Was busy packing the whole night on 15 Aug 2007..when my father broke the news to us..Grandmother has passed on..

My paternal grandmother who had been suffering from a weak heart (only one quarter of it was functioning) and diabetes that weakened her legs so much that she cannot move around for long; had to be wheeled around in a wheelchair had moved on after struggling with her sickness for quite some time.

As such, during last weekend, we went up to Ipoh to spend some time with her, as I do not know whether will she still be around by the time I return..

She was a simple woman whose life revolved around her family. She did not like to travel and was contented with simple indulgences such as playing cards and smoking..She was illiterate and started off her life as a rubber tapper when she showed me once how rubber was being taped..it was a hard life where one had to wake up in the wee hours in the morning to make a few cuttings on the tree to let the latex drip into the cup. After which, the backbreaking job of collecting the latex from the cups..tried as hard as I could, I could not get the latex out from the cuts which I had made (in fact, the tree was in danger of being ‘killed’ by me). A rubber tapper’s life is difficult.

She could cook very well and made very good herbal soup and kaya..over the years, as sickness ravaged her body, she relegated this job to the maid..and we did not have the chance to taste her excellent culinary skills. Eventhough she could no longer stand for long in the kitchen, she still fried two eggs for us upon our brother’s request during our last dinner with her in Ipoh..

Although some said that she favoured sons over daughters, I had never felt that her love for me was any lesser from my brother. She constantly lamented on my singlehood and urged me to settle down so that I have someone to take care of me..and she cried whenever she thought about this..I guess that this remained her unfulfilled wish and it stayed as a regret in my heart that I could not let her go in peace.

Grief was a feeling that I had not experienced before..but I know that it’s a feeling of sadness that will not go away..that it will bring tears whenever one thinks about the person…

There is ever this regret that I did not spend enough time to hold her hand, to hug her and talk to her when I had the chance to do so…even the time I spent in Ipoh, I was so concerned that I did not spend enough time on training that I went to train in a nearby hill with my backpack instead of being with her which the rest of my family did. Or that I had wanted to come back earlier to Singapore so as to settle my packing and communications stuff instead of staying on for that few extra hours with her.

Even as I can accept that life still had to move on, lessons had to be learnt, regrets for us to keep, it still does not negate the feelings of sadness and sense of loss that will not go away with the passage of time.