THE first thing the villagers noticed was the ripples on the water, then they could hear and feel the heavy thumping sound, like a giant hammer pounding in the distance: thumfp, thumfp, thumfp… “Run for you lives!” screamed someone in panic, “It’s Abiyoyo, the giant!! Aaaa…” Then they saw him, blocking out the sunlight with his towering frame, crashing through the forest. His legs were as thick as huge tree trunks and equally gnarled, his hairy hands scooping up goats, cattle and anyone within reach.

Yes, in fictions and fairy tales giants are big, ugly, destructive, cruel creatures but in real life giants are ordinary people, people who lend their shoulders for us to stand on so that we can reach for the stars and fulfil our dreams.This month we celebrate in appreciation of two people most deservedly can be regarded as giants in our lives: mothers and teachers. May 11 was Mother’s Day and in Malaysia we mark May 16 as Teacher’s Day.

Teachers are people who led us through the difficult path to academic achievement. Unfortunately, sometimes in our youthful folly we failed to recognise and appreciate the pivotal role they played in our formative years. In my secondary school we had a math teacher, Mr Gopinath, whom we thought to be a tyrant and hated him. So exacting were his demands for our mathematical perfection that he would insist that we sharpen our pencils in precise wedge shape. Woe betided a student who failed to solve an equation with a satisfactory QED ending. In fact he drove one student so far that the latter threatened to stab him with a divider (that vicious looking sharp instrument in our mathematics set). Years later as we got greyer and wiser, and having achieved a measure of success, we cannot help but be eternally thankful that Mr Gopinath was as uncompromising as he was in his dedication to drum some math into our thick skulls. Nearly forty years later the alumni of my alma mater paid for his trip from India (where he retired to) to attend our ‘old boys’ dinner. There were quite a few teary eyes that evening when he spoke fondly of the old days in our school. Humbly, all we could say was, “Thank you, sir”.

Another person who had a profound impact on me was our English and Literature teacher, Brother Aiden. He used to encourage us to read at least one book a week and would invite us to relate the story to the class. That more than any thing else inculcated my love for reading and I cannot recall any time since then that I would be without a book by my side. For the English class he set a regime of writing one essay every week, a practice which stood me in good stead in later life, giving me the discipline to take up an enjoyable job in publishing for many years in London.

Such was the commanding presence of these teachers in class that they appeared equally big in physical stature until one day they joined us at the sports field. There out of the elements, they looked so small compared to the robust youths that we were. However, to many of us they and our many other teachers will remain always giants in our lives. If teachers are people who guided us through but a portion of our lives, mothers are people sent by God to be our angels for our whole journey. Yet even as I write that last sentence, I know that I somehow belittle them by calling them angels, for mothers are just ‘mothers’. The word itself is sublime and epitomises all the superlatives in human relationship.

Some years ago I read of a story in America. A mother was driving her son to school. It was a sunny day as the family saloon cruised down the highway. Suddenly an on-coming truck veered out of control and smashed into them, sending their car tumbling over and over and then landing upside down. The mother managed to crawl out from the upturned car but the son was trapped. Firemen arrived to extricate the boy who was pinned underneath the wreckage. The crash had punctured the fuel tank and petrol was leaking out. The firemen worked frantically but they could not get a leverage to lift the car. At any moment the boy could be engulfed in flame and suffer a fiery death. Then to the utter amazement of everyone the mother grabbed one end of the car and tipped the two-ton vehicle to its side allowing the son to crawl out. It proved that the power of a mother’s love knows no bounds.

However most mothers’ loves are not demonstrated through such dramatic events, they are usually involved with ordinary things like nursing us when we are young, washing and cooking for us as we grow up. Yet it is all the greater for its ordinariness. However, it is this very profound and obvious fact of our mothers being always there for us that makes us forgetful and makes us take them for granted. Recently a friend sent me this email entitled, ‘A Mother’s love’.

A little boy came up to his mother in the kitchen one evening while she was fixing supper, and handed her a piece of paper that he had been writing on. (I think the boy must have just attended a seminar on “how to succeed in business”). After his Mom dried her hands on an apron, she read it, and this is what it said:

• For cutting the grass: $5.00
• For cleaning up my room this week: $1.00
• For going to the store for you: $0.50
• Baby-sitting my kid brother while you went shopping: $0.25
• Taking out the garbage: $1.00
• For getting a good report card: $5.00
• For cleaning up and raking the yard: $2.00

Total owed: $14.75

Well, his mother looked at him standing there, and the boy could see the memories flashing through her mind. She picked up the pen, turned over the paper he’d written on, and this is what she wrote:

• For the nine months I carried you while you were growing inside me: No Charge
• For all the nights that I’ve sat up with you, doctored and prayed for you: No Charge
• For all the trying times, and all the tears that you’ve caused through the years: No Charge
• For all the nights that were filled with dread, and for the worries I knew were ahead: No Charge
• For the toys, food, clothes, and even wiping your nose: No Charge

Son, when you add it up, the cost of my love is: No Charge.

When the boy finished reading what his mother had written, there were big tears in his eyes, and he looked straight at his mother and said, “Mom, I sure do love you.” And then he took the pen and in great big letters he wrote: “PAID IN FULL”.

To that last bit I say “Good boy”. In the meantime if you are on the Internet, search in the YouTube for the song ‘You raised me up’ and turn up your speakers. All together now:

• “You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
• You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
• I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
• You raise me up… to more than I can be.”
• Sing, sing to the giants in your life.

The writer can be contacted at desee@pc.jaring.my