A tribute to my loving Grandmother

A bit morbid dedicating a blog entry to my recently decreased grandma. But if you don’t like it, don’t read. Right now, I’m already in Singapore. Yep, I flew in to Singapore successfully without any mishaps, a miracle for a blur block like me. Oh yeah. Regarding my grandma, here goes:

Being uneducated, Grandma only knows her dialect, Hakka, and some chinese with a smattering of other dialect and English. Life is hard back in those days, as evident from our social studies class. But despite everything, Grandma worked hard as a seamstress and even managed to put her children through school. I seriously admired my grandma for her strength and determination to bring up 5 children. And then, later in life, she has to take care of all 6 of us brats. I assure you this is no easy task.

I have many fond memories of my grandma. One of them was a story that my mother told me. When all of us cousins were young, my brother, Wei Jiang, manage to break my cousin’s Guo Sheng’s leg by sitting on it (yeah, my brother was real fat when he was young -_-). Guo Sheng complained of leg pain and refused to go to school. Grandma whacked him with a cane. He didn’t get well and hence, our family brought him to the hospital and found out he had a broken leg. Grandma was so guilty about hitting Guo Sheng that she bought him a lot of toys and food and spoilt him rotten during his recovery period.

Another memory was that of Grandma cooking “Orh Kwuey” or “yam cake” a few time through out the year. Grandma cooks the best Orh Kwueh in the world. Over the years, her cooking the Orh Kwueh decreased to just during Chinese New Year. Recently, She stopped cooking altogether and supervised her maid to cook it. Hence, I stopped eating it as well. Grandma didn’t take it well and always persuaded me to eat it. I refused and she was saddened by it. But It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t her who cooked it.

When she passed away, Mum emailed me. All I can do was to sit and stare at the email in shock, just simply staring at the 2 words: Passed Away. I called my cousin and he confirmed. And then, all I knew was that I had to come back to Singapore to see her one last time, before she was cremated, and I flew back the next morning, never mind that I have yet to get the approval from my Liaison Officer in Singapore. Project be damned. Some things are just more important than career and studies.

When I saw her lying down in the coffin, I couldn’t stop the tears rolling down my eyes. Grandma had doted on me since I was young. I was grieved that she left, and guilty. Of all the 3^rd generation (now 2^nd generation), I was the only one who didn’t visit her in the hospital.

But Grandma died peacefully without any pain, that’s what everyone told me. But I didn’t feel too relieved. Maybe I was too selfish. I wanted her to live longer. I wish for her to spend another Chinese New Year with me; wish for her to be able to celebrate another birthday with us; wish… I guess that’s all there is… Wishes.

Looking back, I still didn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that I didn’t see her in the hospital. Perhaps it’s a blessing – I get to preserve all my beautiful memories of her. Perhaps it’s a curse – I didn’t get to see her face to face one last time. But still, I pray that wherever she is, she will be happy with my grandpa.