Dedicating this post to the most important person of my life

WARNING: This post will be full of words and no pictures. Every bit of this post is purely what I feel and from the bottom of my heart. If you have no interest in reading endless words, please do not bother to read the whole post. Thank you!

The most important person in my life... if you think its some guy that im madly in love with, then you are wrong. This person have sacrificed her whole life for me and had nvr once expect anything back from me. She loves me more than anyone else and im her aim in life. That person is none other than my mom.

Being brought up in a standard asian family, I was never taught to show love or appreciation. But somehow after being thrown into a foreign land, I see the importance to treasure every second and enjoy every minute you have with your loved ones. I took my mom for granted in the past, everything she had done for me is seen as a responsibility as a mother. However when im here all alone I start to realise how important she is to me.

My mom is very strict with me when I was young. Being a teacher in the same school, she had high expectation for my grades. I had tution from 9am all the way to 7pm on saturdays and im only allowed to play after I finish my homework and some other schools' exam paper. It was a total nightmare to me and I was very afraid of her. I felt like I was being forced to do things her way and it was all because of her reputation. I was wrong... everything she forced me through is for my own good. Now that there is no one here to push me to work hard, I always study at the very last minute before exams and the results were usually not very pleasing. She has been trying to teach me a valuable lesson since young.

I used to be a very sickly child... constantly having asthma attacks, going in and out of the hospital. Worried of me, my mom slept with me in the same room... I slept on the bed and she slept on the floor. She will wake up every hour to make sure that im ok... and like that she took care of me till I entered secondary school.

When I grew older, my mom stopped scolding me and instead she would sit down and start a conversation with me. "You are old enough to think", she will usually tell me. We will discuss our problems together... she will tell me how stress her work is and I will tell her how much I hate writing lab reports.

After I graduated from poly, I went to SIM to study business because I dislike wearing long pants and covered shoes for the rest of my life (andbecauseIcannotentersciencestreaminalocalunihaha). But after studying for 1 year, I decided that I have no interest in business at all... I went to quit school myself without consulting anyone... I went home that day feeling worried and scared... quiting school is a big thing for me cuz i have never done anything like this in my whole life... and when i cracked the news to my mom i expected her to blow up... but she did not. She replied me in a very calm voice, asking me what plans I have for my future. This scene have be playing in my mind repeatedly and I always wondered why she wasnt angry with me, afterall she is the first person who wanted to see me graduate from a uni... Then finally I understood. She believed in me and never once doubted my decisions, from the time I choose to study poly instead of JC... she have always been supporting me.

I remembered the time when my mom was going to fly back to sg and I sent her off at the airport. She held onto my hand tightly and was trying very hard not to shed a tear. Before entering the gates, she took off her jacket and gave it to me. It was winter then. And she said, "you need it more than me"... and she went in without any outerwear... I held on to that jacket and cried 3 days straight after she left...

My mom has loved me in anyway she can... making a point to skype with me daily although she is very exhausted after work... she is one of my biggest inspiration in life and if i ever have my own kids, I would want to be a mom like her...

Happy Birthday Mom! Its kind of sad that I cannot spend this important day with you, but i love you and miss you very badly... Thank you for what u have done for me, and I hope to do the same for you after I graduate...

Lots of love,
Jia