Let Go, Mommy.

No one imagines that this is how life will turn out. We are born and then we grow up and then we die. Simple and yet it is a lifetime of magic, of miracles. It is a lifetime of happiness, of tears, of love. We meet people who will change ourselves for the rest of eternity and we know people who will always stay by us, no matter the cost. Always.

So somehow, I’d always believe you would always be there for me. I foolishly, naively believed that the day would come when I would wave goodbye to you as you started your new journey beyond this world and mine. I imagined myself strong and smiling.

But when the time came, I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

“Are you ready?”

I nod, pigtails bobbing up and down in excitement. All I can see is the road ahead stretching on with trees on either side. I can’t wait to fly.

So mommy tells me to hold on tight and start pedalling. Speed picks up and the wind blows ever so harder on my face. I scream and giggle, laughing as the sidewalk flies away underneath the bicycle. It’s a taste for what freedom feels like for a five year old.

I keep up my screams and giggles and look around to see Mommy running right alongside me, her hand secure on my seat and I grin my toothy smile. I take a deep breath.

“Let go, mommy. I can do this on my own.”

So she lets go.

It’s an exhilarating feeling of weightlessness and I already know then it’s the best feeling in the world. I speed down the street, a blur of motion around me, faster than a rocket, I imagine, and faster than any shooting star. But as I slow down to a gradual stop at the bottom of the slope, I look up and smile. Mommy’s still there waiting for me, like always. Waving and smiling.

It’s unconditional - the love between your mother and yourself. At five years of age, it is so clear that she’ll love you, just the way you are. The beauty that glows from within and the strength and stability provided is what your parents are and all that you need. In a way, it is the most pure feeling in the world because you are free and you are loved. It is a time of magic and it lasts forever in your memory.

I’m not afraid to fall, simply because I know they’ll be there for me. To help me up and to lead me on. And anything out of reach, brought down to you by gentle hands.

Wasn’t it beautiful, running wild til you fell asleep, before the monsters caught up to you?

“Mommy Mommy!” I clamber onto her bed where she slowly turns over, eyes blinking blearily at me. She begins to laugh and I giggle with her, not quite knowing what was funny.

“Come here.”

I pull the sheets away and flop next to her and grin up at her, a gap between my teeth. She smiles again before taking the wrinkled ends of my jacket, smoothing them out and buttoning them up. She runs her fingers through my hair, slowly undoing the knots and letting it float on my shoulders.

“Come on! Let’s go!” She smiles and climbs out of bed, letting me pull her into the kitchen. I sit for a while, bouncing up and down on my chair waiting for breakfast to be ready. It’s the first day of school, and nothing can be more exciting.

Her hand’s clutched tight in my own as I skip towards the school gates. All around us were other parents dropping their own kids off. All of a sudden, I feel incredibly small and lost. English language swirls around me and golden hair shining in the sunlight. I take a breath, determined not to be scared.

“Stephy? You okay?” I look up at her and she’s looking worriedly down at me. She kneels down until her face is level with mine. “You don’t have to be scared.”

I shake my head, my pigtails flying around tied by ribbons that Mommy had threaded through. “No. I’m ready.”

I see myself in her eyes, a happy, chubby little girl with dark hair and pale skin. Her eyes moisten and my reflection wavers.

“Oh, you’re all grown up now.” She smiles, albeit a little sadly and I see tears threaten to fall. Her fingers still hold onto my own small ones as she leans forward to kiss me on the forehead. The bell rings in the background but she continues to stare at me, unwilling to let go.

I smile at her, gently pulling my fingers away. “You can let go now Mommy.”

She lets me draw my fingers away and stands up straight again waving as I run to the school gates where the teacher stood.

I wave back and turn away.

To grow up, you have to fall. And you have to learn to pick yourself up again. No matter how scary or how much it hurts, from it, you learn something more. You live a little more.

