"SONGBIRD Agatha", the sign reads on her donation box. Inside are two "lucky" angpow placed strategically that, Agatha Yu tells me with a smile, were given to her by her mother.
"Every year after Chinese New Year, my mum would give me — what's known in Cantonese as lai see — for good luck," she explains. These faded packets haven't let her down so far. After all, she's been making a living out of busking for the last five years.
The cheerful bespectacled woman pushes her own amplifier on a trolley while balancing herself on crutches. It's close to show time here at Sunway Giza in Petaling Jaya. She stoically refuses any help from me.
"I want you to see how I do it," she insists, before stopping at her usual "spot" where she briskly unloads her amplifier and sets up her own little "stage" to perform from 6pm to 10pm.
She doesn't play any instrument. Instead, Agatha shows me her USB flash drive and reveals that she has recorded around 200 accompaniment tracks for her to sing to. "I do songs from the 1960s to the 1990s. Do you like Backstreet Boys? Britney Spears? I can sing those songs!" she adds proudly, before asking me: "Is there any song you'd want me to do in particular?"
Sing anything, I tell her and she needs no further encouragement.
"Good evening, my name is Songbird Agatha," she begins with a smile, her voice echoing off the concourse area as she addresses her sparse audience. Not long after, her music begins.
"Take me to your heart, take me to your soul,
Give me your hand before I'm old,
Show me what love is, haven't got a clue,
Show me that wonders can be true."
There's an undeniable joie de vivre about Agatha as she sways on her chair. As her voice rises above the music, she gestures in tandem with the beat. With childlike glee, she sings out strongly, her expressive voice ringing through the wide space as onlookers watch on.
Dimples flash as she closes her eyes and continues to sing the soundtracks of my youth. Love lost or love found, with its distant reflections on the youthful folly of expectations, makes more sense and carries more emotional weight when sung by a 40-year-old amputee with her crutches leaning against the railing behind her.
"I love singing. It makes me happy. And I enjoy making people happy through my songs," she tells me simply during her break as we sit down for a drink at a Starbucks cafe not too far from her "stage".
Her hair, pulled together in a simple ponytail and her bangs lend youthfulness to her clear face and sparkling eyes. Dimples continue to flash as she chats with me, her one hand toying with the iced frappuccino I just bought her.
"I don't normally drink this," she tells me matter-of-factly. I raise an eyebrow and she grins disarmingly. "Financial management," she blithely explains, not waiting for the obvious question that was forming at the tip of my tongue.
She lives simply, she goes on to explain. It helps her get by through the meagre earnings she receives from her busking. She's not one to complain. "I'm content," she says quietly with a smile. Musing out loud, Agatha continues: "I used to love singing as a child. I never thought I would one day earn a living this way."
YOUTHFUL DREAMS
She'd dreamt of becoming a lawyer. "I was in love with the idea of fighting for justice, but then, I realised that being a lawyer doesn't always mean you'd be fighting for the innocent. Sometimes you'd have to take on cases where you defend crooks. So, I decided I was never going to be a lawyer!" she explains at length before breaking into laughter.
What did you want to become next? "Why, a badminton player of course!" she replies at once. She'd been playing badminton in Penang since she was 11. "I loved the game tremendously," she says, her eyes dancing with memories of her holding the racquet and racing across the court.
Recognised for her potential, Agatha was invited to join the state team, where the young girl trained with other state players and played in tournaments. "It was a dream come true," she recalls, adding: "My mum encouraged me to pursue my passions and I was well on the way to achieving my dream of representing the nation one day."
But life has a way of throwing a curveball. Her smile slips a little. There's a little backstory I needed to hear first, she insists, telling me that it would help me understand what happened next.
"My mother is a single parent," she begins, adding: "It wasn't something she wanted for herself. Back in those days, being a divorcee with children was frowned upon. But my mother had little choice," she remarks softly.
Agatha's father was a Hong Kong national. Her mother had moved to Hong Kong to marry him, but sadly, the marriage was short-lived. One day, when Agatha was just a toddler, her father returned home drunk and started beating her heavily pregnant mother. "Realising that she couldn't live like that, my mother sought help from friends and relatives to purchase a ticket home," she recalls candidly.
