NS10

Come anytime, we're family now, she said. I've never seen her without a smile. Always so warm and welcome, like the dim lights of a home. A stark contrast to my own mother, honestly, who is fierce and never true.

But admidst all their differences they have one thing in common: they are both your grandmother.

I can only imagine what their initial reactions were when they first knew about you. Nobody knew until your mother allowed your existence to seep through and out into the world. She didn't care what anyone else thought and just loved you for you, even though you weren't supposed to be.

When we first met I kept seeing you every day after school. But I didn't hold you, even after a lot of coaxing from both your grandmothers. How was something so small like a newborn so fucking scary?

You went home to the north, where your mother grew up in. So far from all of us, but we never hesitated to take a taxi down just to see you. It was also where I finally gathered the courage to carry you, finally relented and allowed my mother to place you in my arms.

Soon after I fell in love with you. Maybe I already did, but it was only after I carried you just fine that I dared admit it. We pushed you in a pram all the way to the MRT station, where I exclaimed to your mother, Oh, this is her first train ride! 

But it wasn't. She said it was your second, the first one being the time she took you to the polyclinic two stations before. That's also where you are having school now, in a mosque so close to another state's straits.

When I first knew you, I didn't want to believe it. I saw you and fell in love, then I held you and wanted to give you every good thing that I had. Maybe you won't grow up with me after all, but with your mother in Admiralty. This is my second letter to you, with many more to come.