But you drift a little more from your parent’s love. Mistakenly thinking you don’t need them. Mistakenly think you’re ready to take on the world. You forget all the things your mum has done for you, all that she still does. You lose sight of what’s important because the more you see of the world, the more clouded your mind becomes. The pure feelings of childhood fade away and in the end, we all change for the worse. At least, until we begin to realise once again, all we need is love.

“You quit choir?”

“Yeah, so what.”

I grab a muffin from the kitchen table, hoisting my school bag onto my shoulder before turning around to face her. At a glance, I realised my yearly report was in her hands, a little crinkled from her squeezing, and a sense of dread filled me. How the hell did she find that?

“Stephanie Hwang. How - why didn’t I see this earlier?”

I shrugged in fake ignorance. ‘You didn’t need to know.”

“You’ve failed almost all your classes. Quit choir. Quit everything! I didn’t need to know?!”

I wince and roll my eyes. Another lecture was coming and frankly, I didn’t have time for this. I just wasn’t bothered.

“Whatever.”

“Don’t ‘whatever’ me! Tell me what’s wrong? Did you think I raised you to become this sort of person?! Who just walks life and doesn’t care about anything?!”

I could feel anger bubbling inside me; hot and cold and ready to burst. “I do care, okay! Just leave me alone!” I could see the anger reflected on her face, and a sort of sadness too. I sigh.

“Mum, just - just let it go okay?”

And with that, I slam the door on the way out.


One of my biggest fears is not being good enough. I am never good enough. Not in class, not in choir, not at home. With two older siblings, anything I did was overshone. I’m too scared to try, in case I fail. I hated it.

But there is a boy. Fourteen years old with eyes that could see straight into my soul. The way he looks at me made everything disappear. Suddenly I wasn’t the girl failing in class overshone by her siblings but I’m Stephanie Hwang and I’m special.

He is the only thing I count on at school, the only thing that gets me through the day. Because every time we speak to each other, it’s like there’s something beneath his easy going nature and somehow, I believe we fit together - two different people yet so similar.

I hate fighting with my mum, as every time it makes me feel a little worse inside. Every time, it’s like a little piece of me is torn away. I can feel it, but I can never stop the harsh words from spilling out of my mouth. Somehow, I’ve forgotten that I’m special to her. Truly special.

It only hits me when the day’s over and I’m reluctant to go back home. I seek him out - Brandon, the boy with soulful eyes and the mischievous smile. Being around him makes me feel special and loved so I’m about to call out to him across the school field before I notice him walking towards someone. It’s a girl, someone I vaguely remembered from my pe class. But even from this distance, I could see him looking at her, the way I thought was reserved for me. I could see his cheeky grin as he stared at her, in a way that I knew would make the girl feel special. I think somewhere between the jokes, laughs and teasing, I had unknowingly fallen for a guy who was never interested in me.

I heard somewhere, first loves are meant to hurt the most so we remember them forever. But at this moment, all I wanted was the comfort of my mother. I race home, tears threatening the whole way before I wrench open the door and leaping into my mother’s embrace.

She’s confused but she still combs her fingers through my hair, soothingly unknotting my hair. It’s a small gesture but it’s all I need.

“I’m sorry.”

A small sigh escapes her. “I know.”

Life’s too short to dwell on the past. Look to the future, and above all cherish those you love. Because sometimes you never realise how precious something is before it’s too late. By then it’s too late for regret.

You just have to hope each unspoken word was expressed and felt.

“You’re lying.”

My brother shakes his head slowly, his eyes searching my face carefully. “You’re lying!” But I could tell from his face that this isn’t some sick joke. My thoughts fly crazily around, desperately trying to connect the dots. The pale pallor, the medicine in the bathroom cabinet, and just earlier, the collapse.

It can’t be. There was no way.

“Steph...Mum has pancreatic cancer.”

