Okay, so I don't suppose you could call my trip to Malaysia terribly fun, because it wasn't. There were 9 aunties and uncles and their spouses which make 18 already, 20-plus cousins, another 10-plus kids of my cousins and yeah, it was one giant Lee Family Convention. It's Lee, not Cheng because my mom's side in Malaysia are Lee by name. I haven't met my cousins and relatives there in such a long time, that it was so damn difficult to mingle (and the fact that they all either spoke only chinese and/or cantonese with no english whatsoever, did NOT help at all). I'm considered pretty alright in my grasp of my dialect in Singapore, but with them, my proficiency in cantonese would get me as far as asking about their lives in their homes, and that's it.

Take it this way. The most fun I had in the entire trip was when I was playing and feeding the bunnies in the rabbit park somewhere on the hills of Genting. And the rabbit bit me. And I bled. And I thought I was going to get Rabies. Until I realised that Rabies (however close it sounds to Rabbits) came from dogs. Not rabbits. Then I rolled my eyes at myself.

No, but I guess I really did enjoy myself despite the painful language barrier and the tension and awkwardness of trying to talk to a cousin with whom you haven't spoken to in about 7 over years. It wasn't a FUN FUN FUN HAHAHAHAHAHAHA WHEEEEEEEEEEEE kind of enjoyment that I experienced, but more of a.. How shall I say this. More of satisfaction and just pure gladness in being able to see an incomplete family of about 40-plus people jammed into a 4-room apartment for a massive steamboat party dinner. The adults were mingling and catching up, the toddlers were running from room to room playing hide-and-seek and catch, and the teens just stood around attempting to converse with each other. It was lovely to see three generations of family jostling around for food and drink, and the cacophony of it all was just simply music to my ears. The love in the room was amazing, and you could feel everyone's sense of relief that this was yet another year with all the family still alive and in tact - which means alot, when you have aunties reaching 70 soon. It's quite alot to be thankful for if you think about it.

And that's when it hit me.

My joy and gladness faded into a grey-infused red sea of fear and worry and if possible, even apprehension. It turned out, that I was afraid. Afraid of losing this warmth and love. Afraid of losing my mother. Afraid of my heart breaking. Afraid of parting with a person so dear to me. Afraid of never being able to move on. Afraid of losing control to the laws of the universe. And in a way, I was afraid of forgetting, and I guess it's possible that I began to become afraid of remembering.

It's the entire paradox of life, all condensed into one four-room apartment on Genting View Resort, that it's:

Only when you love, can you lose;
Only when you remember, can you forget;
Only when you're happy, can you be sad;
Only when you live, can you die;
Only when you feel, can you be numb;
Only when you have it all, can you lose it all;
Only when you enjoy and savour, can you long and yearn.

We're all afraid of how things may turn out, and I guess, I'm so afraid of losing people like my mom, that I try so hard to block out everything about her. And like my family in Malaysia. I realised, that at the end of it all, the pain of losing is so worth it. Enjoying every last ounce of love this family could give each other would only make the pain of losing anyone of them so much more intense. But it's worth it because you will never ever find anything which will compare to such pure, unadulterated, beautiful things of the world.

Fear is what runs our lives. It makes our life better if you actually think about it. Like how we work so hard for fear of failing and starving and becoming miserable. So yes, fear helps and runs our lives. But fear should never be the end of the story. Of any story. Of your story. Of my story.

Be brave.