My paternal grandma passed away on 2 February, a week before Chinese New Year. That’s why this year’s been the lowest-key Chinese New Year I’ve had in a long, long while.
Granted, my grandma, Madam Chin Pek Lam, was 95 years old.
She was bedridden, had to be bathed and fed mushy, blended porridge. She couldn’t recognize her children or us, her grandchildren any more. She seemed contented to stare into space, emptiness living in those eyes.
Of course she wasn’t like this all the while.
Some 10 years ago, she was still happily going to the Batu Lanchang or Chowrasta markets and after shopping for the day’s fresh produce, proceeded to sit in a coffeeshop and have breakfast with my Third Uncle. He was her official “driver”. He drove her everywhere.
When my grandma was still alert, she’d cook us such wonderful Toi Shan/Cantonese dishes. One of which is one I miss dearly is a braised fresh ikan terubuk with salted black beans and bittergourd. I bet my uncles miss this classic dish too. Ikan terubuk isn’t for the faint hearted. Its sharp bones are pronged but this fish tastes like the sweetest heaven.
And she was the last of the living grandparents – her husband/my grandfather died when I was 3. Then my grandfather and grandmother on my mom’s side died within years of each other some 6 years ago.
The only word I could think of was bereft. That word lingered in my mind for the longest time.
Bereft is like the breath that is sucked away. A vacuum even.
Grandma was the anchor of our lives, believe it or not.
She was the reason for my childhood holidays – the kind where we’d pile into my dad’s grassy green Mazda and endure the 6 hours of coastal roads from Banting to Penang.
We knew when we reached Penang – the Penang Bridge would loom in the distance and we’d be all cheers as we crossed it. The bridge was tinged with a personal pride too as it was built by my grand-uncle, Tan Sri Datuk Professor Chin Fung Kee who was such an illustrious yet humble man (and who was the brother to this grandma of mine).
We’d spend most of our December school holidays in my grandma’s double-storey semi-detached house in Green Lane. There’d be food, soups (my fondness for soups originated from Grandma’s charcoal-boiled soups), cousins, picnics to Miami beach on Batu Feringgi, going to the wet markets of Chowrasta and lots of steamboat dinners.
I even chose to come back to Penang after my SPM exams to work in a kindergarten for 3 months because I loved being in Penang so much!
So holidays, Grandma, Penang and food were often coloured with exceptional memories.
That’s why I felt bereft when my grandmother breathed her last. She had difficulty breathing and for two weeks prior she had refused to eat.
Her death brought a lot of reflection. Especially for me.
Going back to my grandma’s house now doesn’t feel the same now.
In so many ways, she was the glue that kept us all together. She gave us all a reason to return to that house my grandfather bought some 40 odd years ago.
Bereft.
That’s how I felt when she passed on.