A mother is still a mother

Today I wondered, would Singaporeans give up their seats on the train if they see a heavily pregnant teenager? Or would they just judge her and punish her for her actions by letting her stand? Something silly to ponder about, as usual.

When I was young there were many kittens at the coffeeshop below, as well as the wet market when it wasn't a Shengsiong yet. I always caught one and brought it home, played with it for a day before sending it back at night.

This one day I saw some people gathering around a box, and I looked in to see a kitten which eyes and ears hadn't even opened yet. Me being an innocent kid who didn't know anything, I brought it home like I did with the other kittens.

I'm not sure why but I didn't bring it back that same night, and instead made it a bed out of a box and kept it overnight. It meowed the whole night, loudly and shrieking, and my mom told me to bring it back downstairs the next morning.

So what I remember happened is this: a cat had overturned all the beer cartons at the coffeeshop, frantically looking for the newborn I had brought home.

I recognised that particular cat as the garang one, as my little brother and I always called her, because not only was she sombong as heck but she was good at glaring and hissing at whoever came towards her. She was a million times more untouchable without her baby.

Something I read somewhere before; a cat can have different coloured kittens at once, because she can still get pregnant by other male cats when she already is. A litter of kittens have the same mother, but not always the same father.

Cats going through fires to save their offspring; lionesses fighting their partners, the very king of the jungle, to prevent them from eating their cubs; your own mother saying she's full even when she's not, to let you have the last bit of her food.

Tomorrow is my sister-in-law's first Mother's Day being a mom. Something happened along somewhere that made me envious of mother-daughters instead of couples, and I can't help thinking all the time what it'd be like to have a little girl I can call mine. I have found the perfect other half, I can't help thinking of having the perfect second me.

That's all I have to say about Mother's Day. It's not just about my own mother, but also my grandmother, and any woman who's had a life growing inside her womb.

A mother is a mother, whether it's a four-legged animal whose babies are from different fathers, or a young girl who mistakenly gave her body to someone she thought loved her.