Visitors

When my mother suffered from a life threatening infection four years ago, she was admitted to the hospital. I was worried sick and would spend everyday after school in the ward taking care of her. One night, I came in after finishing my project in school. Although it was past visiting hours, I wanted to check on my mother before I went home. My boyfriend had decided to come along too. When I entered her room, she was still awake. Three other ladies, whom I had never met, were sitting around her bed.

'Hi, Ling. Meet your aunts from Malaysia. Come and say hi,' my mother said to me cheerfully. I had never remembered her being so happy. I greeted each aunt politely. 'Waah, little Ling is such a big girl now,' one of my aunts said. 'She is also a very pretty girl.' 'Ling, do you have a boyfriend?' Another asked me. 'Yes, actually he is parking his car now.' I replied. 'Yeah, you should meet her boyfriend. He's a nice guy,' mu mother joined in. I sat down and listened to their conversation. It was clear that they had not seen each other for a very long time, and my mother was filling them in on all the gossips about my other relatives. My boyfriend came in shortly after he parked his car. He came into the room, looked around casually. 'I'm going to get some coffee,' he said. He turned and walked out without greeting my mother and my aunts. I was appalled by his rudeness. I smiled apologetically at my mother and my aunts. They did not seem to mind, smiling at me warmly as I left the room. I confronted him at the coffee machine.

'That was very rude of you earlier. You know that?' 'Rude? What did I do?' 'You saw my aunts talking to my mother in the room, and you did not greet them. You did not even bother to look at them.' 'Them? What them? I only saw your mother.' 'And you did not greet her at all! How could you be so... so... inconsiderate?' I was furious. 'She was sleeping. I did not want to wake her up.' 'She's not sleeping. She was talking to my aunts when I went into the room.' My boyfriend was looking at me queerly. 'What are the two of you doing here? Don't you know that it was past visiting hours? Can you talk softly? The patients need to rest,' a stern voice cut in. We looked around, and saw a nurse behind us.

'Sorry, anyway, Miss, did you know if anyone had visited the patient in Room 13?' My boyfriend checked with the nurse. 'Room 13? No one. Anyway, the patient is under heavy sedatives for tonight. She should be resting.' The nurse looked puzzled. I looked at my boyfriend and the nurse in disbelief. Quickly, I ran back to my mother's room. The seats around the bed were empty. My aunts were not there. My mother was deeply asleep on her bed. The nurse and my boyfriend came along soon. The nurse gave my mother a check. 'Your mother's resting fine. Her condition is improving.' Soon after, my mother was well enough to discharged from hospital. For the next few months, she stayed at home resting. One day, I remembered about the aunts incident and asked her about it. 'Mummy, do we have any relatives in Malaysia?'

'Yes, we used to have. I had three sisters living in Malaysia. However, they were killed during the Japanese occupation. It's strange you mentioned this.' Her gazed turned wistful. 'When I was in hospital, I dreamt that they visited me and we all had a good time catching up with each other.'