Looking Back
MY EARLIEST MEMORIES are those of my grandma sitting on the muted green fabric sofa, using one of those old fashioned telephones, while I rode my little tricycle looking at her, wondering who she was talking to, and always hoping it was my daddy. On his days off, Dad would always take me downstairs to the carpark, pick me up and sit me atop the fuel tank of his shiny electric blue Kawasaki motorcycle, and off we would go on a joy ride.
Just as I turned 2, I started attending full-time preschool at Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) childcare on Outram Road. I hated it at first, just like any kid would, and would cry and plead in Teochew for Dad's red Mazda; by that time, Dad had sold the motorcycle and gotten a red Mazda so it would be easier for us to go out as a family. Although I have no memory of crying like a baby for months on end, Mom would tease me about it for many years to come. In time, I grew to love attending school, and made many new friends. The teachers became family friends and sometimes Mother would take me to their homes for visits on special occasions. I remember attending my favourite teacher Aunty S's wedding at a Hindu Temple, where we threw grains of rice at the newlyweds.
Dad worked shifts as a chef in a five-star hotel and I saw very little of him except on his days off, where I looked forward to all the fun places he would take Mom and I, like the former Van Kleef Aquarium which had sharks, crocodiles and all types of fishes. There was also the Wonderland amusement park with what seemed to be a humongous Ferris wheel, rollercoasters, kiddy trains and my favourite spinning Ovaltine cups that Mom would not go near.
Those early years were filled with so much fun and curiosity about the world around me. I wanted to know everything; why the car needed batteries if it was already running on petrol, why I couldn't eat more sweets. Why, why, and why. It drove Mom nuts and it got to the point when she would have no more answers and would just reply with, "Because, because, because." Each evening after work, Mom would pick me up from school and take me to places like Queenstown Shopping Centre, or People's Park, where we would have some dinner before I was allowed on one of those coin-operated kiddy rides which played popular children's songs like "It's A Small World" and bounced up and down. Sometimes Mom would take me shopping and buy me a little piece of stationery to add to my collection of Sanrio's Little Twin Stars. As a young child, I did not think I was any different from other children.
In later years, my friends and I would reminisce about the rides, games and fun at Wonderland amusement park and the live chickens running around, before being slaughtered at the Telok Blangah Market-an open-air wet market which sold all types of meat and vegetables. My memories of this time are also sharper and in colour, suggesting that my sight back then was more "normal", although I would never know if "normal" truly meant perfect vision since that's all I ever knew, or rather, saw.
When I was 4, my family welcomed a new member, my brother. Dad had to take care of me for a couple of days when Mom was in the hospital, and I remember him making milk with "beans" in the bottom of the cup. I found it funny then, but I am guessing now that too much milk powder was used. My brother was the cutest baby I had ever seen, with large eyes and lashes like curtains; I thought he was as cute as Sanrio's Kiki in the Little Twin Stars, the blue character which is the younger brother of the pair. I was so excited to have a sibling of my own. I could not wait till he grew older and would be able to play with me. Unfortunately, the excitement was short-lived; things got boring real quick as we had to stay home much more, when both my mother and brother contracted chicken pox a few weeks after he was born.
About a year after my brother was born, we moved to a larger apartment in Bukit Batok, and I started attending kindergarten proper in a school closer to home. By this time, my family had gotten a domestic helper from Philippines, who spent many afternoons with my brother and I making pastillas de leche, a Filipino milk candy. Our weekends as a family was still pretty much the same, and Dad would take us to the pool or the zoo which was now much closer to our new home. I was having fun at kindergarten and meeting all my developmental milestones. I could recognise basic numbers and the alphabet, and I remember that Mom would test me by getting me to read bus numbers or the licence plates of cars we passed in the car park. I would get it wrong sometimes, but I guess I will never know if it's because I was not a good student, or that I could not see clearly. I recently asked Mom about it, and her reply was, "Don't think too much about it, I tested your brother in the same way too."
One memory though, of those early years that vividly stayed with me until today, was that of an elderly neighbour at our former Telok Blangah home who was chained to a chair outside her home every day. Mom explained to me that poor old Ah Mah was secured to the chair to prevent her from falling or getting lost, as she was very old and forgetful, and it would be dangerous for her to be home alone. Ah Mah would have a bowl of rice on a nearby table to accompany her for the entire day whilst her family went out to work. As a child, I remember being somewhat frightened and turned off by the smell permeating around Ah Mah, as she would inadvertently wet and soil herself during the day. Mother would often offer that elderly neighbour a kind word and would encourage me to talk or sing a song for Ah Mah. Looking back, I guess my elderly neighbour had dementia or something similar and was the first person with a disability that I had ever interacted with. It also made me think that disability is a very sad thing to happen to anyone.
When I was 7, I remember shooing my parents away from accompanying me for my first day of Primary One at the then Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ), Bukit Timah. It was an exciting day for me, as I was looking forward to making new friends and attending school for "grown-up" kids. I was rather fascinated with the foyer of the school's main building, with its cracked leather sofa, glass cabinet filled to the brim with shiny trophies and all the photographs plastered to the walls. The teacher of my class, Mrs. P, was a matronly lady who was very firm with all the girls. For the first six months, things were easy-going and I enjoyed learning; I remember getting one mark short of full marks for my mid-year Math exams which made Mom very proud. To give you some perspective, back then, Math was basic addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers. Things were about as normal and blessed as it can get for any child in the 1980s. I remember not having a care in the world and wishing I would grow up to be a vet. School was exciting, and sibling rivalry just beginning, with my brother old enough to snatch my toys. Things, however, did not remain that perfect for long.
I soon started getting into trouble with Mrs. P and other teachers, who would complain about my handwriting, incomplete homework and slipping grades for my weekly quiz. It got to a point where Mother had to help me with homework every evening. Most evenings often ended with me in tears, as Mother would be so frustrated that she would be screaming at me. I would get scolded for my writing that looked like "ants climbing up and down mountains", or for forgetting what I just read. Perhaps it was about this time that something changed. The change was not as drastic or clean-cut as being able to see perfectly one day, and to encounter complete darkness the next. Personally, I did not realise that I was seeing any differently, but I began to find it harder and harder to produce handwriting that was acceptable and keep up with what was being taught in class. My inability to read like the other kids my age caused Mother lots of worry and for the next year or so, on every Saturday when she was off work, Mother would diligently take me to different doctors who would test me in various ways.
Some would get me to read alphabets and numbers or ask me many questions that I had no answers to. Others looked inside my head after dripping "magic potions" in my eyes, a process the doctors call dilation. This enabled them to have a closer look inside my head, using all types of machines with blinking alien lights, and have me wear "Spiderman glasses"- my nickname for those glasses with swappable lenses that are used to test vision. Each lenses on the Spiderman glasses would get blurrier and blurrier as the test went on, such that my eyes would feel so sore and everything would look like I was seeing through a kaleidoscope!
As always, a few days after the test, we would then have to go back to the doctor's to collect a new pair of spectacles which would make no difference to my handwriting or ability to read the blackboard in class. That entire year was perhaps the most frustrating period of my life, and the most worrying for Mother.
Eventually after a year of weekly visits to different doctors, I was diagnosed with Stargardt disease.
My parents found it hard to accept the permanence and irreversibility of the condition, and was hopeful that doctors abroad may have more advanced techniques and expertise to fix my eyesight. Thus, at the start of the June school holidays in my second year of primary school, Mom sat me down to explain that I would be going to America to see the doctors there. I was going to visit my mother's sister, my Aunty Annie, in Houston, Texas.
Mom had shared how she hoped the doctors in America would have the answer to my vision problems and could...
