Coming Home....

Maybe I was just curious, maybe I just had to know, or maybe I just needed closure.

Whatever the reason, I found myself driving alone toward my old home. I had gone back to my old home town a second time in one month, on work matters. This second time around, I travel alone. I was about to drive straight home to KL, but something was tugging at me. I just had to see that house I used to live in again. I couldn't make up my mind. Should I just let the past remain the past, or should I try going down memory lane one last time?

The wounds had healed, and I felt as if I had moved on. It was time to face the ghosts of my past. I took the drive and I decided to use the old route my school bus used to take. I still remembered it by heart. The route to home was through an industrial park; first building that passed was the old place my father used to work when we moved up north. The Japanese company was still there, but the building looked much older than I remembered; 20 years had passed since then. Opposite of it used to be another factory called 'Baxter'. My brother and I liked the name so much, that when we got our first dog, we name him 'Baxter'... Further down the road was a timber saw mill. In later years when my mother lived alone, she told me she took up a job there for a few months. It paid lousily.. and the work was literally back breaking.. but she did it anyway to earn a living. My heart ached as she told me how she would have to carry heavy pieces of wooden plank from one end to another. The factory burnt down some years later but as I passed it by, a new owner had started rebuilding the structure.

There was a football field where my brother and I used to go watch the bigger boys play football. There was still a lot of cows around. Many of the old grocery shops that were there were now gone. Either that or they made new signboards, because I couldn't recognize most of them, except a few coffee shops. There were 2 to 3 regular coffee shops that my mother would frequent. She helped out in some of the hawkers stores and they paid her by giving her lunch. She would hang around and chat with the retired old uncles. They would give her RM10 here and there... and that was how she survive. For a person that neither worked full time, nor had a single cent from my father for so many years, I respected that my mother managed to pull through like that.

Just before turning into the my house row, there used to be a bus stop. My brother and I would wait impatiently for the bus to come. I used to like climbing up the side of the steel frame while waiting. It was at this bus stop that our dog Baxter tried to follow us up the bus when we were going to visit relatives in Kulim. The bus driver refused to let us bring the dog, and as the bus sped off, I could see Baxter chasing after us from behind. During my school holidays, this was the bus stop that I would wait at to go home, after a month of staying with my mother. Goodbyes were always difficult for me, and I would always turn back and look at the corner of the street, half terrified and half hoping to see my mother come around asking me not to leave. Terrified because I knew that if she did come crying and asking me to stay, I would have to say no and run off, showing a cold face. Hoping because deep in my heart, despite not daring to make that decision, I wanted to stay too, to be by her side and take care of her. Nothing ached my heart more than knowing I left her to fend for herself, alone and defenseless, mentally ill. In many ways, I still live with that guilt conscience. That bus stop was now gone. Demolished. I guess the bus doesn't come through here anymore. The old pond and swamp area behind our neighbourhood was also gone, replaced with new houses and development projects. The whole placed seemed strangely familiar yet foreign.

Going downhill, it was just one turn away from our street. I fell on this hill once from my bicycle, with my mother sitting right at the back. We were out to pasar malam, and my brother and i both convinced her that it would be faster to take our 2 bikes. My brother rode one while I carried my mother on the other. We would always like sliding down the hill without pressing the breaks. It was cool, and the breeze in your face was fun; we did it all the time. My mother was nervous, and ask me to slow down "Don't worry ma." I said to her... and as I negotiated the corner and finally hit the breaks at the last moment, the cable snapped. I lost control, and both my mother and I fell to the ground. We were slightly bruised.. but otherwise OK. She gave me a scolding, and for some reason, I still remember it till today.

Finally, I arrived at our street, and at our house. I had to pass it twice just to fully take it all in. Many of the neighbours were still the same, but everyone's house seemed a bit more lavish. The street was also a lot smaller than I remembered. The tree in front of the house I used to climb on while waiting for my father to come home was long gone. The house looked unchanged and untouched. The pink doors were still the same, the gate and the grill were not changed. Even the gold numbers '248' for the house number was still there, exactly the way I remembered it. Nothing much had changed. The house looked empty; no one was home. But the place was neat. The front porch look the same; Baxter used to be tied to the right corner.

My brother and I sat out here once for 2 hours one holiday waiting for my mother to come back. She didn't know we were coming at all.

I used to enjoy lying flat on the cement floor watching the stars and the moon above; I always wanted a telescope to watch the stars, but we could never afford one. But lying there at night was just as good.

One holiday, my mother stripped herself naked in tears, turned on the tap and started washing herself on this porch, as my father led my brother and I away. She had hoped my father would turn around and take her in. To her disappointment, he never did.

My brother was handcuffed and arrested on a Saturday morning when I was 12. My mother had made a police report that my brother physically assaulted her and hit her. All the neighbours watched as I followed my brother into the police truck. The police eventually let him go when they realized it wasn't true...I don't know if my brother has forgiven her for that.

This was it. More than this town, more than this neighbourhood, this house I called home was where it all happened. I dared not linger longer than a few moments. I didn't want the neighbours to notice me. I don't know how to explain the emotions that run through me as I looked at the house. I've never ever felt anything so complex. It's not that I don't know how I feel about this place anymore. Its that I don't know how to put in words exactly how I feel. Of nostalgia, of disbelief, of reminiscence, bitterness, pride, sorrow, sprinkled with moments of happiness, joy and contentment. It really has been a while since I last came here, and a long long while since I last felt completely helpless and in the mercy of others. Coming back here reminds me of being a child; when the world seemed so big and scary, and problems were always so big and complicated, and as the children, there was never ever anything we could do to help ourselves. We were always at the receiving end of whatever life fated us.

I drove off after the second passing, and headed straight back to KL... The past is the past, and I have today and tomorrow to live for. The traumas of yesterday were painful, but only God knows what tomorrow will bring; things may be better, or worse. Maybe I just felt the need to be reminded of my past, not mentally but emotionally. To recall the feelings and emotions that I went through. Going back and walking down memory lane evokes my emotions in a way nothing else can, feelings I had as a child; it reminds me of who I am, where I'm from, and keeps me grounded. If I could go through life like that as a child, I'm confident God will give me the strength to face whatever I will face in the future.