One family’s attempt at a pandemic-induced birthday call

Yesterday was my Mom’s birthday. She turned 61! I could say the usual things in an Instagram post like she looks great (which she really does I think my mom takes better care of herself than I do…), I couldn’t have done half the things I did without her, I respect her and how she raised me and my siblings on her own, but I’ve always been a little more comfortable with prose.

I’m far from her at the moment, the pandemic did a good job of keeping us all apart this year. Of course, we still got on a video call and my sister suggested we go around and share our favorite thing about her.

Family is a difficult thing. It can bring out the best in you, it can bring out the worst in you and there’s no warning either way. When we got on the call, I was struggling to explain Zoom to my mom. She was supposed to have one of my cousins help her download the application on her phone but she forgot.

My Mom is exceptionally forgetful. One time when I was little, she subconsciously put like three tablespoonfuls of sambal (spicy chill paste) onto my brother’s plate of Nasi Lemak (Malay dish, google it!) Seconds later, my brother was complaining about how spicy it was (obviously… you’re not supposed to put that much sauce on a 10-year-old’s rice). My mom starts yelling at me: Zulaika! Why would you put that much sambal on his rice? Both my brother and I stared at her because we both very clearly saw her put the sauce on his plate. To this day, I don’t think she fully believes it was her.

Usually, me attempting to be tech support to my mom would result in disaster but this time it was actually kind of a funny experience. We were laughing and talking pretty calmly. It didn’t matter that we didn’t make it onto Zoom, we let it go. Even though technology never seems to be in our favor, we all learnt to laugh at ourselves.

It was good to see her so happy. We all complimented her on her hair (Malaysia recently reopened hair salons). And we got to reminisce about some of our fondest memories.

My younger brother, Ismail said that his favorite thing about my Mom was her attention to detail, which resounded in snickers and smirks from everyone. “When I do something, I take a step back and look at it. What would Mom think? Would she be proud?” We joke that she never would and Ismail agreed because he isn’t always the neatest but commended his attempts, especially this summer where he went from never setting foot in the kitchen to making butter chicken from scratch.

My older sister, Atikah said her favorite thing was that my Mom never let anyone spoil our fun. As a single parent, my Mom never let the fact that she was outnumbered by kids get her down. She took us on little trips, ran around Disneyland with us, and created fun for her kids. She taught us to engineer our own entertainment and that’s something we all carry with us to this day.

Andrew, my brother-in-law said his favorite thing about my Mom was how she invites people into the family so warmly. The way she accepted him paved the way for our family to grow in a really beautiful way. If she hadn’t, we would have gotten close and I wouldn’t have an older brother. It was an amazing lesson for a 12-year-old — family isn’t just blood.

Then it was my turn. My Mom and I haven’t always had the best communication. We are very different people and that led to our fair share of fights and tears. But while we may not be best friends, my Mom gave me a pretty great life. She provided me with everything I needed to succeed and as you’ve read, taught us a lot of good life lessons. My favorite of which was how to be a team. We didn’t have an easy life but we got through it because as she reminded us essentially every day, “all we have is each other.”

When Ismail was pretty young he had a troublemaker best friend. My Mom felt he didn’t care about school and was maybe a bad influence on him (we’ll call him Milton). So, this one day, I had to get a shot at the hospital and was released from school early. We get into the car, in the hospital parking lot,

Mom turns to look at me: Zulaika, what are we going to do about Milton? Me: … we? What are we going to do?

She spent the next 15 minutes detailing all the concerns she had and I listened, took notes, and we concluded that she couldn’t really control who Ismail was going to be friends with because that’s unfair and he would never listen. It was a completely ridiculous conversation to have with your kid, but it was normal for us because in being a family, we were a team.

I know this is a fairly polished story and it seems all is rosy and perfect, but of course, it isn’t always like that for us. It isn’t like that for anyone. But these moments of happy reflection are worth holding on to. Happy Birthday, Mom!