I'm probably the most irrelevant out of us three siblings. Unlike my sis and bro, I didn't spend weeks growing up with my grandparents. I didn't build a relationship with my Granddad nor Grandma, and my language handicap didn't help the situation either.
But hearing my Sis and Bro give their eulogies, I felt like I somehow knew Grandma. We can't speak the same, but we had a relationship of our own.
My Grandma would say something in Cantonese to me, and I will smile back shyly, clueless to what she just asked. And in the most that both of us could express ourselves, she would smile back. It was not an awkward smile of generation gap, or dismay that I couldn't converse in Cantonese. It was a smile that said "I understand, it's okay."
And despite all our encounters with each other repeatedly being what was said above, she constantly asked about me, how I was, whether I'm coping with my studies. But because I never replied, she never knew.
I know it's a happy age to pass on. 91 Years old, she has lived up to a ripe old age. But I can't help but feel sad that she didn't get to see me grow up. Even though she was alive, dementia prevented me to reciprocate to her attempts of getting to know me.
So, I'm glad, that God has stopped her suffering. It really must've hurt so much to want to express how she felt but couldn't communicate at all for the past few years. Like Uncle Pak Loy puts it, dying for us Christians will be like sleeping and just waking up to her whole new better place.
But at the same time, I regret not getting to know my Grandma like a grandchild should.
Thanks for loving me as much as you could, 婆婆.
This should be me.. Seven years from now:
Married.
Trying for kids but in no rush for one.
Quaint, clean house with a backyard for the dog.
Or dogs.
All probably adopted or rescued.
Working with some job to do with animals.
...duh.
