It isn't time that's passing by
Ma's pregnant again, I called mum and revealed the news to her. At another side of the telephone line, I could feel her happyness.
She asked when did the baby conceive. I couldn't tell really, "might be November, befor Christmas." I said, but I knew mum has no idea of Christmas, and that's not according to Lunar Calendar.
Then mum asked how old Ma was. She wanted to predict the baby's gender again! Last time she predicted Brenda's gender by looking at the Chinese traditional baby gender chart. She told me:"Definitely a girl, because all girl in three consecutive months."
She knew there were six years difference between me and Ma, so she asked me how old I am. I started to laugh, because I was quite perplexed by two calendars. Ma alway celebrates my birthday on Gregorian Calendar, but my mum remembers my year by Chinese Lunar Calendar. I could hear my sister sitting beside my mum, helping her to solve the puzzle, she told my mum she was already 44, and I am 3 years younger than her, I should be 41! Then Ma should be 35. Am I so old?
Remember the long ago when we lay together
In a pain of tenderness and counted
Our dreams: long summer afternoons
When the whistling-thrush released
A deep sweet secret on the trembling air;
Blackbird on the wing, bird of the forest shadows,
Black rose in the long ago summer,
This was your song: It isn't time that's passing by,
It is you and I.
Today, I read this Ruskin Bond's poem from a forum, the last sentence --"It's not time that's passing by, It is you and I." -- stroke my heart chord instantly. I have never heard of Ruskin Bond, and knew nothing about this poet. But I could feel those kind of pain of nostagia and yearning for old friends.
I am really missing my family.