simply happy

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up... To more than I can be

-----------------------------

I was sitting down in the science library, trying to focus despite the unfamiliar surroundings, and the smell of mold in the air. Before I could warm my seat, my phone rang... It was Dad, and it wasn't the usual nagging or SMSes that he always sent me daily.
"The hospital called, they told us to make our way down as fast as we can. And to bring her IC along. They couldn't get your aunt. Let's go down now".

I immediately packed my things. Raced down the stairs as silently as I could.

We all knew it was coming. But, I didn't have enough time. At the very last moment, I doubted myself... I still failed to treasure the time I had with her. As I waited anxiously, around the canteen awaiting the yellow vehicle, I met with some whom I told the news.

"Is it alright?"
"Are you okay?"

I was.
Is it wrong to be?

All there was left to do was the administrative part of things.
We were told to anticipate this, many years before. Yellow man already didn't know what to think. Not that he ever tried to think.

I was the first to arrive. What greeted me was no longer a grandmother who couldn't speak my language, on the bed struggling to take her every breath. It was a mere cadaver, life sucked out of her earthly shell and eyes wide open like it had never been for a while now.

Up till now, I purposed only to see cadavers of people I never knew. Because I dissect and play with their innards in Anatomy class.

It wasn't hard to hold back the tears.
But it was hard to keep the waves of memory from washing up the shore of eternal regret.

The last time I saw her was 2 days ago.
Why didn't I come yesterday? I could have!
But I chose to wake up early to meet a friend for breakfast instead.
Is it wrong?

As my aunt cried and shouted for her to come back.
And we monitored the 12-lead ECG that she was hooked up to.
I don't think she's alive anymore.

The nurses said she can still hear us. "There's still abit... see here..." said the nurse pointing to the miniature fluctuations in the ECG.
Well, okay... I'd take her word for it. Maybe I'm not that smart afterall....
Maybe, she'd be able to return...


We tried to relieve the agony, and come to terms with everything with a little joke by the bedside.

But in the end...
this woman whom i lived with me for a few months when i was 6 years old.
met once at a hawker centre at 9 years old.
visited at her one-room apartment when i was 19 years old.
spent time with fortnightly while i was 22 years old.

has departed.

I was the horrible grand daughter who bullied everyone.
She was the loving grandmother who did all she could to accommodate my unreasonable requests, rude, spiteful, inconsiderate...

Surprisingly I still do recall what I demanded of her while I was on my way to PAP Kindergarden. How I mocked her, and she just did it without dignity to make me smile.
I feel so terrible. What a monster I was. am.

She was alert on Sunday and Monday.
All I could do was sit by her and try to read my Drug Quiz 2.
I didn't understand what she was saying.
And she couldn't understand the MP3s on my iPod which I place in her ears.
Why didn't I visit her on Monday. Why didn't I prepare the mp3 I wanted her to hear, immediately after I reached home on Sunday?


My final regret. was that I undoubtedly grew weary of being a good grand daughter. I didn't try harder.

I have done much more. than if I didn't have God.
But my regrets are really, minimised.

We all tried to smile. and pretend we have lives that are more important.
knowing inside, she has led a lonely hard life.

I wish they knew.
and never forget her.

I wish she didn't say "My life won't stop just because of this"

I wish I didn't had to call and persuade everybody to stop being busy and come to the hospital, to the death bed.

I wish I could have insisted that the silly doctor removed the urinary catheter and made her last days more comfortable.

I wish I had learnt my dialects well.

I wish I can love the rest of them even better, before they depart from this world.

谁言寸草心 抱得三春晖

If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants

Dedicated to a beloved grandmother. Mdm See B.C.
widowed at a young age.
raised her only 3 year-old son.
and took in another young girl.
a faithful follower of Christ and a remarkable woman in difficult times.