gran

there's no way to start
29.5 five years of memory
where do i start
and alas it's already a blur
for she was the culture in my yogurt, the air in my life
i took her for granted what do you think (what did i think)

some snippets
of me accompanying her to the bone-setting doctor
i guess she was not happy that she was hurt, and had become less agile, and more vulnerable
but i wonder if she was happy with my company - i hope she was because i was too
she used to say that during her young age, when she was on the street (hurrying to somewhere), 佢覺得"成條街D人都阻住佢" (she thought "everyone was in her way"). ha. i could imagine

she was full of energy and was always keeping herself busy
graceful, because she took no shame in "lowly" jobs she took up as an illiterate (selling old newspapers to "recyclers")
full of dignity because i had never seen her losing her confidence (except for when dementia took her)
she must be smart
and so respectful having provided for her four children, and my sister and i the two granddaughters

we were flipping old photos today
they were looking for one to put in the center of the funeral hall
she was one pretty lady
hand / palm on chin posed(!) in front of the camera
the sweetest smile that melts
at some point an einstein-like hairdo
thin

she didn't like being touched
(but did she carry me when i was a kid?)

was it actual incident or was it in my head that she used to put an upside down bowl on my head and did my hair?
me growing up, countless nights of we snuggling up on sofa having dinner just the two of us (or with my sister) while watching television
the steamed shredded pork, and later the steamed pork patty (was it because she could no longer do the skillful pork shredding / slicing?)
she was cooking all meals on week days so i was properly nourished

during her last years she fell, more and more often
and she would not make a sound to ask for rescue after she fell and couldn't get up on her own
she would sit on the floor, grumpy at the beginning and mostly helpless or upset (by herself?) as time goes by
the pride
i was impatient with her clumsiness aka arthritis (what monster was i)
i did not understand her dementia that manifested as frustration and sometimes temper (how stupid was i)

[ma's menopause manifested as insecurity
or just being human suffering sense of insecurity, like me]

some years i was away from home
and my family and i skyped
and, even though i must have seen it coming
i was really upset the first time my gran did not recognize me
and even later years, we would remind her who we were every time we met
at first we tested her memory
then later i just wanted to introduce myself to her (as whoever someone i hoped she knew she could trust and rely on)

mid 2015, i was full of anguish when my family told me they were sending her to the elderly home a few weeks before i returned
i probably thought she was not in such a bad condition

when she was in not so bad condition (and after she retired from the family carer role)
there were days she went to the day center aka school
some days i would wheel her to the pick-up point
and some days i would pick her up from the school
ah by then she was already turning into a grumpy child
but there was some nice fun private time between the two of us
one time i wheeled her all the way from shatinwai to home
it didn't cross my mind that it was a bumpy ride for her but she did not whine a second

asymmetrical love
because i feel i had taken so much from her and i had given so little
is this how every parent-child or grandparent-child relationship?
or should i say that a parent / grandparent's love towards the child is given, but not the other way round?
but gran has certainly earned my love, most deservingly

the nursery rhymes she sang us
her family including her son-preferring mother and siblings
younger brother who got to take the bigger piece of meat
what a life

gran you had lived an impressive life full to stories to tell
what intense episodes

***

[i should be nicer to mum...]

***

i would have missed doing this, had clem not reminded me
how important it is to preserve memories
for they sip away when so often you get so consumed by all the errands
the distractions the morphine
the morphine that keeps you sane but makes you lose focus on the worthy and the valuable

gran

gran has passed away
and it can't be ever more clear that any disagreement among the family members on her treatment was unimportant

in less than 48 hours i am already calm

i am sad that i won't get to see her again in her warm body, but
i still hold that it was liberation for her

it may sound terrible, but of the family members, she is the second i hold most dear to
first being my sister
ranking is weird i know but i do that sometimes

i wonder what my mum and the maid are feeling, as my gran's primary caregivers, how big their sense of loss or sadness
because mine was so painfully immense during the first hours
when the sense of loss has been so strong to me, how is it for them who feed her and care for her all day all time?

cherish the living now i learn

despite everything i do not see eye to eye about with my mum, i ought to not just be loving towards, but also show lovingness to her

right or wrong, or rationality, or sensibility, and a lot of things, are never the most important -
but feelings and love?