A favourite Stream. Photo by Doris Lim
Still boys will be boys. One day, those two went missing the entire afternoon.
My mother and my aunts could not locate them. They just vanish into thin air. My mother was so worried that she cried. My aunts wailed and frightened each other with endless horror stories. My sisters and I were very quiet. I was clinging to my mother. At three, there was not much that I could understand except that something bad happened. I barely doze off to sleep when the commotion woke me up.
There they were standing at the front door, totally drenched from head to toe. My mother screams and hugs and kisses them all at the same time berating loudly. Eldest aunt went to smell their clothes, squeeze a little of the water out and tasted it. “It’s sea water!” she exclaims.
“What?” Mother was perplex, shock,” what do you mean sea water” the closest body of water was our “river” and it was more of a muddy creek than flowing stream.
The boys refused to answer even with repeated beatings. Mother and aunts exhausted their wits, how could these two who were seven and six have gone to the sea? Second Aunt, remembered, seeing a white van several times the last week or so. It had an emblem of sorts in blue on the door. Something simple and easy to remember, now what was it?
Second Aunt yelps and yells. “Oh no, it’s those Christians, they came and took the boys to be baptised at sea, like Jesus.”
My mother nearly fainted.
Her two boys are her two ceremonial bearers for Taoist burial rites and now this has happen.
She could hide this fact from Father but she also knew she could not erase the marking that was etched on their hearts and soul.
Doris Lim is a popular freelance writer who blogs as Little Fish on travel and food stories here. Be sure to check out her other inspiring
stories and follow her Instagram @SmartDoryID & Facebook to check out more places to eat
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