Mother's Day Special.

Dear Mommy

Maybe I should call you different but I grew up imagining calling you Mommy because that's what everyone calls their mom. Grandma never talked all that much about you. I asked Aunt a few times but she didn't tell me nothing so I stopped asking since.

I am old enough to understand things. You gotta know I am not angry with you. Don't even know why I should be angry with you anyway. I never saw you. And you never knew me. So we are about equal.

I called Aunt mommy all my life until one day someone told me she wasn't my mommy but I kept calling her mommy because she was all I got and she took care of me real good. She taught me men don't cry. And I've made myself real strong never to cry for anything. People at school can beat me up good but you can ask my friends and they'll tell you I don't cry easy.

I looked after Grandma and Aunt and Cousin real good. Maybe you don't know but they are all gone now. And the house I grew up in Dungun is empty now. Don't know what to do with it. Maybe I go live there in my old age, and I won't bother no one. You are welcome to go there and you can have it if you want. I can give it to you and Daddy. I never met him either. Grandma told me he was a naval officer. Is that right? He must be a good looking guy in a uniform. Aunt say don't you never join no army and so I said, yes Mommy.

I wrote a lot of letters to you. But I never knew where to post them. I kept them in a shoe box until Aunt found out about it one day. She read every one of them. At night she came to my bed to hug me. She cried. I don't know why because I had done crying. I felt her tears in the back of my pyjama. In the morning I found her next to me holding me as if I was an infant. But I was no infant I was already in primary school.

Really, maybe it's because I live alone now that I think about you. And maybe because Mother's Day is coming. It doesn't mean anything to me but this year I think it does mean something to me. Maybe not in the real way a real family celebrate it but I reckon it is nice to celebrate something for someone so special like a mommy.

I thought I'd get something for you but I don't know where you are. Or how to get it to you. Anyway, I just like to wish you Happy Mother's Day since everyone in the world is wishing their mother the same thing. I ain't got one but that doesn't mean I can't wish the same thing to you, right? I can't wish Aunt the same thing now that I know she wasn't my real mother although in very sense of the word, she is to me. And she still is. I hope you don't mind about this.

Happy Mother's Day, Mommy, wherever you are. Or whoever you are.

Your son.

p.s Grandma, Aunt and Cousin raised me good. I thought you'd be proud of me and I really think you should thank them. They are gone but that doesn't mean you can't thank them, right?