there's a place for us
my grandmother is getting older and it's making her forgetful, and uncertain of herself. sometimes i think she's becoming child-like - inquisitive, unaware of what's going on around her. and when she realises that the world is passing on by, faster and faster, she gets frightened, just like a child lost in vivo city on a crowded saturday afternoon. that's when she searches, reaches for my hand - and as much as it is trying for me to always take it, whether to lead her carefully up and down stairs, to cross the road, i accept it, tightening my grip around her smooth, small, fleshy palm. almost like a child's palm, only when you look down you see how wrinkled it is, that and the wedding band tightening the flesh on her fourth left finger betraying the fact that the prime of her life is over, not just beginning, never mind the slew of aphorisms about "life beginning at 60" and such like.
we had a malaysian family holiday - i secretly think we've had too many malaysian family holidays but i cannot tell my father this - like this recent one when i was nine. i remember lying in bed next to my grandmother late one night in a hotel room in genting, looking through the open window and thinking about her dying. and i felt tears come to my eyes, because then, it was a sad thought. it meant that there would be no more grandma to buy lukas and i snacks at tea-time, no more grandma to come to in the middle of the night because the dark threatened to consume you whole. i remember i used to launch myself off my bed and hurtle towards the faint glimmer of her night-light, heart beating tremendously fast and only going back to normal when i'd managed to wake her up and convince her to sleep on the roll-out bed in my room. there would be no more grandma for da-yi-por and er-yi-por to visit from china, and thus no more treats from china when they came. and when i was 13 and unable, simply unable to tell my mum about my first boyfriend, my grandmother was the first person i thought to tell, the only one i thought who would understand.
i was flipping through the first post-secret coffee table book with josh and joe some saturdays ago, and this, i suppose, would be my great post-secret: now, when i think of my grandmother dying, i feel a peculiar sense of relief. i'll be sad, of course, and i will miss her. but i will be relieved - and happy. after all, they say, christian deaths are but the beginning of Life. and i think it's better for her to move on, because, as cruel as it sounds, it sometimes seems that there is no more room for her here with us.
in my heart of hearts i will admit that it may simply be that i'm selfish, and i'm tired of looking after her. tired of always having to be the one to watch out for her when we go out together as a family - she has a bad knee and walks very slowly, and i'm generally a fast walker - tired of having to give in to her and put her needs above my own.
like the time i was eating the dark chocolate my father brought home from berlin - 70% cocoa solids and made with only three ingredients, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and cane sugar; not available in singapore - when she asked if she could have a bit of it. i did give her some, but oh, so grudgingly. i had wanted to say no, and had felt annoyed that i had to give her some, because i felt she wouldn't be able to appreciate it and it would be wasted on her. or when she arrives in the living room after a show has started and i have to interrupt my viewing of it to tell her what's going on, even though i feel she never quite gets it anyway.
also, she takes what seems to be an eternity in the bathroom, whether she's using the toilet or showering, and it's hard to be patient when i'm in a rush to wash-up or i have a bit of a tummyache. for a while she would tell me to just come in if she was using the toilet and i needed to wash my hands, but i decided a while back that i would stop doing that, if only to preserve her dignity, no matter that it inconveniences me. and there were (and still are) times when she'll simply walk into the bathroom to retrieve her face-towel or wash her hands when i'm using the toilet. i've taken to locking the bathroom door and pretending not to hear her entreating me to open it, albeit rather guiltily. what do you want me to do?
but the thing that gets to me the most is her reaction to the world as it is today. it annoys me, i think, because it breaks my heart. like the tsktsk she made when she saw a clip of a beyonce performance on a wide-screen television on sale in giant in jb - one of her suggestive ones, with a bevy of back-up dancers as scantily clad as herself. she tsktsks at matters which we've come to accept as the de facto state of things: explicit sex scenes and violence on television; beauty pageants, reality contests and the glorification of false ideas of perfection and vanity, backstabbing and meanness respectively. i can't quite face watching such things with her around. it's not really because she exudes silent disapproval - maybe this is what cuts the most, because i don't think we should accept these things either, and they've made the world a less safe, less peaceful place, bringing humanity further and further away from God's grace. and it makes me feel guilty that i go on watching it if there's nothing better to do, and because i do think i'm mature enough not to be affected by it any longer. but what of the generation after me? and is this really the, a world for which men have fought and given up their lives for? we all want world peace, but what are we doing to preserve our own?
she has lived through a war, fallen into a well and scrambled out alive. she has brought up two sons single-handedly, and she still does volunteer work. however human she is, however frail old age has made her, has brought out her foibles, she has lived. and she has, in her own way, as part of her generation, fought for everything we enjoy - and abuse - today. she doesn't deserve to be this terribly lonely, and she deserves my utmost patience and respect. what's it to me to help her across the road, to stop myself from replying her irritably, to let her enjoy washing her hair, enjoy a bit of dark chocolate? nice, not too sweet was her reply that day.
but there you have it. that's life, and i'm getting older too.
