Grandma

My grandma is an interesting lady. As much as Grandpa has influenced my life in many ways, so has Grandma.

To me, Grandma has always played the motherly role, making sure that we were well fed and taken care of at home. I remember the time where we stayed at her place for a few months when I was about 10 years old. I had to get up at 5-30am in the mornings to take the school bus to school and Grandma will be the one making sure I woke up in time, had breakfast and waited with me till the school bus arrived.

Grandma is also well known for her wonderful cooking. During the festive seasons, either Christmas or Chinese New Year, she will be cooking her famous dishes; Vegetable Achar(pickles), fried meehoon, Ju Hu Char(Hokkien: some turnip dish to be wrapped in lettuce leaves, filling similar to popiah), devil curry and many more. Due to her weak health over the years, Grandma will still insist to cook these dishes but with the help of her maid. If she leaves us today, none of us will know how to cook her dishes.

About 4 years back, I actually took the effort to spend several hours with Grandma just so that I could take down her Salted Fish Achar recipe while she cooked. Grandma cannot write so all her recipes are in her head. I love this dish of hers, I've not come across any like this before out in the market which was why I decided to better get the recipe from her or forever regret when she is no longer with us.

Grandma has wonderful green fingers. She loves gardening and till today, her garden is always full with plants, flowers and local herbs. She has fully utilized every space in her garden as well as her backyard. She's that type that knows how to take a little bit from a plant and grow that again beautifully in another place or pot. She actually dyes her hair with the henna leaves that she grew a while back from a small section of the plant that she took from a roadside.

She also has a belimbing (Malay: not starfruit but very small fruit that is sour) tree in front of her house and she will make sambal (a Malay spicy dish) or achar out of the fruits whenever there are plenty. She is very handy when it comes to these things too, she knows how to make full use of whatever she has.

Grandma is also an avid gambler. She loves her empat ekor (4-digit lottery) and it was through her that I learnt about the whole existence of the 4-digit world. I remember when I was young, I will see Grandma searching through her lottery "bible" - the one whereby it shows you pictures of what you dreamt off and there is a 4-digit number that links to that picture. It sure amazed me then that there was such a thing!

I know I just mentioned that my Grandma cannot write. She is not 100% illiterate especially when it comes to numbers. She can write numbers alright, so I'm guessing that through her gambling ways, she had mastered how to remember and write numbers down. Anyway, I believe that she can read also although I've not seen her reading books before (her lottery bible and also checking the newspapers for the results of the lottery don't count).

How obsessed is she into numbers? Well, till today, whenever anyone of us leaves her place and into our cars, she will be standing by her gate, observing our car plate numbers. And if she can't see the numbers, she will ask us for the numbers, all the time!

And how many times she won the lottery? She had but they were all not huge amounts and we always nag her that what she had spent so far outweights what she had won. And her response "I bet small amounts only, RM1 each time!"

During Chinese New Year, for sure you will see my dear Grandma joining us for our gambling sessions till the wee hours in the morning. You can see that she is so sleepy and tired but still want to gamble.

Few years back, before I got pregnant, my brother, cousin brother and I took my Grandma up to Genting Highlands for a day trip for her birthday. She was really happy as she is too old now to travel on her own there (yes, she had several times before by taking the bus up alone during her healthier days!). We were there for several hours, perhaps 5-6 hours and during all that time, my Grandma was really glued to her seat playing Roulette. I had to remind her several times whether she needs to drink/eat or go to the toilet. She won several hundreds that day.

My Grandma favours boys more than girls. Till today, she will deny this whenever we bring this up (pretty rare these days as you do not want to get into an argument with her) but it is very obvious in her actions to my uncles or cousin brother (I say cousin brother as I know she favours one more than her other grandsons - "I", if you're reading this, you know that this is true!). There are many facts to prove this but I'm not here to go all out to diss my Grandma ok?!.

One thing about my Grandma as well is that you would not want to get into a fight with her, she will win no matter what! She is that type that must have the last word and no matter how hard you justify to her your strong facts, she will always have the last word and you, in the end, will just surrender and keep silent.

She is not the MIL (mother-in-law) you want. Haha, I dare say this as she is my Grandma. But really, I myself would not want her as my MIL and Thank God that my MIL is not like her. ;)
Having said that, because I'm part of her flesh, I know she will defend me if someone were to talk bad about me in front of her. She's like that. Period. She will go all out for someone she loves dearly and who is especially part of her flesh. So you can imagine what she will do for those that she favours!

Why I want to post about my Grandma is because I want to share on the interesting relationship she had with my Grandpa. If it is not obvious enough yet, both of them are actually totally opposites. There were recent events that actually drove me into wanting to post this up first. I will share on their relationship and of the recent events another time.

