Memories of my Maternal Grandparents

As I was getting ready to drift off to dreamland after both my kids fell asleep, I was suddenly overwhelmed with feelings of loss and longing for my maternal grandparents. It dawned on my that their deaths had been so sudden and caught me so unawares, that they eventually became the trigger points of my depression. The feelings were so intense that I couldn't hold back my tears, and try as I might, I couldn't go to sleep. Never mind that I had already taken my daily dose of sleeping pills - and this was the only night that they didn't work within half an hour of consumption.

(It's been almost a month since I was diagnosed with severe depression, when my psychiatrist nearly had me hospitalised. )

I remember my grandfather fondly - he used to buy me a stick of ice-cream during my toddlerhood on his way back from work. As my mother works full time, my grandparents were entrusted with the task of caring for me. Those days were fun, though I cannot remember very much other than him buying me ice-creams, and walking down the muddy steps to the attap house where they stayed.

My grandmother was a different story. She played mahjong quite a fair bit, but she was usually at home and was the main caregiver to my younger sister and me throughout our primary school years - after they moved into a HDB flat in Ang Mo Kio. She used to dote on my sister a lot, whilst I was always at the wrong side of her equation of favoritism. Still, I felt for her and remember the last time I saw her - she just had an operation on her knee and told me she's been exercising accoding to the doctor's instructions.

My greatest pity was the fact that I didn't have a chance to visit them both at the hospital in their last days. My little Kieona was so ill, and when we can finally visit my grandmother (my grandfather had passed away on the 4th day of CNY 2006) a few days after my grandfather's funeral, we were stopped at TTSH as they didn't allow kids under 7 years old to be in the ICU nor at the wards.

The fact that my mother made a comment about her not informing me when Ah Gong and Ah Ma were about to breathe their last but informed my sister was because "...she afterall dotes on Ah Gong and Ah Ma..." as well as my sister's comment that she "....feels sad compared to me because Ah Ma dotes on her." were too much for me to bear and has been biting at my heart eversince. Although I never said anything in retaliation, the fact is that I really do feel very sad as I (more than anyone else) was not able to see them in their last days and deprived them of their opportunities to see me (their eldest grandchild) and my children (their only greatgrandchildren).

Although we've kinda drifted apart after we moved home (we started taking care of ourselves when I got to secondary school), I think it will still be some time before I can come to terms with the fact that they are no longer around...