Painful chapter

Before I start my next string of ramblings, I would just like to say thanks to everybody who fortunately or unfortunately chances upon my blog and takes some of their time to read it. Though this is more of a platform for me to relief myself of my emotions, I still hope my writings can to a small extent be part of your life. I just added a counter at the side to keep track of how many people pass by but just ignore it. Also, I added my picture not to make the blog prettier (I know I don't look nice) but to let anybody who chances upon this blog at least know who I am. Well, on to my next story.

Rather than say what follows is a story, I would prefer to call it a chapter simply because it is a chapter in my life-book. I have said excerpts from this chapter a few times before on this blog but never the whole of it so I thought it would be good if I could come clean with it. To me, it is the most painful chapter in my life even till now or metaphorically as a human, it is the biggest wound I have that festers even up till today. This chapter is about my paternal grandmother or more affectionately known as Ah Ma.

From the time I was born, I was brought up by my paternal grandmother. My earliest childhood memories were of myself at my grandmother's house playing around with my other cousins. This arrangement was most probably due to my parents' busy work schedule and as such I was given the chance to grow up under the care of Ah Ma. My grandmother wasn't young already then and taking care of a baby was definitely not a easy task. To add on to her burden, I was born not only an extremely mischievous child but also an extremely sickly child. I couldn't eat sweets, chocolates, ice-cream or any cold drinks or you would see a kid coughing so badly you thought he was afflicted with tuberculosis. When I slept, I could not turn on the fans or aircon and had to place a pillow over my chest to keep it warm on top of a blanket. I can't even keep track of how many times I had seen a doctor during my childhood for cough. All this carried on even till my primary school days.

Well, back to where I trailed off ... yes, imagine an old lady looking after a toddler like this. I cannot imagine how much of a burden I was to her during my childhood years. Yet I never once heard her complain that I was a burden to her. She always held that caring and kind expression and looked upon me as though I was her greatest treasure. I just had to say I like popiah and the next day she would trudge down to the wet market and buy bags of ingredients back to make so much popiah my entire family had to eat it for three meals everyday for a week. I even ungratefully used to complain that she was always overdoing it but this was all her way of showing how much she loved me. I was just SOO childish then. I really didn't see it this way, the way I should have seen it.

She loved to make blankets for my entire family. She would often bring me along to a cloth shop and buy bolts of cloth. Then she would cut them up into triangles and sew them back together into a beautiful masterpiece. This would then be sewed onto a piece of velvet and they would be the perfect thing to shield us from the cold. As we used the blankets, they became softer and softer and that made them all the more nicer to use. Each blanket spoke of her hard work, her care for us and her love. All these old blankets were thrown away when I moved house as they were all tattered and torn and how I wish I had left one behind.

Continuing on, my grandma slowly became sickly when I entered primary school. I didn't know what she was down with then. All I knew was that she was sick and as such I rarely got to see her. I knew she was in the hospital often yet I was never brought there to visit her. Then, one faithful day when I was 10 years old, my mum told me that grandma had passed away. At that very instant, I actually didn't feel anything. Maybe it was because I hadn't seen grandma for too long and her sudden absence didn't make any difference. I just acknowledged this reality and prepared myself to attend her wake.

I remember her wake was held at a void deck and when I arrived, I saw some of my cousins sitting on chairs wiping their tears. I thought to myself then that there was really no need to cry so much. However, the greatest mockery happened within minutes as I walked over to the coffin to look at my grandma's body. As I saw grandma's pale body resting inside the coffin, tears just instinctively started dropping. There was no feeling of sadness yet I didn't know why I was crying. Just minutes ago I was thinking that my cousins were over-reacting yet then I was crying uncontrollably. For that day, everytime the image of grandma's body passed through my mind, the tears would magically appear from thin air and make their way down my cheeks.

Yet kids are still kids and they recover very quickly. The next day I was up and cheery again even playing carom with my cousins as the wake grew "boring" for me. My aunt then walked over to me and passed me a bowl of spare ribs cooked in some reddish-black sauce and told me to eat up. To be frank, I never really liked spare ribs but I don't know why they had the impression that I did. However, I had to be polite so I just gave the excuse that I was full and pushed the bowl to my dad. My aunt firmly intercepted the bowl and returned it before me. She told me gently yet firmly that my grandma's last wish on her death bed was to have been able to cook this spare ribs for me one more time. She didn't manage to realise her wish and so my aunt completed it on her behalf.

My mind went blank at that moment. You must know, my grandma had 7 children and 15 grandchildren and there could be 101 things she wanted to do. Yet her last wish was simply to be able to cook this bowl of spare ribs not for anybody else but for her most mischievous and unfilial grandchild. All she wanted to do was but to make me happy in a way she thought I would be even if I didn't like eating spare ribs. I quietly pulled over the bowl and bit into the spare ribs which were immersed in the murky sauce. I took chunks after chunks of the meat of it till the bones were ripped bare and as I tried my best to swallow every morsel, tears dropped into the bowl. I didn't bother to wipe my tears and continued eating as though there was nobody around. All I knew at that moment was that no matter how I didn't like spare ribs, no matter how full I was, I had to finish up the food. It was no longer just a bowl of spare ribs, it was a symbol of love and my grandmother's last wish. I can never forget how I felt when I knew what my grandmother's last wish was. Even up till today, whenever I think of this bowl of spare ribs, tears still uncontrollably make their way down my face.

After the wake was over, I recovered to my old cheery self almost immediately. However, everybody needs a grieving process for the wound to heal . All I did was to cover it immediately and of course it never got to heal. Slowly, this wound started to fester and rot and of course the pain it brought along with it increased exponentially too. Even till today, my heart cringes everytime I think about my grandma and just saying a few sentences about her brings tears to my eyes. Her death was a wound that never healed properly to me. I am left to painfully wallow in this debt of love I have to her. This is all retribution for me as I never learnt to return the love she gave to me. Even up till today, my grandma is still the lady I love the most in my entire love above my sis, my mum and definitely my future wife. Nobody is able to take her place for as long as I live, her love runs in my blood.

From her, I learnt how to look at the good side of people. I learnt how to appreciate rather than complain and to look at the good intentions of things people do even if the actions don't turn out all that fancifully. I never appreciated anything my grandma did for me be it the food she cooked, the blankets she sewed or the tender loving care she showered on me. Yet when I learnt all these, it was too late, the chance has been lost forever. Sometimes, thinking of all these lost chances give me the impulse to do something nice for my family and friends which seem so out of the blue. Maybe my grandma meant for all these love that I never managed to give her to be transferred to my family and friends.

It has been 10 years since she has passed away as I am about to turn 20 in about 2 months time. Frankly speaking I can barely remember how my grandma looks now but I can never forget how my grandma loved me. Her love flows in my blood and my actions and I really hope that she is well wherever she may be now. She died of stomach cancer when I was 10 and sometimes I have this wish that I can die of stomach cancer when I am old too. At least this way I can share something in common with her and pay back this retribution for how unfilial I was.

I love you Ah Ma.

Comments and Suggestions

From my knowledge I know there are a little teeny weeny bit more people viewing my blog here now so just wanted to say that if you all have any suggestions and comments on how I can better my stories or just want to drop a greeting in general, feel free to leave a comment at my entries. Thanks!