The wake and funeral

Grandpa had his wish for a Catholic funeral.

His body was laid at Holy Rosary church (the funeral parlour section) early evening on the day he passed away. We (hubby, the girl and I) went there that night.

The moment we arrived, I noticed he had a white coffin. I wanted to see him and decided not to let the girl see his body (I feel she's too young to understand the situation and if any memory I want her to have of Grandpa would be those in the photos we have of him, a healthier version rather than his dead body - she recognizes his pictures and will go "mummy's grandpa"). And I was right to make this decision as when I first lay sight on his body, I'm also shocked.

He had been already been skinnier for the past year, and the past few months, his body was getting very thin, close to skeletal (he had not been eating in the last few months). And what laid in the coffin before me, was a very close description of a skeleton. His eye sockets had already sucken in and so did whatever cheeks he had left. I was surprised because he was not looking like this when I saw him a week back.

Although his face doesn't look like the man we may know, he was dressed handsomely in his own suit (with a vest) which he wore in the very same church when my parents were married there 34 years ago. I got to see his suit the next day when the undertakers came to replenish the dry ice in the coffin (this is something I would like to blog on one day, as in these undertakers' job). The rest of us who have not seen his full body yet got to see him today before his body was brought into church and where each of us left a flower on him.

Before I move on, let me share on something, one of my weaknesses. I'm scared of death (as you all already know) and also of ghosts. Although I've had encounters with ghosts, I am still terrified with these matters and this is why I totally avoid ghost movies. I also do not like funerals (who does?!) and you can say that I am scared of them due to it being related to death and perhaps ghosts.

So when I went into the parlour alone (at that time, there were a few people around and they were sitting outside of the parlour), I was scared but I felt the need to and this overcome my weakness. Although I was shocked with how Grandpa looked, I remained there and cried and was picturing the Grandpa I once knew, the happy memories of a healthier him. I think I stood there for several minutes until I realized a tear of mine dropped on his coffin and hence, broke the trance. I turned away and realized that hubby came into the parlour with the girl so I walked to them.

We hung out there for a bit and then left. That night, as I mentioned before I could not sleep well. I was in between sad and scared at the same time. For the record, when I posted previously that I kept hearing Grandpa's voice telling me not to be scared and all, it was not as if he was there by my side kind of thing. It is like the inner voice you hear in your head. Grandpa had, numerous times, advised me on many things in my life when I was growing up and I pretty much know his style so when I was worried and scared, I usually will ask myself what will Grandpa has to say about it. I need to make this clear as my sister was telling me "what-la, grandpa talking to you and all?" after reading that post. :p

Anyhow, the next day which was yesterday (the second day after Grandpa's death), I also got to know that many of us couldn't sleep that night either. My young cousin sister, Natalie told me that she had to sleep with her mom as she was scared (reminded me of myself when my paternal grandmother passed away when I was 16 and I had to sleep in the same bed as my sister as I was scared like hell). I asked her what is she scared of and she replied "Ghost". I told her what is there to be scared off since she didn't do Grandpa any wrong (I told her this because this was exactly what my sister told me when I told her I was scared just before I arrived at the parlour...haha). I asked my mom whether she was scared as she also couldn't sleep and replied "Scared?! No-lah, sad-la of course, what is there to be scared of?!".

Back to the wake, I missed the prayers on the first night as I was in between entertaining the girl and other non-christians guests. So on the second night, I joined the prayers. We are blessed that Grandpa has Catholic neighbours and friends that assisted us with the wake and the funeral. They also lead the prayers. I am not a Catholic but I consider myself familiar (mostly) with it since I was raised in one (not fully and thoroughly of course) as I did spend most of my childhood days in Grandpa's house. I am not 100% (not even half of that) well versed in the prayers and I do get lost when I attend services in church or in prayer gatherings. And in Grandpa's wake and funeral service, I was totally lost. I do not know when to response and also what to say and there were alot of "Hail Mary's" and "Our Father" verses said over and over again like in any other services.

I like the wake and funeral, it was peaceful. And luckily, the songs were easy to follow. At least I can sing along to the words printed in the books. I've only been to a Catholic funeral once, my great grandmother's. This was just 3 weeks before I delivered Rye Li and her funeral was a sweet and short one, with everything done in 1 day.

So Grandpa's can be considered my second one and I very much like the way it went. The church service was held at 10am this morning, in the church of course. But before that, we had a personal one, some prayers for him done in the parlour before he was moved into the church. Too bad that the priest who lead the service wasn't to clear in his sermon so I couldn't capture mostly what he had to say other than what he read from the book which we all also had. I was mostly looking around and capturing as much as I could with what was going on.

