I’m sure half of you is having a mini panic attack just by reading the title of this post. Death is something so difficult to talk about, and I DID NOT choose to talk about it with Monday. He wanted me to read one of the Fairytales in Chinese that I bought for him in attempt to 1. teach him mandarin / chinese, 2. improve my mandarin reading skills (loll not going well since all I do is read the pinyin ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° ) 

If you don’t know this classic tale, it’s basically about a girl who sell matches in the winter and couldn’t sell any and couldn’t go home. She decided to sit in the cold and lit all her matches while fantasizing about warmth, food and lastly love from her late grandmother. She obviously died; and that was it. WHAT A FUTILE AND SAD STORY. Seriously some of Hans Anderson’s stories are just painfully pointless. I honestly don’t know what the moral of the story is. To not sell matchsticks?

When I told Monday that she saw her grandmother and lit all her matches so she could hug her grandmother, and then died — Monday’s face went flat white.

“She die?”

Me: Yea..

Monday: Awh that’s so sad. I don’t want her to die. Why she die?

Death is probably one of my hardest topic to talk about. I actually had panic attacks when I think about death during bed time when I was about 5 or 6 years old. Eventually I became somewhat of a badly behaved child when I was 10 (lashing out in classes. Screaming like a t-rex, beating up my peers in extreme anger, throwing chairs and desks, vandalisim…— HAHA, yes I know hard to believe right? How did someone so small be so explosive?? ｡ﾟ( ﾟஇ▽இﾟ)ﾟ｡ I’m not proud of it and am ashamed everytime my primary school friends bring it up. Of course, they didn’t know what I was going through so to them I’m just a bad character ಥ‿ಥ). I remember being called into the counselling office by my teacher Ms Gan, and she asked me if anything was wrong at home. Well… EVERYTHING was wrong at home. I think my mom had an undiagnosed postnatal depression, my father was going horrible financial issues almost equivalent to a bankruptcy, my relatives think it’s funny to tell me that I will now be abandoned because my parents now have my baby sister and I am just some garbage, so I ended up unable to have a relationship with my sister and eventually locked myself in my room from my parents.

During the counselling session, the only thing I could talk about was “I’m acting like this, so that when my mom dies, I won’t be sad about it”. I remember the puzzled look of my teacher’s face. I remember she asking me why do I think that way. “Because if I’m a bad person, I won’t care and I won’t be sad”. Now thinking about what I said then really ache my heart a little. How naïve of me to think that I can just turn cold blooded if I become an asshole ¯\_༼ ಥ ‿ ಥ ༽_/¯. I guess I wasn’t that smart as a child… The counselling session however really made a world difference to me because I literally had NOBODY to talk about the issues and conflicts I had in me. I’m so glad the teacher spotted that I was crazy. I still get panic attacks in the middle of the night thinking about death afterwards though. It felt like my heart sunk into the endless darkness which then swallows me whole. The uncertainty of whether afterlife exists, of whether I would ever meet my mom again (I really love my mom as a child lol… she was the world to me despite us quarrelling all the time). Because in our culture we believe in reincarnation, I was so afraid of forgetting my mom and having a new mom next life. (>_<) All these big emotions still tears me up, imagine what it was like for a 10 year old me. I really, really was going through a difficult time.

But what…what should I say to Monday who is asking me about death? Who is frowning at the picture of the little match girl’s corpse. SERIOUSLY, WHO MADE THIS A CHILDREN’S FAIRYTALE. First of all there’s nothing child-like about this story beside the age of the girl. Second of all, clearly this isn’t a fairytale or she would have married a prince or went on an adventure with a frog or something. -____________________-!!!!!

“Well you see, on this page, you see the grandma? The grandma died long ago, but the grandma came to take the girl with her so they can go heaven.”

“And die?” he asked again.

I took a deep breath. “Yeah”. There’s no point lying about it.

“But that’s sad”.

“But if you see, the girl is happy. She’s now happy with her grandma. Dying doesn’t always have to be sad. We should be happy for her, because she’s now with her beloved grandma”.

“But I don’t want her to die”

This is when I realised that I need to talk to Monday about death, and not just brush it off like my parents did. “You know popo (grandma)?” I asked. He nodded quickly. “Well, mommy got a popo too. And mommy’s popo died too”.

“But my popo is at the house?” He asked, as if not sure.

“Yes, your popo is at the house. But my popo died long time ago.”

“Why your popo die?”

“Mommy’s popo is really old. She’s so old and she was sick and in a lot of pain. So she died and the Angels took her to heaven in the sky.  Now she’s no more in pain and she’s happy.”

“But why she sick she no take medicine? And doctor can see her too”. Gosh I know, this boy is really smart sometimes.

“Well because my popo is too old then. The doctor cannot help her. But it’s really okay you know. Because she’s now happy. The Angels took her and she’s living in the star up in the sky. Do you want to see my popo next time?”. He nodded. He closed his story book and then said;

“But my popo is at home”, he said, as if looking for reaffirmation that my mom is not dead.

“Yes, but everyone including popo will grow old too. That’s why we need to love popo, ah ma and gongong while we can okay?”

“Okay. I will love everybody and I will see your popo in the star”.

I told him it was time for bed and asked Alexa to turn off his lights. He insisted for me to lie with him while he fall asleep, something I rarely done as since I was pregnant with Lil’ Tuesday, I have been asking Mojujuju to put Mr. Monday to bed. Honestly, I do think that I haven’t been paying a lot attention to him since Tuesday is born.

“Hey Monday, you know what?”

“What?” he asked with his head half wrapped in his duvet.

“I love you”

He smiled and shuffled a little underneath the duvet. “You know what?” he asked.

“What?” I asked him back.

“I love you too,” he smiled. I could feel just how genuine his words was.

“You know what?” he asked again.

“Hmm? What?”

“I want to kiss you,” he said softly and then gave me a peck on my lips while I was stunned as it isn’t something he normally say and do.

“Thank you. You’re my best boy.”

“You are the best mom.”