My Ribena Stain

No, my parents did not attend my confirmation rite in the church over Holy week last Saturday. In retrospect, it was a blessing in disguise. They did not have to witness the disaster during the final stage before I was to go to receive my very first Eucharist. Now I look at it, it really was for the better. I do not know how my father would have reacted had he witnessed first-hand on those emotions going through me. I think I have put him through enough turmoil in my earlier experiences, such that God would want to spare him this.

Instead what he got was something else instead. In the week before, he had told his daughter to be mindful when sharing the joy of salvation and upholding the covenant on online platforms like Facebook (i.e. my careless unedited original posting of my confirmation card with much of my personal information). She had silently took the advice in and gone ahead for the ceremony on Saturday. Yes, she came back on that night on a very muted tone, and he definitely could sense something had gone amiss. However, he also knew that since she had been able to make her way home safely, on the overall most was still well. So he decided to pull off his very own first “water into wine” of sorts.

When I came home on Monday, he had let me stay in his study where he and mum were looking videos of the cherry blossoms they were going to view in Japan in the next week. Then all of a sudden he veered into an unknown territory.

“So this name of yours now? Apart from that first one I don’t know what, now there’s this other one. The name that sounds like that drink.”

“… It is now Clare Regina. Clare for baptism, Regina for confirmation.”

“Ah… So troublesome, I’ll keep pronouncing it as Ribena.”

“Aiyo, just call her Wenhui like we always do lah,” my mum interjected.

For the next few minutes the three of us just continued looking at the videos of the cherry blossom, being comfortable in each other’s presence.

From what I know of my father, nickname calling has always been a term of endearment, though many of it are very derogatory. If he calls you by full proper name, then you are in serious major trouble. So I guess it means I am alright and cleared despite last Saturday. It was merely a Ribena stain on the white robe, that’s all.