The girl was sitting 2 rows behind me in the first half of the service. I didn't want to sit with her as I know she will want my attention. She behaved very well, sitting with her papa, observing around her till she got bored and asked for me. So I went and sat with them halfway. I am proud of her since this was her very first church service and she knew how to behave. Even throughout the wake (the last 2 nights, I brought her there after the nursery), she was very well behaved, of course, with the occasional questions of wanting me to carry her.

When the church service was over, we had to adjourn to the crematorium in PJ so I decided to drop the girl off at the nursery (which was on the way) before heading there. I thought it was the very same crematorium place in which my great grandmother was also cremated. When hubby and I arrived there, the place was empty but I noticed my uncles's cars were parked there. I walked around but couldn't find anybody and my phone calls to my brother and mother were unanswered. The people who worked there saw us wandering and when we asked them where were the people, they said that they were next door (where the chinese funeral parlour were). I didn't think that they would be there initially as I knew it was a Chinese funeral parlour. Also, I wasn't aware that there was another crematorium in there.

So by the time I actually found the crowd, Grandpa was already 'sent in'. They had a quick prayer and a last song sang (Amazing Grace). I was sad that I missed it but hubby consoled me by saying that perhaps it was meant to be and it was for the best as I would be even sadder should I be there during the 'sent off'. I just missed it by several minutes coz by the time I saw my brother and cousin (who recorded the whole thing), they were tearing. I chose not to see the recording.

I did take some pictures of the funeral, not inside the coffin of course (my cousin did) but on the overall look. Grandpa's coffin between the beautiful flowers he had received and also when we had the service inside the church. I wish I can put them up here but I have problems uploading photos in this site as they easily get distorted. And I've not figured how to link them from other photo sites yet. Perhaps one day when I've figured it out, I will as there is an old picture of Grandpa that I like very much, a cute picture of him that belongs to my cousin which I managed to capture on my camera.

In Grandpa's words "Life goes on, don't worry about me. I am alright, I am happy that I got to see my great grandchildren and all are well. You all take care and move on. I love you all"

I like the last song sang in the church today and the chorus is still ringing in my head...I'm dedicating the chorus to Grandpa as I do hope to see him one day when my time comes.

"In the sweet bye and bye, till we meet on that beautiful shore"

No longer with us

Grandpa has left us, yesterday morning. I am happy that he is no longer suffering and that this is what he has been waiting for since July. And yet, I’m deeply saddened that I no longer have the Grandpa I have known my whole life.

I am feeling guilty as well. I wanted to update on him over the long weekend, how he has lived to see our 50 year’s celebration. Wanted to share that Grandpa was my age when our country first got its independence 50 years ago and that I was wondering whether I will still be around 50 years from now, like Grandpa’s age.

I’m also feeling sorry that I didn’t get to see him over this weekend. Honestly, I didn’t feel the need to.

I got to know that they stopped giving him the drip last Thursday yesterday from my mom and I was telling her “why didn’t you tell me?” coz I would have gone to see him. I know that once the drip is taken away (he has not been eating already), he will have that little days or weeks left.

I’m also feeling guilty that I wanted to update on him over this weekend but my own work got the better of me.

While I’m feeling guilty and sorry the whole time yesterday after I heard the news, and while I’m disturbed the whole night by this (I couldn’t sleep well), I kept hearing Grandpa’s voice “Don’t feel sorry, what is there to feel sorry?”.

And while I’m also feeling disturbed with death and that I’m also feeling scared (it’s the end of the ghost month yesterday), I also kept hearing Grandpa’s voice “No need to be scared as there is nothing to be scared off”.

The last I saw Grandpa was over a week ago, over the long weekend we had. We spent several hours there, just before we picked my in-laws from the bus station. My Grandma cooked assam laksa (a Malaysian dish and also one of my favourites) that day.

Grandpa called out “Rye Li” so many times when he knew it was us that visiting him. That’s just him. It’s not easy for him to talk and yet he will for the sake of us. I also joked with him that he has lived to see our country celebrating its 50 years.

He asked for cold coffee when I was there and I fed him that through the syringe (like how you would feed a baby medicine). I think he only drank 2 tablespoon of coffee. My aunt told me that it was good that he asked for this as he wasn’t eating already then. She also said that it was a miracle that he was still alive and I told her that it was due to the glucose drip (this is how the coma patients can live for years although they are not consuming food).

Anyway, I just wanted to update on this for today. This will not be the end of my stories for Grandpa, there’s a whole lot more.

I will update on the funeral soon, something I also want to share on. The funeral will be tomorrow.