(17) Humour

"In every cloud there is a silver lining". One of Mum's favourite sayings.

In Mum's cancer diagnosis of course there have been many positive outcomes
- She had her family who were strewn hither and yon, all return to be with her.

- Mya has settled very well into life here and is a tousand times better in behaviour, and happier all round.

- Mya tells me every few days that she wants to stay in Australia and not go back to Singapore. (Hmm not sure if that's positive or a potential problem - let's see.

You may have heard the story of the pet fish, but for sake of this slightly lengthy story I'll repeat it because it gives the backdrop of how Mya has been brought up to think about life an death.

"Mya on life - reincarnation and the practicalities of life."

We bought a new aquarium, and I was concerned that I didn’t know how to look after either the aquarium OR the fish.,- concerned because Mya might react badly if any of the fish (her first pets) died.

So I thought this was a good opportunity to reinforce the Buddhist belief in reincarnation into other forms
of life – after death. “So if the fish died”, I explained to her, "There’s no need to be sad, their soul will go off into another life and their body will remain here - limp. They may become fish again, or they may become humans or some other animal”.

We had bought 2 gold fish, two black fish and a sucker, each being given a name- weird ones like Shi-shi, Jon-Jon,
,Wei-Wei etc (we’ve been in Asia too long – don’t you think). Shi-shi of the gold fish had orange on it’s lips – so it was also named “lipstick” (his Anglicised name ha ha hah). It was Mya’s favourite. We were going well until day 7. I got up in the morning and here was Lipstick, belly up – stone dead.

Oh dear I thought. I now have to tell Mya her favourite fish is dead. So underplaying the death side, I said, “Look Lipstick has gone on to another life.” Worrying how she is going to take it, I didn’t have to wait 2 seconds to hear…. “MUM CAN WE FRY IT NOW?”

So Mya clearly has a sense of eternal life of the spirit.


She said to me the other day “ Mum I love Australia. When do we have to go back to Singapore.?"
I answered.... "When Yaya dies darling"

"Yippee!!!! That means we're never have to go back."

Mum thought it was hysterical.

Oh well, if nothing else, at least, I'm sure now that she understands the concept of death, reincarnation and after life.