only one life, live it

Thursday morning last week, there was a loud banging on my next-door neighbour’s front door. It was still dark. A few aunties from the neighbourhood were yelling outside. In my half sleep I still knew something was not right. Huang-mama would have been with the aunties- her taichi and hangout buddies. Why were they making so much noise outside her house?

I took off my earplugs and heard them calling “Ah Yong’s son!! Wake Up!!”. Curiouser.

I woke my mom up as she has Huang-mama’s home number. The phone rang and rang but no one picked up.

It was about time for my other next-door neighbour, Auntie Wong, to join the din. I would be surprised if she was not there. Mom and Auntie Wong found out that Huang-mama took a sudden fall during taichi, and white foam came out of her mouth. I thought it was seizure….

Mom and Auntie Wong went to SJMC, someone got a hold of Uncle Huang. It turned out, Huang-mama had a stroke. A blood vessel broke and blood flooded her brains. She was transfer to KLGH, where they drained the blood but did not operate.

Huang-mama went into coma and never woke up. Uncle Huang told mom she passed away this afternoon just before five.

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Monday before that was my first day back at work. Granddad was cremated on Sunday and I drove back soon after the cremation. As I was getting into the car, Huang-mama called me. She had collected our mails from the week when we were away. We also always give her a set of our house-keys for any just-in-case. She apologized she was not around to collect the registered mail for me- I said it is OK, I will go to the post depot.

“How is your granddad?”
“Oh, he passed away already. The cremation was yesterday”
“Wow, so quickly!”

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I like Huang-mama a lot. I won’t share my life story with her because all the aunties she was friends with. But I like her a-whole-lot more than Auntie Wong. Not that I dislike Auntie Wong, but it’s just the wavelength problem.

Auntie Wong is always at her front yard doing something. I thought she was always trying to ambush us into a conversation and she can get quite personal. She once told my sister, when she was 16 (repeat, 16), that a girl do not need to pursue a career, only a nice man that will take care of her. Sis smartly just smiled and said she needed to go to college.

I always try to get into the car in a seemingly hurried manner. Auntie Wong actually has a daughter my brother’s age and a son my sis’ age. So it’s not like she has no one to bother. In fact, her daughter has been going out with this guy for some months now. I know because his car always blocks our parking spot. One day as I was in the kitchen, I heard Auntie Wong humming the Wedding March!! I told sis it must have been her dream come true to have her daughter almost settled down so young in life. A nice young man to take care of her!

I digress.

Huang-mama was a good cook. I like her cooking. I used to go to her house for lunch all through high school. When mom was discharged from the hospital and could not cook, we catered from Huang-mama and I actually looked forward to coming home for dinner.

Huang-mama babysat my sister for years. That’s how we called her Huang-mama. My sister was so close to her that Sis was like the daughter Huang-mama never had. The first person I thought of when I knew about Huang-mama was my sis.

Huang-mama was very pretty. She was 66 but she looked 56. Or younger. She showed me pictures of herself as a young girl before. She was indeed a very beautiful girl. And I had wondered how Uncle Huang managed to get her. She also showed me a newspaper clipping of a half-man half-fish that was found near her hometown in Kemaman, Terengganu. She had kept that picture.

They have two grown up sons, both older than I. The younger son is the cuter one. But the last time I saw him was over ten years ago. He left for the States seven years back and before that, I was in the States. He recently got married, last November, and Huang-mama and Uncle Huang went over for his wedding. That was the first time in seven years they were united.
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It turned out that the ‘stroke’ was not one. The doctor said Huang-mama could have died twenty years ago. That blood vessel was leaking. So very little by little, and it took its toll last Thursday.

Uncle Huang is now left with his eldest son who isn’t a very good son (not saying he is a bad person but Huang-mama used to complain about him). He must love her so much. She was one of those very few lovable people- very easy to love.

I will miss seeing her in the morning when I go to work. I will miss the noisy chatter of her friends at the door. I will miss her asking the little boy she babysat to wave at ‘jie-jie’

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What can I say that two sudden deaths don’t already say?

The REAL 3G

Let me tell you about the real third generation.

They are the ones who would take care of the first generation when the second generation are overwhelmed by emotions and lost capabilities of being normal.

They are the ones who would clean the whole house up in the denouement.

They are the ones who would tell jokes and a make fools of themselves to make others laugh.

They are the ones who cry the very last, when all else is done.

The ones you leave behind

The night before, Lee Hui and I were talking and I wondered what couldn’t granddad let go? He was home already, no longer in the hospital. My brother, Yeng Yee, and Yeng Hou’s sister, Yee Wen, had said their goodbyes through the phone from UK. Did Yee Wen ask granddad to wait for her?

