On the 28th of July 2002 at 7.40pm Malaysia local time, my grandmother Lui Lan Hee (Ah Ma to us, her grandkids) moved on to more important affairs than that of the flesh.
Yes, I mean that she passed away.
That ends yet another chapter in my life, a chapter that has lasted a whole 28+ years. There'sno more Ah Ma around, and I'll just have to deal with that dose of reality eventually.
On Sunday (21 Jul 02), I got an email from Alwyn (my cousin) at 5am that Ah Ma was in dire straits (my words, not his). By 10am, there were two tickets on SQ waiting for Joanne (my sis) and I for our trip back to Malaysia. I wanted to see Ah Ma before she passed away.
She didn't look like herself. I don't remember her ever lying down quietly. Even in her sleep, she seemed lively and vibrant. Yet, here she was, lying on a bed, eyes closed, occasionally moving her left hand (her right side was paralysed) and shaking her head. She couldn't open her eyes. All she could do was shake her head and twitch her left arm. And even those few gestures, I never knew for sure if they were meaningful gestures or Ah Ma's last frustrated attempts to make her failing body obey her. If the latter, I'm not sure Ah Ma succeeded.
Oh I know that she somehow knew we were there by her bedside. I don't know if she could hear us, or if she could feel us touching her face and holding her hand. But she knew. The biggest sign that she knew was when a tear escaped her closed left eye.
Her one tear. I've since more than matched that one tear with a zillion of my own.
I visited her every day, a couple of times each day. And each time I saw her, it seemed like she was slipping just a little closer to God. Everytime I saw her, I would hold her hand, kiss her forehead, talk to her, tell her that we were going for breakfast/lunch/dinner and that we would be back to see her in a little while. I'll always wonder if she could hear me, if she could understand me, if deep inside, she was smiling at my clumsy attempts at humor.
And everytime I saw her, I alternated between wishing she would die soon and wishing she would get better. Oh I knew she would never recover. But that didn't stop me from wishing it. And yet, I wished she would pass quietly and painlessly rather than drag on for months as a shell that was all but legally dead.
Well, I guess there's nothing more to wish for now.
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