For U.

I'm a lucky girl. I've a fantastic brother and I mean fantastic with a capital "F". My brother is a really nice guy and he's always so concerned and caring that it leaves me with only dumbfoundedness. This is ironic because when we were young we were always fighting like there was no tomorrow. But come tomorrow we fought again until there never was yesterday.Get it? We just fought mightily,bloodily,and madly. I would like to explain that since my brother never considered me a girl to begin with,inflicting me with his death shock wounds were nothing to him. Ahem. As u guys know,we girls can get very snappy and angry,so once in a while I would exact victories by breaking into my heartbreaking sobs. MAAAAAAAAAAA....MAAAAAAA Cheating.Yes I'm so bad. But that was just one of the many sneaky things I did. I also learnt that since my bro was bigger,stronger and older, I had to fight back in a way where kicks and punches would not work. I used my scary fingers to poke his eyes,and my scary fingers to bend his arm and twist his fingers. Erm,once or twice when I missed kicking his groin I decided to poke his adam's apple. I can see u guys gasping already. I know, Im sorry. I was so evil. I was 6!!!!!!

Later when I realized that my bro still needed to celebrate Father's Day when he would grow up and have his family,I decided I'd not deliver my scary kicks no more. I also stopped poking his eye when he wore his gawky glasses and finally twisting his fingers ALMOST ALWAYS still worked!!!! Oops. My brother blamed my gender for making me the less of a human being. He said girls were dumb,so because of that I was told never to be "sissy". Erm. This confused me a little back then, because when he said "Stop being sissy,are u a girl or what?" I would frown and said "YES IM A GIRL!" And he would scowl at me with this exasperated expression and asked me to get cracking. "Get cracking" meant I had to do his bidding.

My bro decided that since he liked playing video games, I was his loserish opponent. Hence he made me play hours with him and yelled at me when I wasn't good initially. I soon became a fan of streetfighter duels,soulblade,aeroblaster, tekken and what have u.The most interesting of the lot was my interest in sports. My bro made me swear with my blood and sweat that I lived and died a Liverpool fan,and should I even so much as think of other teams I was a goner. On Sundays when they showed repeats of matches and English Premier leagues,he made me watch and memorize positions,goals and tell him exactly which teams lost to which. He also made me play flag earsers with him choosing the cooler flags and leaving me with those with the weird colours. For the benefit of those countries,I shan't name! In those sega moments, he got me transfixed onto NBA and in real life, I grew up being really keen on the games. And yes he too got into the WWF, now WWE mode at one point,so I too had to sway to that.

My brother is quite the sportsman,he can pick up anything just by literally picking it up. And I guess under his influence I became crazy into fitness. My bro used to be a dragonboater,so u can imagine how strong his arms were. When I was back in Singapore,most of the time we would hit the gym together. He doesn't exactly judge me but there was once or twice he would quip that I needed to chill a little,that I was fit as a fiddle. Yet his complaint was that I was too small,too miniature. He thinks I would be better off stronger and looking tougher,to ward off the baddies. But my explanation was that I was the true baddie and he should worry about the rest of the people instead.

My brother liked talking down to me in the annoying rascal-brother like way we all know brothers are like. However the time when I did find out that he was praising me alot,made me really touched. Once his former girlfriend told me that my brother thought highly of me and that I was a really mature kid at my age. He had told his ex that I was a sensible person and that I knew what I wanted from the beginning. My brother also secretly put my music on his playlist and played it frequently. Wow. This was something that really moved me. I didn't know he did that! When I was young and I would often play the piano for hours, sometimes he would tell me this, when he was in a bad mood. " U suck. Your playing is crap and U're ugly."

Of course I had to retaliate.

"U suck too! You are ugly too and worse,u're stupid,stupid,stupid!! U and your cramming for exams!"

And then he would retort in his death like way:

"U'll never make it past grade school."

I was so terrfied the curses would ring true,I actually dreamt that I didn't finish grade school. And when I did finish elementary school, he threw another one at my middle and high school,until I reached college/university, my brother's potent curses still turned my blood cold.

When I was in junior college,my brother was still the pain in the ass bro he was. He used to retort when boys called our house that "She's dead!" or something to that effect. When I was evidently at home,he would say I was not. He grumbled that I monopolized the phone and I retreated to being the moonlight phantom user. I only talked beneath the sheets at night. When pagers were the fad,mine rung every now and then and my brother smirked whenever i had a cheesy page. During the course of my time in college/university,my brother and I saw a lot less of each other. He was a senior and I was a junior and we were in different faculties. We even had to arrange for lunch meetings at school. Some of my friends would inquire about the hot stud I was hanging out with. Others who never met him asked me if he was my splitting image. Whatever the case,when it was my 21st birthday party,the man himself appeared (like the international man of mystery) and planted himself there being the perfect host to my friends. My agent asked me half seriously if my brother wanted to go into showbiz then and also another actress who told me my brother looked every bit the kindda guy she liked.

This amused me alot. Because my brother was so different to the world and to me. To the world,he was this soft spoken nice dude. He has this smiley face with huge eyes (like Kerropi) and he insists that his nose was his pride and joy.I told him that if he didn't stop hurling his modesty out of the window I would hurl something precious of his outta the window,erm,like maybe his precious soccer shoes. However,he did deserve his right. He won a baby competition for being the most adorable baby when he was a few months old so,later on when I was pushed to join one of em pageants,he smirked and told me how he was the pioneer winner of those things.

My brother is one who says very little. But he is really protective of me. Whenever I met someone new,he would not comment much but tell me to be careful. He never went out of his way to tell boys to "treat my sister well!" but one thing he did do was he was always the neutral party. He would joke to me about what bad taste some of these guys had but I knew he cared and was concerned about me.

One poignant thing he said that brought tears to my eyes was this " Lydia,no matter what u do,u'll always have us to love u.We're the ones that will make u safe. Home is here.OK?"

He also asked me all the time if I had enough money and he was a person who spent little not because he was a miser but he just led a simple life. He was the sporty kind who liked travelling and meeting friends for a nice glass. I would invite him for events and parties and he would come and leave like Cinderella.:) That's my brother,his logic was, he liked a good conversation and when it got noisy it was time to go home.

The other time when I was in HK,I agreed to meet up with my brother as he was doing a china tour. When the Sichuan quake broke out,one morning I cried feverishly and tried hunting him high and low by calling and emailing him. All to no avail. It was only sometime later that he replied telling me connection was not good where he was. My brother is the backpacking sort,I was really worried he might have wanted to try one of those exotic tours on his own and he might have ventured further than safety. Anyhow knowing he was safe made me so relieved,so relieved,so relieved.

The other day,I spoke to him again. My aunt has just passed away and he told me that my dad who took care of the ceremony did a good job. My bro also repeated the dying wish of my aunt to me. My aunt had written me a letter hoping I would grant her her last wishes. When I saw her some months ago back in Singapore,I told her I wasn't able to effectively,sincerely execute her wish. Yet. She told me it was ok,she just wanted to help because she did not have much time left. She had started out with lung cancer,before all the other cancers attacked her. The last prevailing one was bone cancer and she said it was painful when the spine was cracking apart.

With tears in my eyes,I told my aunt I was sorry she had to go through that. I told her she was a wonderful person and her family,us,were lucky to be blessed with her presence.

3rd Aunt,I've not done it in your presence,I've not effectively said the word. But I broke into sobs when I read your sweet,caring letter. I want to tell u I have already granted u your wish and my brother knows this too,because he has been pushing me to all this while.

I forgive u Dad.