Yeng Yee and Yee Wen are both working in Reading and Manchester respectively. They decided to come home even if they could not see the last of granddad. They reached Chemor past 10pm last night, in time for the rites in the last night of the wake.

Actually, granddad was indeed waiting for someone. While Lee Hui and I were in the hospital, a great-grand uncle of ours came to visit. He is granddad’s uncle. Granddad has been searching for this lost uncle for some time and they recently found each. Granddad finally let go moments after this great-grand uncle left. Though he is granddad’s uncle, he is only 84, two years older than granddad.

He looks like granddad. So I couldn’t look at him for long.

He also has the blue ring around the iris of his eyes, like granddad (like Sayuri of Memoirs of the Geisha). He came with his wife once to the hospital, once at home, and was there all three days of the wake. He lives on some other part of Perak state past Ipoh and they both took two different busses to get to Chemor.

I wonder what it is like to watch people around you die, one by one.

But I can tell you what it is like to eat and swallow while crying. I found out what it was like when I was about 14. I had told my parents I became a Christian and they both took turns to deride me and my faith- always at the dinner table. This time, though, it was not me. It was grandma.

I can tell you that the food tastes like nothing. You only taste the saltiness of your own tears.

I worry about grandma.

“Who is going to cut my nails now? I cannot lift my right arm from the fall the last time, you know. And ye-ye always turns on the hot shower for me because I couldn’t reach the heater”.

I cut her nails for her. And rubbed the thit-ta-yao (traditional Chinese medicine for aches) on her ankles and massaged her calves. But what when I am not there? And for how long can I do things like that? I do not have granddad’s devotion and faithfulness.

The Penultimate

Granddad didn’t make it for the weekend. He lost all responses to the outside world on Wednesday. Auntie Lai Mooi called in the morning to say the doctors said there was nothing more they could do and we should be prepared for the worst- please have your relatives home as soon as possible.

I couldn’t get Lee Hui so I called Chun. His response was much swifter than I expected- he called Lee Hui, who just reached her office, and hurried her home. He was back in Klang in a half-hour and told his boss he would not come back to work until the next Wednesday. Strange that he only brought one change of clothing.

I called Yeng Hou, who also reached Auntie Lai Keen's house in a 1/2 hour.

I called Auntie Lai Keen at the kindergarten- I feared to call her the most, but Auntie Lai Mooi took the easier task of calling Uncle You Ming and my dad.

I called Miin Lyn, Auntie Lai Keen's 17 year old daughter who just finished her SPM, and who was still sleeping. I asked her to get Jack home from school.

We all got to the hospital before 2 pm. All of us from the Klang Valley, and dad from Taiping. It was the first time I saw grandma cry, and cried like a little girl. She really did.

“Fong, we’ve been together for so many years. You want to leave me alone now?”

At her insistence we had granddad discharged. The nurses taught Lee Hui and I how to feed granddad through the tubes. The oxygen tank and mask, the tubes and the medication all came back with us.

Lee Hui and I fed his night meal and medicines at 10pm. We turned his position at 2 am. And fed him again at 6am. Auntie Lai Keen and Auntie Lai Mooi were all nerves. They jumped at every little movement. The men were as usual, incapable of much. Granddad’s breathing was getting more difficult despite the oxygen mask, and his fever came back. Lee Hui and I wiped him with cold water and towels.

At 10 am, we prepared his meal again- Ensure milk powder. I drew the syringe at the end of his feeding tube and instead of just air; it was undigested milk and blood.

The second generation was in tears. I called the doctor and he told us what to do, and to come into the hospital for medication to heal granddad’s tummy.

Lee Hui and I went to the hospital after draining the liquid from his stomach. Our cousin Yeng Hou kept watch.

Yeng Hou also grew up with granddad and grandma. He could not accept what happened to granddad. I also watched this 23-year old six footer crunch up and weep openly. His whole body rocked and he said while he wept. “I don’t want to see granddad suffer and die. I don’t want to see him this way! I don’t want him to go at all!”

Yeng Hou and Jack are the family clowns. Yeng Hou would always say funny things in front of granddad and make fun of him. Granddad’s only expression would be to smile while he continued his exercise of swinging his hands and walking back and forth the house.

We got the medication. The doctor asked if we would like to arrange for a nurse to visit our home everyday. Of course! While making arrangements for that, Auntie Lai Mooi called- could we bring a nurse immediately? Granddad’s breathing was getting very thin and his body was turning cold.

