What started with my admiration for the heroic 9/11 dogs Roselle and Salty—their bravery, loyalty, and companionship—has, in recent days, evolved into a desire to learn more about that day. This curiosity has become evident across my Facebook feed and has even influenced my YouTube recommendations. For the first time in my life, I’ve felt compelled to immerse myself in the history of 9/11, perhaps as a way of not dwelling too much on my own 9/11 story.
For most in the USA, 2025 marks 24 years since the tragedy. For my family and me, it marks 19 years since ours.
On 11 September 2006, exactly five years after the attacks in America, my family lost my mum.
I always called her uMummie—a name I still use when I speak about her. Talking about her, however, has never come easily.
I write this feeling a connection to the children who lost their parents on America’s 9/11. Some of them never even had the chance to know their parents, relying solely on memories passed down by others. In my case, I had my mum for nine years, yet much of what I’ve come to know about the woman she was beyond that time has been pieced together from the stories of my dad and my aunts. So while my experience is not identical, I understand the feeling of continuing to know a parent through the voices of others.
And like America’s 9/11 children, I’ve come to realize that our parents somehow live on through us.
Although I am more like my dad (minus his love for phone calls and photographs), I recently learnt from him that Mum loved geography. It explains why I was so fascinated by the subject in high school, so much so that I influenced my youngest sibling to take it for his O Levels. He never lets me forget this, especially since I supposedly refused to help him with his homework back then. In my defence, I was just trying to survive university. (Lol.)
Some of these connections I remember vividly from having her in my life, while others I’ve only discovered through the stories my dad shares. Beyond geography, I know (both from memory and family accounts) that Mum had a passion for interior design and fashion. We also share an identical set of near-perfect teeth, much to my youngest brother’s envy. He jokes that I must have had dental work as a child. (I didn’t.)
Mum also lives on through my siblings. My first sibling, who resembles her closely, inherited not only her features but also her warmth and ease with people. And my youngest sibling, our in-house chef, carries on her love for cooking, something I saw her enjoy firsthand.
Here’s to a remembrance, of sorts, of uMummie’s memory.