The Pages I Never Read

It was just another normal day during the Raya holidays. I decided to follow my mum to accompany a church aunty to the clinic. I’ll just refer to her as Aunty W in this post.

Both my parents have been accompanying Aunty W to the clinic to change her leg dressing. She suffered serious burns on her legs due to a cooking gas explosion. Since my dad was away in Perak for Qing Ming, I took it upon myself to accompany and supervise the two ladies (my mum and Aunty W).

I grew up seeing Aunty W in church, from playing the piano to arranging the flowers with quiet grace. A soft-spoken, patient lady. That’s what I knew of her. Ever since rheumatism hit, she has stopped playing the piano. She is 74 years old now.

We entered her house while waiting for her to get ready. Though I’ve known her since young, it was my first time stepping into her home. And that was when I spotted them. Those beautiful European-style furniture pieces, delicately adorned with flowers. The stools. The round spinning tray on the table. The remote control box. All touched with the same gentle floral charm. I am someone who simply adores anything with flowers, from dresses to bags to furniture. I’ve always dreamed of decorating my home in a European vintage style (and it’s slowly getting there)! Just the other day, I was showing my mum a set of flowery European-style curtains I planned to buy for her Seremban house next month.

So I exclaimed in excitement, “Aunty, where did you get those?”

I was expecting the name of a shop. I was expecting it to be expensive. I just didn’t expect it when she said softly, “I painted those.”

Both my mother and I were astonished and surprised. She then guided us to a room where she kept her acrylic paints and brushes. "These were incredibly expensive," she remarked. She recounted how she took up folk art after retiring from her nursing career, how she travelled to Ipoh for lessons after encouragement from a friend, and how, for months, her sole activity at home was just painting. Those exquisite creations demanded approximately one to three months, or even half a year, for completion. Before painting, she sanded the furniture to achieve a smooth surface. Then, the painting was done in strokes, utilizing the strength of her wrist. Once the artwork was finished, she had to seal it with a protective coating to ensure a smooth finish. There was light in her eyes as she softly shared her hobby.

Footstool

Remote control box

Spinning tray

High stool (my favourite piece)

I only knew that Aunty W played the piano. I never knew she knew folk art, too.

Afterward, we had lunch with a group from the Yoshua Community Centre. Everyone was older than me. At 32, I was still the youngest in the room. Throughout the meal, no one reached for their phones. It was simply genuine human interaction: stories shared and a quiet curiosity about one another. It made me realise how much my generation could learn from the older one. About being present, about listening, and about truly connecting.

A lady sat beside me and introduced herself. She said she remembered me from when I was a child in church, though I couldn’t recognise her. I’ll refer to her as Aunty S. She spoke about her years teaching deaf students at a special education school in Seremban, and how she learned sign language along the way. Then her story took a different turn. In her first year of retirement, she was diagnosed with blood cancer. She underwent a bone marrow transplant without sedation and endured 36 injections, each costing RM600. There was a time when she couldn’t sit up straight or walk normally. Now, she spoke of healing. She's slowly getting better after chemotherapy and electro-acupuncture therapy. There were tears in her eyes as she recounted her journey, but there was light too.

I think I’ve always enjoyed listening to the many stories of people. Sometimes, all it takes is stepping out for a meal, or stepping into a home. Not a café-hopping day, not one where everyone is glued to their phones. Just a simple, genuine conversation with another human being. And somehow, it is in these quiet, ordinary moments that you begin to see things you never noticed before.

Like that afternoon, standing in Aunty W’s house, surrounded by those delicate floral pieces I admired so much, only to realise they weren’t bought from some expensive shop, but painted by her own hands. Like that afternoon meal, listening to Aunty S sharing her endurement.

I couldn’t help but reflect that these are the moments we rarely create for ourselves these days. How often do we pause, look up, and truly connect with another person? How often do we let a conversation linger without distractions? That afternoon reminded me that the richness of life is not in the places we go or the things we buy, but in these quiet, shared human moments. The ones that linger long after the meal is over. Long after the story has been told.

And as I drove home with my mum that faithful afternoon, I was reminded of something simple: people are like books. You may have known them for years, but there are always pages you haven’t read, stories you haven’t discovered, and talents you never imagined. That day, Aunty W’s paintings were one of those unseen pages. Hidden in plain sight, quietly telling a story of patience, discipline, and beauty shaped by her own hands. And Aunty S’s story was another chapter marked by pain and endurance, yet still holding light. 

Both so different, yet both reminding me of the same thing: there is always more to people than meets the eye. And there are many good books out there, waiting for their pages to be read.


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Also, sharing here a quote from a recent good book

“I hope this book carries you somewhere magical. I hope it lets you feel ocean breezes in your hair and smell spilled bear on a karaoke bar’s floor. And then I hope it brings you back. That it brings you home, and it fills you with ferocious gratitude for the people you love. Because, really, it’s less about the places we go than the people we meet along the way. But most of all, it’s about the ones who stay, who become home.”

― Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation