The weekly routine...

The lunar new year came and went. Life is slowly settling back to normal.

But why do i still get the blues??

I was passing through downtown the other day and started tearing for no reason. Then I realised it's becos that's mum's regular haunt - the place where she meets up with friends, does her shopping, or just to buy me my favourite egg tarts. It's embarrassing, not to mention the difficulty in explaining to others in the car why you started crying out of the blue, but it's hard to stop the memory from playing its reel, and somehow, I didn't want to.

They said you have to walk in someone's shoes to know what they've gone through. I never realised how strong mum was, until I had to take over the household now. The weekly trips to the market, replenishing supplies in the house, cleaning, offering prayers to dad, all these must be tough for her to do all by herself. She had arthritis in her left leg, which made walking painful for her sometimes, but she would still take the bus to town to pickup supplies she can't find near home.

Every weekend when I visit the local market, I see elderly ladies going about their weekly marketing, catching up with friends over a cup of coffee. Used to be, I would accompany mum to the market on days when I got up early during the weekends. She has a said pattern of going through her marketing, first to the butcher, then the fishmongers, vegetatbles, dried goods etc. In between, she would take a break and have a cup of strong black coffee at her favourite stall, maybe have a piece of cake, get some rest while chatting with familiar faces. Then she is off to continue her shopping.

As I go through the same motion every weekend, like how mum used to do, I wondered if any of the hawkers that mum used to frequent actually asked what had happend to her. Why did she not return after her holiday trip to China? I wondered if they missed her, the friendly lady who never bargains, always buying whatever they recommended to her. Did they ask around why she had stopped coming to the market? Or maybe they were too busy getting on with their lives to notice her absence.