"His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." Matthew 25:21, 23.
take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.
my grandmother is getting older and it's making her forgetful, and uncertain of herself. sometimes i think she's becoming child-like - inquisitive, unaware of what's going on around her. and when she realises that the world is passing on by, faster and faster, she gets frightened, just like a child lost in vivo city on a crowded saturday afternoon. that's when she searches, reaches for my hand - and as much as it is trying for me to always take it, whether to lead her carefully up and down stairs, to cross the road, i accept it, tightening my grip around her smooth, small, fleshy palm. almost like a child's palm, only when you look down you see how wrinkled it is, that and the wedding band tightening the flesh on her fourth left finger betraying the fact that the prime of her life is over, not just beginning, never mind the slew of aphorisms about "life beginning at 60" and such like.
we had a malaysian family holiday - i secretly think we've had too many malaysian family holidays but i cannot tell my father this - like this recent one when i was nine. i remember lying in bed next to my grandmother late one night in a hotel room in genting, looking through the open window and thinking about her dying. and i felt tears come to my eyes, because then, it was a sad thought. it meant that there would be no more grandma to buy lukas and i snacks at tea-time, no more grandma to come to in the middle of the night because the dark threatened to consume you whole. i remember i used to launch myself off my bed and hurtle towards the faint glimmer of her night-light, heart beating tremendously fast and only going back to normal when i'd managed to wake her up and convince her to sleep on the roll-out bed in my room. there would be no more grandma for da-yi-por and er-yi-por to visit from china, and thus no more treats from china when they came. and when i was 13 and unable, simply unable to tell my mum about my first boyfriend, my grandmother was the first person i thought to tell, the only one i thought who would understand.
i was flipping through the first post-secret coffee table book with josh and joe some saturdays ago, and this, i suppose, would be my great post-secret: now, when i think of my grandmother dying, i feel a peculiar sense of relief. i'll be sad, of course, and i will miss her. but i will be relieved - and happy. after all, they say, christian deaths are but the beginning of Life. and i think it's better for her to move on, because, as cruel as it sounds, it sometimes seems that there is no more room for her here with us.
in my heart of hearts i will admit that it may simply be that i'm selfish, and i'm tired of looking after her. tired of always having to be the one to watch out for her when we go out together as a family - she has a bad knee and walks very slowly, and i'm generally a fast walker - tired of having to give in to her and put her needs above my own.
like the time i was eating the dark chocolate my father brought home from berlin - 70% cocoa solids and made with only three ingredients, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and cane sugar; not available in singapore - when she asked if she could have a bit of it. i did give her some, but oh, so grudgingly. i had wanted to say no, and had felt annoyed that i had to give her some, because i felt she wouldn't be able to appreciate it and it would be wasted on her. or when she arrives in the living room after a show has started and i have to interrupt my viewing of it to tell her what's going on, even though i feel she never quite gets it anyway.
also, she takes what seems to be an eternity in the bathroom, whether she's using the toilet or showering, and it's hard to be patient when i'm in a rush to wash-up or i have a bit of a tummyache. for a while she would tell me to just come in if she was using the toilet and i needed to wash my hands, but i decided a while back that i would stop doing that, if only to preserve her dignity, no matter that it inconveniences me. and there were (and still are) times when she'll simply walk into the bathroom to retrieve her face-towel or wash her hands when i'm using the toilet. i've taken to locking the bathroom door and pretending not to hear her entreating me to open it, albeit rather guiltily. what do you want me to do?
but the thing that gets to me the most is her reaction to the world as it is today. it annoys me, i think, because it breaks my heart. like the tsktsk she made when she saw a clip of a beyonce performance on a wide-screen television on sale in giant in jb - one of her suggestive ones, with a bevy of back-up dancers as scantily clad as herself. she tsktsks at matters which we've come to accept as the de facto state of things: explicit sex scenes and violence on television; beauty pageants, reality contests and the glorification of false ideas of perfection and vanity, backstabbing and meanness respectively. i can't quite face watching such things with her around. it's not really because she exudes silent disapproval - maybe this is what cuts the most, because i don't think we should accept these things either, and they've made the world a less safe, less peaceful place, bringing humanity further and further away from God's grace. and it makes me feel guilty that i go on watching it if there's nothing better to do, and because i do think i'm mature enough not to be affected by it any longer. but what of the generation after me? and is this really the, a world for which men have fought and given up their lives for? we all want world peace, but what are we doing to preserve our own?
she has lived through a war, fallen into a well and scrambled out alive. she has brought up two sons single-handedly, and she still does volunteer work. however human she is, however frail old age has made her, has brought out her foibles, she has lived. and she has, in her own way, as part of her generation, fought for everything we enjoy - and abuse - today. she doesn't deserve to be this terribly lonely, and she deserves my utmost patience and respect. what's it to me to help her across the road, to stop myself from replying her irritably, to let her enjoy washing her hair, enjoy a bit of dark chocolate? nice, not too sweet was her reply that day.
but there you have it. that's life, and i'm getting older too.
"His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." Matthew 25:21, 23.
take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.
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