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Partridge Publishing Singapore - Anne Siew Kim Lim

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60 pages

English

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At the tender age of seven, the author suffered the loss of her beloved mother. Growing up then brought the instability of constant change and a heart often in turmoil.
Looking back with an ‘understanding of the heart,’ Anne Lim’s memoir traces a path leading to forgiveness. The reader is given intimate, intense glimpses – of a life formed by the survival of trauma.
Yet, through the darkness, a light continues to shine, fierce and strong. The author’s cameo recollections of her youth in Singapore of the 1960s and ’70s are also told with humour and glimmers of joy.
“You lose your mother at a young age. Your father subsequently fails as a parent. How can you then transcend the pain and find meaning in all that has passed?
Poignant and honest, Anne Lim’s memoir moves the soul. As you read this evocative text, fresh dimensions will unfold before your eyes and you will be transported to realms of deep understanding.”
~ Verena Tay, writer and storyteller
“This work demonstrates the healthful and life-giving power of artistic creation, in particular, the power of the word. …
The search for a personal truth based on but going beyond objective truth, drives this narrative. “
~ Anne Lee Tzu Pheng
Recipient of the Singapore Cultural Medallion, 1985

Sujets

Personal Memoirs

Biography

Autobiography

Informations

Publié par	Partridge Publishing Singapore
Date de parution	01 décembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781543772227
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

SEVEN

a memoir of loss and love

Anne Siew Kim Lim

Copyright © 2022 by Anne Siew Kim Lim.

ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-5437-7223-4

Softcover
978-1-5437-7221-0

eBook
978-1-5437-7222-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Original illustrations by Anne Siew Kim Lim
Cover image: mandala drawing by Anne Siew Kim Lim
Back cover image: from a weaving by Anne Siew Kim Lim

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

But now, you have turned
my mourning into rejoicing,
you have taken off my
sackcloth and wrapped me
in the garments of gladness.
Psalm 30:12
In Memoriam
Beloved mother
Magdalene Tan Wee Neo
1920 – 1959

Dedication
To my siblings
and their young ones
especially to Emma,
Brie, Edith and Lily
Also to my six Godchildren
Philip, Jocelyn, Hannah, Sarah Anne,
Maryanne and Madeleine
From this Elder
pieces of a puzzle
though unsolvable
a ray of light
my offering
Know that
We are One
for in our heart
is the cave
where love is
where God is

The light shines in the darkness
and the darkness did not overcome it.
John1:5
Contents
Foreword
Author’s notes

I .
Into the abyss
II .
Before Seven
III .
The Loss of Our Mother
IV .
Days of Great Change
V .
The Back House
VI .
Stepmother
VII .
Abandoned
VIII .
Father
IX .
Understanding with the heart
X .
Strands

Epilogue
Addendum
Glossary
A Big Thank You
About the author

Foreword
T he truth will set you free. This universally acknowledged dictum is easier to state than to achieve. It presupposes more than recognising an objective truth or the undisputed facts of a matter. To be ‘set free’ links fact with something that keeps one in bondage, from which one needs to be freed. This memoir sets out to do exactly this. The author, Anne Lim, has undertaken a life-changing task of exploring the palpable facts of a traumatic event of her childhood and its consequences in her life up to the time of her writing the memoir.
It has long been understood, and with proof, that the impact of people, environment and circumstances on one’s earliest years, has an incalculable shaping force on personality, life and ultimately personal fortunes in health of mind and relationships. The more grievous and challenging, then, is the early, untimely loss of a parent, especially in unnatural and unexpected circumstances. Such an event in Anne’s life, shrouded as it was in media distortion, unwanted public speculation and in some degree, familial denial, was disastrous for the young child of seven who barely understood the enormity of the loss itself, and when all of domestic life as she knew it was thrown askew. Such is the broken and treacherous ground on which Anne’s foray back in time takes place. Yet it must be said, it is hardly a purposeful search; the task at hand is uppermost, a belated and now unavoidable attempt to discern what was involved in surviving the reality of living and growing up with the demons her mother’s horrific passing unleashed.
Far from indulging in breast-beating lament for years of suffering, this book is a very fine example for anyone wondering how to get over – or should we say, get through – serious personal misfortune, to arrive at health and peace of mind. The lesson here is more than the obvious and humanly urgent one of understanding how to make a life of beauty and gratitude from ugliness, pain and humiliation. This work demonstrates the healthful and life-giving power of artistic creation, in particular, the power of the word.
Who knows how long it takes for one to be able and ready to undertake the painful journey back to first causes; to overcome misgivings about narrating events that involve people still alive who were also impacted by the family tragedy that was the focus of the recounting? Imponderables aside, the very need to survive may clear the way willy-nilly, and the benefits of looking truth square in the face may set more than just the author free.
The search for a personal truth based on but going beyond objective truth, drives this narrative. The re-creation of the dynamics of a large family growing up Peranakan in Singapore in the 1950s is achieved with extraordinary power of recall. Entirely credible portraits of people and places combine a searing honesty with unrelenting self-scrutiny as to where and how the narrator fitted, or did not fit, in. The keen observation of human motives is so well placed we do not feel it is anything but a determined attempt at accurate recall and perceptive insight. Understandably this way of delineating people and experience can better approach the truth of a time now very distant but recognised for its still significant impact.
Not only does the unflinching gaze at the past with all its shadowy ghosts give Seven its rite of passage into hitherto, for Anne, precarious ground to be stoutly avoided, venturing into it with a vulnerable but open heart could very well bring just the kind of light that could change that landscape completely and allay all restlessness of the spirit. It matters little whether the life examined be thought luminous or dull, the ability to recreate it using the resources of language ratifies its value in the way that only art can. By art, we do not mean artifice. It means marshalling the resources of a medium directly traceable to the Creator himself in whose image we are made. This kind of memoir, especially, which is in effect an attempt at survival, calls up the creativity that is in all human beings. We may as individuals use it to arrive at our own sense of who we are as authentic beings. Be it in writing, music, art, carpentry, cooking, sports, or any manner of using a skill that gives us joy, it is a way to respond and thrive, despite tragedy and circumstances which may have kept us locked up in the prisons of our trauma from earliest days.
Anne Lee Tzu Pheng
Recipient of the Singapore Cultural Medallion, 1985

Author’s notes
W hy write a memoir when I am not famous?
Who would care to know about how I survived my childhood trauma of losing my mother at the age of seven? Who would want to know how I sought to understand ‘with the heart’ those ‘significant others’ upon whom I heaped blame for the misery of my ‘orphaned’ youth?
In any case, while the rich and famous may write autobiographies, the rest of us ordinary mortals may dare venture into the world of memoir writing. I like best this definition of a memoir by Vivian Gornick:
“A memoir is a work of sustained narrative prose controlled by an idea of the self under obligation to lift from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver wisdom.”
To be a writer is something of an earned privilege, and not to bring forth some of that richness in our inner landscape would be like refusing to open our eyes to the glint of hidden treasures lying undiscovered. For me, it is simply that the stories within the story of my life have been knocking insistently at my door. They are like a woman who forgot her keys, wanting desperately to get back inside the home where her true self dwells.
This far-from-complete memoir of mine is an attempt to make sense of those perennial questions that live in me like shadows of the night, and which I have grown to accept as old friends to take long walks in the forest with:
Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?
I believe that writing can be a spiritual practice. For I see life as a spiritual journey, and every encounter an opportunity for growth. What we share in writing is akin to building bridges across the vast and varied landscapes of human experience. When we write with integrity, from the authenticity of our lived perceptions, we are able to recognise in