Tuesday, December 23, 2003
My Grandfather
now at home, going to the wake later.......
Yesterday morning, at ard 3am, my sis and I were woken up by a loud wail from my mum. Someone had called to inform that my grandfather had died.
It was rather unexpected, even though he was warded in ICU ward for lung infection and breathing difficulty. Was supposed to visit him this week, as mum had changed her mind in asking me to visit him last Sunday, as there was no one accompany me there and she had said "Looking at the condition your grandfather is in, he will be still in hospital for quite a few days."
If only I only I have the courage to put away all the fears & awkwardness then and tell my mum that I don't mind going there alone......for you can't foresee what will happen tomorrow.......
I can't say that I am very close to my grandfather (mum's father). But he was the only grandfather I had as my father's father has passed away before i was born.
My siblings and I didn't talked to our grandparents,much due to communication barriers. My grandparents are Hainanese and speak in that dialect. As we (the younger generation) don't live in with our grandparents, and due to the education system, the dialect was seldom used in our daily conversations. Our vocabulary of Hainanese are very limited. We can only say "thank you", " gong xi fa cai", "yes/"no", "eaten/ not eaten", "want/don't want" to our grandparents.
I guessed we were much closer to our grandparents when we were kids. My sister and I still remember that my grandfather, though a quiet and serious man, had shown us a cheeky side of him when we were young. During tea time, he cut away the two ends of a long french loaf and pretended to place the two pointed ends across his chest. ( if you know what that resemble) My grandma was rather embarassed then while we laughed at the joke. Of cos, he never did that again, especially years later my sis & I reached puberty.
I still remembered that when my sis and i were young, whenever visit our grandparents, we would played with my granfather. he would brought out this old soft sponge ball , and we would kicked it around. We stop playing with him when we grew older, but with the additions of 2 more kids (my brother and my cousin), he still continued playing with his grandchildren until his health deteriorates...
He was also a great cook ( that's what Hainanese had a good reputation for). My mum told us that he used to work as a chef of some sail boats. I do remember he made really nice battered prawns, and beautiful carvings on carrots.
At a lost on how to end this posting from here........
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~*Harmonie's Sentimental World --心情日记*~ 