As we walked with a nurse to the parking lot, granddad breathed his last.

I love you

Granddad, let me tell you stories. I’ll tell you about studying in US.

I lived with four other girls in one apartment. Everyday from Monday to Friday, we each took turns to cook dinner. It gets very cold in Iowa. In winter, it can get as low as -40’F. It is especially cold when there is a blizzard. You have to walk sideways or backward because when the wind blows, it hurts your eyes and your nose.

But it is very beautiful after a snowfall. Everything is covered in serene white. And when you walk, you can see your own foot steps on the snow. You can also sit on a garbage bag and slide down the slopes on your bum.

Then comes spring. Spring is lovely. The wind starts to warm up a little. One day, a little shoot will spring up from the ground. The next day when you walk past the same route, it grows a little taller. Then a bud comes out. You know it is a flower and you get a little excited. The next day, the bud grows bigger and taller. Then a flower blooms. And when the tulip grows and opens up big and wide, you know summer is coming.

Spring is lovely. Flowers bloom before the leaves can grow and there is fragrance in the air.

Granddad, that is how heaven is like. It is beautiful. And you will have no pains. Will you call Jesus to lead you there?

You wanna know about studying in London? London is exciting. I love London. In London, the best brains of the world meet. People from Africa, India, Americas, Asia, Australasia, everywhere, come to London. You meet people of all ethnicity but we all spoke English. It’s very fun.

Heaven is like that. There will be people from all backgrounds and all colours. But it is ok because everyone will speak the same language and can understand each other. It will be fun.

Please speak in your heart to Jesus. Ask him to be your Saviour and take you to heaven.

Ye-ye, I love you.


Granddad has been falling in and out of consciousness. Mostly he is unconscious. He sleeps. Even snores. But that has been for the past five days. He gets into a fever at night and in the morning.

The cardiologist and the neurologist say that the strokes should not cause this state. It must be another cause. Infection, probably of the lungs or the urinary tract. A blood sample has been taken for culture. Auntie Lai Mooi says today they took his saliva sample (I wonder how they did this considering he has been breathing through his mouth the last five days using the oxygen mask). The cultures take three days to show any bacterial growth. The doctor says if there is bacterial growth in his blood, depending on the seriousness of infection, they would not be able to do anything anymore. Granddad has been on antibiotics the last five days.

He is a fighter. Which makes it the more heart wrenching. He is fighting. Can he win? Is he wondering why he is not making progress?

Thank you for all your prayers and concern. Please continue to uphold him in your prayers.

I fell short of asking him to repeat the prayer of salvation with me. I didn’t dare. I was afraid he might not squeeze my hand (his only form of communication when conscious). I was afraid he would reject Christ. I will be bolder this weekend. But I ache to think he will be suffering throughout this week, and beyond.

Tonight will be the first night no one is sleeping next to Granddad.

Father, please keep ye-ye warm as the ward can get very cold. Please let the nurses be sensitive to his sounds and movements. Please relieve him of his fever and pain. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

A sort-of love story

There are two chairs at the back of the living hall. I call it a hall because my grandparents’ kampong house has an immensely large living area. My grandparents sit on those chairs all the time. They especially enjoyed doing that when we are all home. The sit there quietly, listening to our chatter and observing us. And I observe them. And hope that there will always be both, together.

On the second day he was hospitalized (yesterday), Auntie Lai Keen drove back to Ipoh. She brought grandma to the hospital. After some hours, she told granddad that grandma should go home and rest. Granddad started to cry. I have never seen granddad cry.

This morning, grandma told Auntie Lai Keen that granddad would use the massager and massager her shoulders. Nobody had done that in two days and her shoulders had gone stiff. Auntie Lai Keen started to tear again when she told me that just now.

You see, my grandparents are the most loving couple in my whole family. All their children could not emulate that in their own marriages.

And you know, my grandparents almost didn’t marry each other. They weren’t supposed to.

My aunties always tease my granddad about marrying the wrong girl. The occasion of their marriage was not all clear. Apparently, granddad was supposed to marry someone called Loke Mooi. I supposed he never met that girl he was supposed to marry. But he ended up with my grandma.

Grandma told me once, long ago, that she wouldn’t know what would have happened to her if she did not marry my grandfather. Grandma came for the kind of poverty you only see in olden Chinese drama series. She was never educated and she could not read or count (but boy, has good memory). She patched her clothes with pieces of cloths. Her mother died before she turned a teenager. Her dad was killed by the Japanese.

