how hard I tried, she just couldn’t fill herself up.
I think I was really fanatic as I’ve had her go on many blood tests to ensure everything’s ok.

I bought her a notebook and asked her to write the journal of your growth, she would carefully slot in those ultrasound photos of you and write her thoughts about it.

She won’t let me look at it.
“It’s a Mother to Son thing” she said.

Soon the 4th month came and your mum got better every day.
The ever-slim tummy of hers grew bit and bit as you slowly grow.

We moved into our own house during her 5th month.
Your mum would do her best to help out in the house moving as she would not let me single-handedly do it myself. She walked over 1 kilometer from your grandma’s place carrying our pillow and bed sheet.

Your mum is always alone at home with you as she’s not working. She would still do house chores and laundry while I work late. Despite how tired she looked, she would always cook something for me when I reached home at night.

We would then lie on the bed and talk till the wee hours about the stuff I did and what she do for the day. You seem to love to kick at her at 11pm she said.

As I ventured through this mystical ride, an unexplainably huge stress laid upon me.

I need time & money but I have none.

I had to work longer hours, always looking for other source of income to supplement the family.
As I worked longer hours, it would also mean that my time for your mum is less.

I had to borrow from people & banks, something which I never thought I will do in my life.
We had to sacrifice for each other and had to spend our money wisely.

Despite all these situations, we never once said we are going to give up.
I never will.

My Son,

You will grow up one day,
You will experience your first fall, you will realize pain is something that you don’t like.
But you must remember to get up and move on.

Life is not about moving but falling.
All of us learned from falling because it’s the first thing that happened when we started to walk.