Tribute to Mum

Our perpetual dice calendar is still set to 1 month ago, to the day when mum left us, and where we still are now.

We’ve set up an altar in her untouched bedroom, filled with flowers from family and friends that we change out every week or so, and a space where we bring her portion of meals that we make, or take-out when we can’t cook. We talk to her portrait, telling her about our day, about the 10 minutes of chores we’ve managed to do today without breaking down in tears, and the new stores opening across the street that we see from our living room window. We try to find her in dreams, unwilling to wake up when we do, going back to sleep when we don’t. Sometimes, I hear her too.

A friend once told me that grief doesn’t grow smaller, but with time, we learn to grow around the grief. I don’t think I have the capacity to grow around this grief for mum. I still don’t know how to live without her. Losing her is my worst nightmare — a nightmare I’m never going to wake up from.

I’m not ready to paint her memorial portrait yet, even though she’s present in so much of my work. To paint her now feels like I’m trying to move forward from this, to conclude my mourning. It’s illogical and stupid to feel this way because it’s impossible that I will ever stop mourning her, think of her, and love her.

I think of the three of us lying in her bed, chatting, with our feet dangling in air towards the ceiling, a sleepover-like ritual we never grew out of. I think of her staying up late with me to pick outfits for my exhibition opening that she also attended, quietly taking photographs and chatting with my friends. I think of our last trip Italy, and her unrestrained joy at the truffle covered cacio e Pepe. I think of us naturally drifting towards a grocery store whenever we go out. I think of the recipe books and cooking tools that mum brought with her to London. I think of all the adventures she had planned for this new life here. I think of her resilience and her strength to be our protector, our rock, and our 最強後盾.

I think of the eulogy I wrote for her two weeks ago; the inadequacy of the paragraphs that outline her life and how it reads like a child’s description, barely even scratching the surface of the vibrancy that filled her life. I think of the document that stays open on my laptop, filled with one-lined memories that I promise I’ll revisit. I think of all the paintings, drawings, and stories I’ve already created of her, and how they’ve only captured glimpses of her.

I think of how two days before she left, she told us how she told us she had no regrets, nothing to worry about, but that she already missed us.
冇後悔，冇牽掛，只有不捨.

我好掛住你。 我愛你，媽咪。