Dear Ellie
We have been through so much together already.
The good, the bad, the happy, the sad, all in a foreign land none of us can call home.
Holding you with shaking arms and legs up and down the Great Wall of China, pulling Meesua with you in the mountains of Taiwan, casually going to Perth only to end up rushing back before the world went into a COVID-induced shut down, the many trips back to Singapore and Kuching to visit our folks, and most recently, going through the process of sending 爷爷 off to a better place.
Who can forget the work you put in for your choir and singing competitions, and of course, the dreaded iPSLE, arguably the most important test in your life so far, for which you admirably fought tooth and nail (with mummy's blessings) to prepare for.
Sometimes it's hard to remember that you went through all that before you turned 12.
But deep in my heart, I will remember even more -
The goodnight dance we do almost every other night.
The requests to invite you to sleep in our room with us.
The morning wake up routines during school term.
How close you stick to me when I am making pasta.
How you manage to naturally slide into my arms when I least expect it.
The way you understand my struggles when I do not have lunch during weekdays and insist to pack me a 'snunch'.
The world ahead of us will be a tricky, complicated place. When I was a boy, my challenge was to grow up knowing the difference between right and wrong.
For you, your first challenge is to obtain the wisdom to identify the real and dismiss the fake. If you fail at this first hurdle, everything else will inevitably fall apart.
Immersing in a virtual world is convenient, but ultimately confusing and detrimental to your overall well-being.
Therefore, you have to live a real life doing real things. Read a book. Watch a really really good movie (just ask me or mummy). Play a sport. Cook. Learn a new skill. Sing. Eat something nice. Hang out with friends. Only by doing real things, will you be able to effortlessly know what's real and what's not.
Happy 12th Birthday Ellie the Teen. Don't be in a hurry to grow up.