Her mother, along with Agatha, came home to Penang to live with her ageing parents. A few months later, she gave birth to Agatha's brother. "My mother soon took on three jobs to get by," she tells me quietly, adding: "She was an office administrator from 9 to 5, Mondays to Fridays. On the weekends, she'd don a waitress uniform and work at a hotel restaurant. Whenever she had some spare time, she also sold insurance."
In the meantime, it was up to the young girl to care for her grandparents and brother while her mother was busy working. "I was taught to be very independent from a very young age," she shares. Badminton was her only outlet, but that was soon tragically cut short when her grandparents passed away.
Her aunties and uncles insisted on selling the family home and splitting the proceeds four ways between the siblings. "It wasn't much," she admits, adding: "With that little amount, we finally uprooted from Penang and moved to Sungai Petani when I was 15. It was all we could afford if we wanted a roof over our heads."
She was disappointed of course. "I won't lie. It was hard. But being young, you tend to be a little more accepting. I mean, I thought 'Aiya, never mind-lah. Maybe there'd be other opportunities'," she tells me, with a shrug.
TRAGEDY FOLLOWS
Did she continue to play badminton? I ask. "Oh yes, of course," she replies, nodding. But certain sacrifices had to be made. It was too far for her to travel to continue training under the Kedah banner.
"I couldn't afford to travel from Sungai Petani to Alor Star, where they had the training. So that ended my dreams of being a state or national badminton player. Instead, I trained at school and played in school tournaments," she explains.
The enterprising young girl went on to take a part-time job as a cashier at a cafe. She didn't want to tax her mother by asking for an allowance. Instead, she wanted to earn her own way while studying for her Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM). "My mum eventually asked me to quit. It was time to focus on my studies because SPM was around the corner," she adds.
On her last day at work, her boss insisted on taking her out for a treat along with her colleagues. "Business has been good since you've worked here," he'd told her. "It's true!" she exclaims with a grin. "I'd been promoting the cafe to my friends and asking them to support the business!"
It was close to midnight when they finally closed the shop. They were going to drive to Tambun, Perak, for a seafood supper in two cars. It was raining heavily that night and Agatha was sitting in the backseat by the door. She told herself she'd catch some sleep and wake up when they reached the restaurant.
Instead, when she opened her eyes, she found herself in hospital with her mother's anxious face hovering over her. "What happened?" she murmured. "I was told that the car I was in skidded in the heavy rain, hit the barrier, turned 180 degrees, hit the opposite barrier, turned again and hit the barrier one more time," she tells me, eyes glistening, before adding: "I was flung out at the first impact because the car door swung open. I hit my head hard and was in a coma for about two days."
She suddenly leans forward and bends her head to show me her scar. "You see here? This is where I hit my head!" Sitting back up after that impromptu 'show-and-tell', she turns morose, her smile gone.
She underwent three to four operations to save her leg. Her veins and blood vessels were all broken up in the accident. Despite the doctors' efforts, there was no circulation going to her foot. Bacteria had set in and it started to turn gangrene.
"I was in shock," she admits. A tear suddenly slips past her eyes and she quickly wipes it away. "I couldn't show my shock or fear or even sadness in front of my mother. She looked so tired and grieved that I knew I couldn't do that to her. I tried thinking of how she raised me. I mean, I've been independent since I was a child. So, I tried to process this new reality like a grown-up," she explains heavily.
On the third night after the accident, Agatha's mother returned home to see to her brother, who'd been under the care of a friend since she was hospitalised. The young girl sensed that there was something seriously wrong with her leg although no one had spoken to her about the severity of her injury.
She saw blood spurting out while the nurse was dressing her wounds, and she was overwrought with fear and grief. Clutching the Bible gifted by her friend earlier that afternoon, Agatha finally broke down and wept her heart out that lonely night.
"I cried myself to sleep," she says simply.
The next day, her mother returned to be by her side. When the doctor arrived on his rounds, he asked her mother: "Did you tell her?" Her mother's face went pale. "She knew something I didn't but she couldn't bring herself to tell me," Agatha recounts dryly.
The doctor finally broke the news that her leg couldn't be saved. Her blood type was O negative, a rare one that the hospital didn't have enough on standby. They couldn't afford for her to lose any more blood. The amputation had to be carried out urgently.