“I know! I heard you the first time!” But still, a piece of me keeps holding onto a falsehood. Because I don’t know what to do anymore. She can’t just leave. And so I keep repeating to myself that this is a lie. It is a lie because if it isn’t, my life will fall apart at the seams.

I hardly notice when my brother gently leads me to the car and starts driving. I notice faintly that it’s the route to the hospital. But it can’t be true. So then why am I tearing up? Why do I feel as if the world’s stop spinning below me? It can’t be true.

Each breath takes immense power and still, they are shaky and fast and scared. The car hasn’t even stopped before I open the door and run towards the white, pristine building. The automatic doors open and the smell of antiseptic envelopes me.

I quickly slip into the nearest elevator and push for level 8 - the oncology ward. Each second that passes is a lifetime and by the time the elevator stops, I’m a million years old but still just as helpless.

Room 812, my brother had said. My eyes scan each room frantically, trying to escape the curious glances of people hooked to IV drips, some that look like death has already touched them and some that eye me sadly, almost as if knowing the outcome of my visit.

Turning the hallway and the first room is 812. There’s a window and through it, I can see a nurse and someone else on the bed. I’m not ready for this.

My back hits the opposite wall and I slowly slide down. Gasps fill the eerily quiet space and my fingers clench into a fist before I notice the letter in my hand - the acceptance from SME Starlight Casting. I turn back to the door that faces me.

Everything I remember, from my earliest memory of me riding a bike with my mother to now, flashes before me and I’m overcome by the greatest sense of helplessness and fear that I feel so weak, it takes all I have not to lose consciousness.

The door opens before me and the nurse comes out. Upon seeing me sprawled on the floor, she looks away for a moment, composing herself. She then sits next to me on the cold unrelenting floor.

“How long?”

Her voice is soothing, calm but it doesn’t lessen the pain. “These things can’t be certain. But, your mother is in a critical stage.”

Critical stage. It’s all that echoes in my mind.

“You should know, when your mother found out it was too late, she asked to lessen the medication. So that she could be with you, truly be with you.” She pauses before adding, “you know she’s only holding on for you.”

It didn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. It didn’t have to though, because it was all happening and I can do nothing to stop it.

I very slowly get to my feet, take a deep breath and walk into the room. She’s there, waiting.

It’s cold in the room, the white walls demeaning and heartless. She stares at me, her face pale but eyes still the same.

“Why, mum? Why didn’t you tell me?” She closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens to speak, her voice is so soft, so weak that it breaks my heart to see her try to hard.

“I wanted you to succeed in your audition. I didn’t want you to worry.” It’s the most pathetic excuse. She still tries to make this about me, make me special when it’s not. Not anymore.

“Well that didn’t work did it?!”

She looks silently at me, her eyes full of sorrow and apologies. It’s so quiet in the room that I could hear the drip from the line she’s connected to. The severity of the situation hits me so hard in that moment that all the willpower in the world couldn’t stop me from letting out a whimper and a veil of tears obscures and distorts the room.

I would give anything to have my fantasy land built up again because I couldn’t handle reality.

“I love you, mommy.” The sentence gives out in a whisper but she still tries to give the faintest of her smiles, the same old smile. I stumble over to her bed and clamber in.

“I love you mommy.” I hold onto her tightly, trying to escape back into the comfort of her arms but somehow, this time, it doesn’t quite work.

“Let go, Stephy. You can do this on your own now.”

I love you.

No one imagines that this is how life will turn out. We are born and then we grow up and then we die. Simple and yet it is a lifetime of magic, of miracles. It is a lifetime of happiness, of tears, of love. We meet people who will change ourselves for the rest of eternity and we know people who will always stay by us, no matter the cost. Always.

So somehow, I’d always believe you would always be there for me. I foolishly, naively believed that the day would come when I would wave goodbye to you as you started your new journey beyond this world and mine. I imagined myself strong and smiling.

But when the time came, I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

But I’ll try to be strong. For you, and for me.