When I was a child, my mom gave an impression of being delicate and tender. I also was brought to simplistically believe that she was rather weak. I remember wishing that she was more strong, fast and vigorous like other women. Good that I had the delicacy of never showing this foolish attitude towards her. Little did I know, reflect and observe, nothing is further from the truth. She was delicate but far from weak.
When she and my dad gave up very busy and active careers to come to Canada at age 56, mom was anxious to have employment. I then just gave birth to my eldest child, Hannah, and was about to take a maternity leave. She said, “Both Baba and I don’t have a job. Why don’t I take care of Hannah so you can continue to work?” To my shame, I doubted and worried whether she was strong enough to take care of a baby. Well, she did. She cared for Hannah very well and taught her to speak beautiful Mandarin. This became a very precious memory for us now. She recently found the piece of fabric she used as a sling to carry Hannah with. After 30 years, it still has all the wrinkles from being used as a sling. Later, mom shifted to take up more active work. She became an itinerant reflexologist, travelling from home to home in Toronto, Markham and Etobicoke to do reflexology for people.
Reflexology was a therapy technique that she had devoted much of her life to learning when she was in Malaysia. Originally it was something she used to support her own health but when she experienced its great health benefits she propagated it by doing it for others and teaching it. This supposed delicate and fragile Mom became a reflexologist practitioner and this she did in the after-hours of teaching high-school full-time. I was studying in Canada then, as an international student, both tuition and living expenses were very costly,, and mom was bringing in extra income by doing reflexology. Later on, Dad, Mom and my brother took to yet another way of bringing in extra income and that was potting and selling flowers to send money to me.
However, Mom would not have taken up all this work just for the sake of earning more income. She delighted in all the work she did. When she and Dad potted and grew flowers to sell, she thoroughly enjoyed it. She loved flowers. We all knew how important floral arrangement for Sunday Services in church was to her. For her, there is no separation between art and faith. Doing a floral arrangement according to the colours of the church year was a holy service to God. The same with other forms of art like music and writing. She loved writing and possessed a great gift for it. I found an article she wrote in this 1981 issue of Church Council Publication in the Basel Church of Malaysia. There were more than 30 articles in here, mostly written by pastors on topics of different ministries and missions. Mom’s article was titled “The Hardships of a Pastor’s Wife”. In this article, she related an incident that proved that pastors were just regular people. My parents put their 13 year old twins, my brother and I, on a taxi to go from our small town, Tenom to the big city of Kota Kinabalu to go back to school. We would have taken the train like usual but the incessant heavy rains had caused mudslides on the train tracks. It would have been a 4 or 5 hour trip on the road but we didn’t arrive in KK even 8 hours after. Nightfall came on. My brother and I were somewhere in that 170 km of back country logging roads, between Tenom and KK, with continuous rain, news of floods and mudslides, and my parents had not heard a wit about us. It was in this very anxious situation that they had to go through the night and then perform a Sunday Service when morning came and greet their congregants. Mom did not dare to reveal her inner anxiety, but many church members knew about it and comforted her. The Executive Board Chairman had even come to the house several times the night before and helped to make phone calls. Our taxi was indeed stranded overnight by a swollen river that covered a stretch of the logging road we were on. When it receded in the morning, our taxi was able to pass through and we got to our uncle and aunt in KK safely. Such was one hardship of this young pastor’s wife and mother. In this article, she went on to candidly relate the kinds of pressures that were naturally associated with being a pastor’s wife where she was expected to be so strong in faith to not be concerned with health, finances and her children’s future. There is another article she wrote and that was about our birth. I regretfully don’t have this article and wish so much to have it. Mom was bleeding a bit in her first month of pregnancy. The doctor pronounced that her pregnancy had failed and prescribed medication to abort. After taking the meds, she was to wait for the miscarriage to happen. She was to save it and bring it back to the doctor. Something came out and she duly brought it back to the doctor. But after examining her, the doctor pronounced that the embryo was still there, so she gave her yet another medication to install the embryo back! What followed in the ensuing weeks was that mom found her tummy growing in a more exponential way than other pregnant women. And yes, it was my brother and me.
Mom and Dad perfectly complimented each other. When they first started working after freshly graduated from Hong Kong back to Malaysia, they each had many other suitors, but they somehow ended up choosing each other. Mom herself had turned down suitors and work positions in her childhood town of Kudat and relocated to Sandakan, hundreds of kilometers away, to accept a teaching position there. While there, she began the active life of working as a high school teacher and helping in different church ministries of Bible Study and music. It was then that a new seminarian graduate came back from Hong Kong and assumed the work of a pastor, she became a great and ready help to him in the Sandakan Basel Church. Yes, they married and had that pair of twins. When my brother and I were merely six months old, a post in the town of Papar became vacant. An elderly pastor had founded a church with an adjacent school but now needed to retire. My parents, with their 6-month olds in tow, boarded a boat and again travelled hundreds of kilometers to Papar. There, for nine years, they built the church and the school, my dad working as a pastor and mom, working alongside him, helping him to start a choir etc. while working as the church-school principal. As with all pastors, Dad was to be reassigned to other towns’ churches by the Basel Council every few years. Mom would follow and God had provided a teaching job in whichever town she arrived in. After immigrating to Toronto, mom still followed whichever mission station Dad went. They went to minister in the Basel Church in Vancouver, then to a Mandarin church in Montreal that my uncle Rev. Tsang started, and even to Tahiti in the south Pacific Ocean at one point. As mom supported Dad, Dad, in his turn, supported her in her careers and many other undertakings. The pastors in Malaysia live in a parsonage beside the church, Dad did most domestic work when we were growing up like cooking. He went back and forth church office and home conveniently. He had worked as a cook in high school in exchange for tuition so he had developed skills in cooking. So, my Dad and Mom, theirs was a 59 years of beautiful partnership.
In these last 10 years, mom continued certain artistic pursuits. She loved colourful birds, flowers and nature scenes. She would take online photos of them and collect them in albums. She had such a zest for life and pursued the things she loved to do with such ardour. She took great delight in all her grandchildren and her great-grandchild and was always interested in hearing about their endeavors. I think she was disappointed that her health and strength were failing, preventing her from doing all the fun things she loved to do. This teaches and reminds me all the more to value my life and my gifts and to use them to take joy in the beauty of this world.
Mama, many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Your children, grandchildren and great-grandchild affirm and your husband also, he is full of praise of you.
我小時候，媽媽給人的印像是嬌柔細膩的。但我起了一個無知的觀念，認為她很脆弱。我不智的希望她能像其他女人一樣: 強壯、敏捷、充滿活力。幸好我當時從未對她流露出這種態度。然而，經過反思和觀察，我才發現，事實遠非如此。她嬌柔，但絕不軟弱。
爸爸媽媽於 1991 年移民到加拿大。媽媽當時 56 歲. 她和爸爸放棄了忙碌而積極的工作，移民來加拿大。媽媽渴望找到工作。當時，我剛生大女兒Hannah，正準備休產假。她說：「我和爸爸都沒有工作。好不好我照顧Hannah，讓你繼續工作呢？」令我現在感到羞愧的是: 我當時懷疑並擔心她是否有足夠體力照顧孩子。結果，她做到了。她把Hannah照顧得無微不至，還教她說一口流利的國語。這成了非常珍貴的回憶。最近，她找到了用來提Hannah的一塊布。 30年後，它仍然佈滿了用作提帶的褶皺。後來，媽媽轉而從事比較積極的工作。她在多倫多、萬錦和怡陶碧谷各地上門為人做足底按摩.
足底按摩是她在馬來西亞時投入大量時間學習的療法。最初，她用它來維持自己的健康，但當她體驗到它巨大健康益處後，她便開始為他人做按摩和教他們這個方法。並在高中全職教學的業餘時間從事這項工作。當時我以留學生身分在加拿大上學，學費和生活費非常高, 媽媽透過足底按摩賺取額外收入支持我。之後爸爸媽媽哥哥又找了另一種賺取額外收入的方式，那就是種植和銷售鮮花.