As she tells me her story, more tears flow freely. I can't help but reach out to clasp her hand. "I'm sorry for bringing this up," I say contritely. "Oh, never mind," she responds with a watery smile. "It doesn't mean that I'm not over it. I just can't help but shed a few tears when I remember certain things."
Before signing the consent form, her mother cried hard and said: "Girl, if you amputate your leg, you cannot play badminton anymore. You cannot go out, you cannot cycle, you cannot do so many things!" Agatha's voice breaks again as she recalls that moment. "I told my mother, 'Yes, I can't do those things. But at least I'll have my life.'"
A pause, and she says quietly: "I made this decision and I need to live with it."
THE AFTERMATH
And lived with it she did. She celebrated her 17th birthday quietly at home. Agatha never got to sit for her SPM. "To this day, I don't have an SPM certificate," she admits, adding: "I couldn't move on from that devastation for a while."
Life was difficult, she tells me. "There were times I'd fall from my bed, forgetting that I only had one leg," she recalls, adding: "This phantom limb syndrome was something I had to deal with. It's a condition in which I experienced sensations in a limb that no longer existed. Of course, I was depressed as well. I mean, who wouldn't be, right?"
Realising that her daughter would recover better with the familiarity of friends and relatives, her mother soon moved the family back to Penang. "I slowly started recovering and got used to life without my leg," she recalls.
Agatha eventually found a job as a receptionist at a taxi counter before landing a more secured position at a legal firm. "I was a hard worker and was soon promoted to a conveyancing clerk," she tells me proudly.
But the job entailed her carrying heavy files while balancing on crutches, which resulted in a slipped disc. "It was excruciating," she tells me, shuddering. She had to quit her job and it took two years for her to recover with physiotherapy.
The headstrong young woman went back to work to remain independent. This eventually led her to move to the capital city hundreds of miles away. "What lured you to Kuala Lumpur?" I ask curiously.
"Well, the pay cheque was good," she admits with a grin, adding: "I wanted to help my mum pay off the mortgage of the house she finally bought in Penang. It was the least I could do for all the sacrifices she'd made for me and my brother."
That job lasted a few months before she bravely tried to venture out with her own events company. "That didn't last," she admits freely, adding: "I had little experience and got cheated as a result."
The stoic woman soon went back to being employed as a project coordinator in an IT company, before moving on as a project manager in a different organisation. "I was finally levelling up," she says half-wistfully. It was at her last job in a water filter company when another curveball was thrown her way.
June 13, 2015. She remembers the date well. It was a Saturday afternoon and she was still in the office. Suddenly, her above-knee stump started spasming uncontrollably. In shock, Agatha managed to lock herself in a toilet cubicle. She cried for half an hour before finally calling for help from her friends, who were Chinese physicians.
They helped by giving her some acupuncture but urged her to see a doctor. It turned out that Agatha has peripheral neuropathy — a result of damage to the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord that causes the spasms on her stump.
"I couldn't continue working," she says, before adding: "That's when I resigned for good. Here I am now, self-employed and busking for a living."
Does she still have big dreams? Agatha smiles at the question. Silence hangs over us for a while as she gathers her thoughts. "Maybe if you asked me this question five to 10 years ago, I'd tell you about all of the stupid dreams I had which aren't doable and for the sake of 'Wahhh… dream big!'"
She pauses again, before continuing: "But now I think I've lived a little and seen more, I know what can be done and what cannot."
She pauses again and takes a sip from her frappuccino. Continues Agatha: "As I'm getting older, I know I have limitations. Last year, I found out I have high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol. So, whatever I can do is quite limited."
Looking at me, she breaks into a smile. "I wouldn't say I have big dreams," says Agatha gently, adding: "I just want to do what I'm doing for as long as I can. I feel the joy I bring to people. I'm very happy to do what I'm doing."
It is time for her to sing again. We slowly walk in companionable silence towards her little stage where she once again takes a seat. "Let me sing you a fast song before you go," she says with another smile.
This time, it's a Britney Spears song, much to my delight.
"Stronger than yesterday,
It's nothing but my way,
My loneliness ain't killing me no more,
I, I'm stronger."
She sways to the music and smiles brightly. It sounds like the anthem of her life, and she's more than happy to sing it out loud and strong from that little nondescript stage at Sunway Giza.
