My mother Patsy loved Cruskits. When I was growing up in Melbourne, she and I used to sit on the couch, crunching our way through the buttery wafer crispbread, crumbs flying.
It's one of many memories I carry with me, which I share with my half-sister Simone.
Mixing cake batter together at the kitchen bench. Watching Mum pull out a tray of hot curry puffs from the oven. A stroke on the head, a hug or a kiss. Dancing to records in the lounge room.
But Simone experienced none of this.
In Kuala Lumpur in 1972, when Simone was 15 months old, she was snatched from Mum's arms by her father. Their marriage fell apart, and Mum fled for her safety.
Not long after, Mum reluctantly left Malaysia without Simone and migrated to Australia to join the rest of her family in Melbourne. That's where Mum met my Dad, and later had me.
In Malaysia she was told: "Your mother's dead."
A Catholic Eurasian mother, a Buddhist Cambodian father, a gay Australian half-brother, and a Muslim Malaysian half-sister. We are one mixed up family. Could we travel back in time and rediscover our childhoods — could we find our mother?
A home Simone never lived in
My role as little brother has been about filling in the gaps for Simone. Exactly 30 years after Mum's death, I am the keeper of the flame.
Our childhoods ran parallel to each other, mine in Melbourne and Simone's in KL. We did not meet until we were adults in the early 2000s.
Last year, with the borders open again, we reunited, with Simone visiting Melbourne on a pilgrimage to find out more about our mother. We were to film our story, to share it with a national audience for the ABC's Compass program.
When Simone arrives at the home I grew up in, in Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs, she's overwhelmed. This house loomed large in Simone's imagination, as described to her by Mum in aerograms.
She moves slowly through the rooms, taking in every detail, a sense of awe and wonder in her eyes. In the garden, Mum's favourite flowers still grow.
"She's everywhere here," Simone says. "I can sense her presence, her spirit."
Simone searches the house for connections to the past. My Dad, Narong, shows her old photos, on the wall, from when they first met.
The resemblance between mother and daughter is uncanny. "Your nose is the same," says Narong.
"Oh! Yes, I do look like her, I can see me in her." Simone agrees.
Dad pulls out old family photo albums. He rushes to show Simone Mum's old favourite records. I flip through the covers and find The Seekers, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Nana Mouskouri, ABBA, Shirley Bassey.
"I was the boss of the records; we'd choose what records, and I would play them for her," I tell my sister.
In Mum's old room, the light falls softly through the slats of Venetian blinds, and in the dimness, Simone cries.
"I can feel her," she weeps. "Her sadness in that room, thinking about me."
This is where Mum suffered a heart attack in 1993. I was 12, and the one who called the ambulance.
In the corridor, I wrap my arms around Simone.
Precious memories and bright spots
Remembering Mum is a kind of salvage job. You're picking through the wreckage to find the bright spots.
I find myself fussing over what remains.
Mum's grave: not the best spot in the cemetery. "Dad wanted it by that lake, but it's not really a lake, it's ugly," I say.
Simone pushes back: "No I like it, it's so peaceful here. It's not like this in Malaysia."
I point out a dusty, old dresser and offer to clean it.
"No, no, it's okay," Simone says. "I'll do my make-up in the mirror like Mum did."
What seems mundane appears to Simone as wondrous and magical. In grief, the small things — the simple things — are precious.
On an average street in the 'burbs, we drive past the springtime cherry blossoms shedding white petals, like snow in the air.
"So, so beautiful," Simone says, lighting up with joy.
Mum's smile is more than enough
In the 1970s and '80s, Dad used to make home videos on his Super 8 camera.
Now they've been recovered, and digitised by the ABC's archive experts. What was once ancient is made fresh again.
We are going to be filmed by the Compass crew watching Mum for the first time.
As Simone and I sit together on the couch, the old movies are revealed on a big plasma TV. No sound, just pictures.
There's me as a toddler playing naked in a backyard pool. Oops! Me again, chasing after the pet cat.
And then Mum appears, vaguely at first. We see her legs. Reassuring and steady, as Dad zooms in on me taking my first steps on the footpath.
Simone is cooing. And the room fills with laughter.
There's so little of Mum in the films. She's a gentle presence, quiet and in the background.
But one moment stands out. A flash of a smile as she scoops me from a rocking horse at a park. It's a fraction of a second, but it's enough.
Her smile is all we need.
Watch Searching for Patsy on Compass on Sunday, April 23 at 6:30pm on ABC TV and iview.