然而，媽媽不會只為了多賺錢而去做這些工作。她熱愛自己的工作。當她和爸爸一起盆栽花卉出售時，她樂在其中。她熱愛鮮花。我們都知道，在教會主日崇拜中插花對她很重要。對她來說，藝術和信心密不可分。根據教會年份的顏色來插花是對上帝的神聖事奉。音樂寫作等其他藝術形式也是如此。她熱愛寫作，並且擁有寫作的天份。我在這1981年馬來西亞的《巴色會特刊》上找到了她寫的一篇文章。這刊物裡有30多篇文章，大多是由牧師撰寫的，主題涵蓋了不同的事工和使命。媽媽的文章題為《牧師妻子的艱辛》。在這篇文章中, 她講述了一段經歷，表明 “牧師只是普通人”. 當時她和爸爸送13歲的我和哥哥坐上計程車，從Tenom前往大城市Kota Kinabalu回學校。我們本來可以像往常一樣坐火車，但連綿不斷的大雨導致火車軌道上發生了泥石流。這趟公路行程應是4 到 5 小時內到達，但8個小時後我們都沒到達KK。夜幕降臨。我們倆在Tenom和KK之間 170 公里的木山路上，一路雨水不斷，到處浸水和有泥石流的消息，而我的父母卻對我們倆的消息一無所知。他們在這種極端的焦慮中度過夜晚，早晨來到時, 因是主日, 爸爸舉行主日禮拜，媽媽迎接教友。媽媽不敢透露內心的焦慮，但許多教友已經知道並安慰了她. 一個教友在前一晚已幾次來過家裡，幫忙撥電話。我們的計程車確實被一條漲水的河水困了在河邊一夜，這條河水淹沒了我們行駛的一段路。早上，河水退了，我們的計程車才得以通過，我們下午安全地到達了KK舅舅和舅母家。這就是一位年輕牧師妻子母親的艱辛。在這篇文章中，她也坦誠地講述了身為牧師妻子必然會面臨的各種壓力：她被期望擁有堅定的信仰，以至於不該掛慮健康、經濟和孩子的未來。我還從她寫的另一篇文章中了解到了我的出生故事。母親在懷孕第一個月出現了輕微的出血。醫生宣布她懷孕失敗，並開了墮胎藥。服藥後，她要等待流產發生。她要把流產的組織保存起來，帶回給醫生。她照醫生指示做了. 但醫生檢查她後，宣布胚胎還在，於是又開了另一種藥物，幫她把胚胎安植回去！接下來的幾週，媽媽發現自己的肚子比其他孕婦肚子大得更快。沒錯, 這是我們倆雙胞胎. 我自己沒有這篇文章，很想擁有.
爸爸媽媽彼此相得益彰。他們剛從香港畢業回到馬來西亞，開始工作時，彼此都有不少追求者，但不知何故，他們最終選擇了彼此。媽媽自己也拒絕了童年故鄉古達的工作機會，搬到了數百公里外的山打根，接受了一份教職。在那裡，她開始了積極的生活，擔任高中教師，並參與教會各種事工，包括聖經學習和音樂。就在這時，一位剛從香港畢業的神學院學生回來擔任牧師，她在山打根巴色會成為這牧師的得力助手。是的，他們結婚了，並生了那對雙胞胎。我們倆才六個月大的時候，Papar的的教會職缺了。一位老牧師創辦了教會和旁邊的一所學校，但需要退休了。我的父母帶著他們六個月大的孩子，乘船車再次航行數百公里來到Papar。在那裡，他們九年時間建造教會和學校。爸爸擔任牧師，媽媽則與爸爸一起工作，幫助他創辦唱詩班等，同時擔任教會學校的校長。和所有牧師一樣，每隔幾年，巴色理事會就會調往爸爸到其他城鎮的教會。媽媽隨之而去，上帝在她到達的任何城鎮都為她提供了教學工作。移民到多倫多後，媽媽仍跟隨爸爸到任何一個牧養站。他們先在溫哥華的巴色教會事奉，然後去了我舅舅曾牧師在Montreal創辦的國語教會，甚至一度去了南太平洋的Tahiti島。媽媽支持爸爸，而爸爸也支持她的職業和許多其他事業。馬來西亞的牧師住在教堂旁的牧師住宅裡，在我們成長的過程中，父親做了大部分家務，例如做飯。他可以方便地往返於教會辦公室和家之間。他高中時當過廚師，用來支付學費，所以他練就了一手好廚藝。我爸和我媽，他們有著59年的美好夥伴關係。
在過去的十年裡，媽媽一直堅持著自己的藝術追求。她熱愛色彩繽紛的鳥兒、花朵和自然風光。她喜歡拍照網上看到的照片，然後收藏到相簿裡。她對生活充滿熱情，熱愛很多人事物。她非常喜愛她的孫輩和曾孫，並且總是樂於傾聽他們的生活細節。我想，她對自己日漸衰弱的健康和體力感到失望，這讓她無法做所有她熱愛有趣的事情。這教導和提醒我，要更珍惜我的生命和天賦，並運用它們來享受這個世界的美好。
媽媽，才德的女子很多，但您超越了她們。您的子孫後代都表示肯定，您的丈夫也對您讚不絕口。
