The same day…

9/11 is one day that everyone throughout the world will remember. It has been 15 years – those who were kids at the time would be teenagers now and they may not feel that same horror that everybody felt when it all happened.

9/11 is also my mum’s birthday and every year, we would all go out to some restaurant in town for dinner and that year was no different. We got home at around 9 in the night and that would be around 9 in the morning in the US. I switched on the tv and saw it on the news – a plane stuck in the burning tower and I called out to my girl and the mum thinking that it was the Millennium Bug gone awry and that was when the second plane came and crashed into the next tower and my blood ran cold. It certainly was something a lot more serious than I thought.

We no longer go out for dinner anymore, not since my mum became bedridden in 2007, 9 years ago so every year, we would go to my parents’ house to have a little celebration and that was what we did the other day.

My sister went and ordered a few dishes from this restaurant including the must-have longevity noodles, the mee sua, fried…

…and served with the lightly-fried golden eggs…and also my girl’s favourite – their deep fried bawal putih (white pomfret) fillet with the very nice sauce…

Other than the two, we also had these chicken…

…and sea cucumber…

…dishes and also one vegetable dish…

…as well.

I went to another restaurant in town – this one – and bought the fish maw clear soup…

*Archive photo*

…that I do enjoy a lot without fail everytime I get the chance to have that and I also bought their prawn fritters and ngor hiang (meat rolls)…

…that we have enjoyed for as long as I can remember and that sure has been a long long time now.

It was quite simple, the lunch with my parents and sister and me and my missus and my girl, just the six of us but what mattered most was how happy it made my mum to see everybody gathered together on her special day – she certainly was smiling and talking a lot more and eating much more too. Nothing beats having one’s loved and dear ones around on such special occasions, that’s for sure.