She told me once, her brother got a job as a seamstress (can men be called seamstress?) in a hospital. He had to made uniforms in white. He took the left over white pieces of clothes and made a dress for my grandmother. She was ecstatic. A dress! In white! Unfortunately, the material creases quite a bit. “But you know, if you lay down the dress neatly under your mattress and sleep on it, you flatten out the creases,” she said. And when she went around in the white dress, she said she got lots of compliments. “Wah.. Ah Moi, you look so pretty!” Grandma would laugh even as she tells me that (she told me this story a few times before)

Granddad on the other hand, never told stories. Not that we did not ask.

But everybody looked up to him. He had two years of primary education. His grandfather came from China and he was a tutor. He had one son- my granddad’s father- who was a useless person and an opium addict. So my great-great-granddad raised my granddad and his only elder sister.

Granddad, before this stroke, reads the Chinese newspaper diligently everyday. He educated himself. He even knows some English words! He worked for the Straits Timber Company and I think they had buyers/ suppliers from overseas and spoke English. So granddad picked up technical terms in English.

Actually, he did tell me stories. In an even longer time ago. I only remember that he worked at odd jobs to begin with. He even worked in a quarry and he said he once climbed the limestone hills of Ipoh to cut marble!

Granddad built his own family. The house on Jalan Jelapang Chemor was completely rebuilt by him. That’s where I grew up for the first five years of my life when my parents were too poor to care for me in KL. Granddad was generous with his relatives. He was not rich but he managed to send my dad to India to study engineering. He was even going to send my second uncle to UK, but the academic inclination stopped at the eldest son (my dad).

Grandma’s life, of course, transformed when she married granddad. They were strangers!!!

She never knew how to cook because she was never taught, she said. So my granddad’s aunties took her under their wings and educated her from scratch. Grandma remains one of the best cooks I know. Some of her dishes have no competition. None of my aunties cook as well.

A few years back, granddad’s car broke down and was left at the workshop for a few days. My grandparents go out for breakfast every morning (yum cha). I remember calling Chemor at that time and had a chat with grandma. I think I was in London. I asked her how would they go yum-cha when ye-ye’s car is in the workshop? Ah-ma said “we got on the bicycle”. And did I laugh!

Grandma is actually quite spoilt. By all of us. She laments on small pains and worries constantly. She goes to the doctor every few weeks. Granddad never complains. He dutifully drives her to Ipoh to see the doctor and dutifully returns to get her medicine. He attends to all her whims.

Grandma fusses over granddad. When I was a little girl, she made him his SunQuick orange juice everyday so that it was ready whenever he comes back from work. I would hide behind a wall of the house and try to ‘scare’ granddad as he gets out of the car. He let me scare him and sometimes carried me into the house. Then I would bring him his glass of juice and grandma would tell me to be careful. Each time. He gulps it down. Each time.

Now she makes him his Milo. She nags him about drinking too much liqueur (but only because it is the form of endearment she knows).

Auntie Lai Keen said grandma never shed a tear since granddad was hospitalised. I said grandma has had lots of time to think. Everyday, as she sits on her lazy chair. She thinks.

We asked grandma to come to KL for a visit, many times. She says she needs to take care of her chickens. She has no chickens now because she can’t walk well. She still refuses to come. We would tease her for not telling the real reason- she just wants to be with my granddad. To spend every little moment they have together, together.

Prayer for Granddad

Father in heaven,

Please send your angels to watch over my granddad. Please give insight and knowledge to the doctors and nurses to make the right diagnosis and give the right treatment.

Father please hold granddad in your arms and keep him from harm. I pray you will cover him with the blood of Christ- the blood of Christ that heals and protects. I pray you will also have mercy and lead granddad to salvation. Please speak to his heart and his mind about the things of heaven, about your love for him, and Christ’s love for him. Please comfort him and let his mind not be confused. Arrest his worries and bad thoughts and fill his mind with your light and his heart with your peace.

Please send your angels to watch over grandma who is at home alone also. Please guard her mind from thinking about negative things. Speak to her, also, Lord. Appear to her whether in thoughts or in form and invite her into your Kingdom. And I pray Lord, you will be faithful to your promises.

You put me into this family and you saved me. I am the only one to pray for the whole family. But I know without me, no one else will, and this is part of your plan. You love my family and you put me here for them. Be faithful now Lord, and exercise you power and salvation on every member of my family. Extend to them your grace and mercy and write their names in your Book of Life.

Holy Spirit, please go into my grandparent’s home and wash away all that is not of Christ and The Father. Cleanse all the spirits that hold and harm in the name of Christ. And turn every heart of the member of my family to Christ.

I am praying Lord. Please hear from heaven and answer.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.