Remembrance

this post, is in memory of my grandfather who passed away on 15 Nov.. he was 85.

he was a man with little words, many times he spoke, were to ask us to eat, have we eaten, u know the usual things grandparents will talk about.. he had a voice which befits his strength at his age.. i stayed with him in our old house for 15 years, he would play masak with us, pretend to eat the food we cooked with the toys, brought us back from school, cook us porridge for lunch, every year birthday he gave us red packets.. and every chinese new year, he donned his black jacket with white singlet and black pants.. thats his standard dressing even when he went marketing. every sunday, he would walk to the corridor to see us off.. and slowly recently, he din and stayed in his room most of the time.. we din even realise that.

he was admitted tues morning after vomitting blood.. most of the time he was in icu, and we could only see him two person a time.. the first day i visited, it was such a heart wrenching sight, to see him in tubes... the beeping of the machine made me even scared becos i'm afraid to do anything that will affect his vital signs.. so sad, his face was pale, he had difficulty breathing.. when we entered the room, his eyes wandered slowly, could see he was very drowsy yet fighting to see us.. the next few days followed. the doc there basically gave us different information on 2 different days, which left us on a rollercoaster ride.. on fri, they took him off ventilator without telling us prior and on the contrary to wut they had said. seems that they have given up on his condition.. in any case, i felt the hosp was rather irresponsible and did a poor job.. during these period, i kept thinking and thinking, grabbing to hold onto wutever memories i have of him, hoping it keeps him alive and to give us strength.. sat night we went back twice to the hosp cos the nurse called saying he's in bad shape, and his breathing wasn't good at all.. but still we hoped he would recover..

he could talk the past few days, and asked us to go back and eat our meals.. he even had strength to pull off the tubes after he was out of icu.. and we had to tie him so he could not disrupt the tubes by himself... on his last day, his eyes kept looking upwards elsewhere, and ask wut time was it.. he kept asking for water.. and after his breathing stabilised, we left.. we tot he was fine, and we kept telling him we will bring him home... while i was asleep, i got the call and i knew it wasn't good.. tts when my dad said my grandpa had passed away in the morning...

after his death, we looked thru his stuff.. he kept a lot of newspaper cuttings on health issues, letters from his late mother which was written ages ago since 1940s-50s... read thru some of them, somehow he seemed like a very sentimental, filial son... we saw his photos of his younger years when he just landed in singapore, and those evoked very fond memories of him as a grandfather to all of us. some stories of him we heard for the first time, some funny ones, some that reminded us of his strength, thriftiness and kindness.. of course we were very very sad and his sudden death was hard to come to terms with, but still, we hope he has gone to a place with no pain or suffering... where someday we might meet again.

`Rest in peace, ah gong.