Reminiscing Days With My Grandma

My paternal grandma passed away last year. Her death came as a shock to me, even though my mum was expecting it for quite some time. I always thought my grandma as the healthy strong kind. Come to think of it, the women in my family are all pretty strong and capable.

 

I did not grow up in the kind of family where women are subjugated to the wills of their husbands, that their destiny would only be keeping the house, bearing children, and tolerating and listening to what their husbands wanted. In fact, the girls in my family are encouraged at a young age to be all-rounders, to excel in our studies, music, sports and in everything we do.

 

I was taught to have a loud voice since young, that women can speak their minds and that men are not always right. I was taught that being a woman means you can be everything - a wife, a mother, a career person, and yet able to keep the house and bear children too. Hence, I am not the typical kind of girl that so many men crave for - the endearing, soft-spoken demure kinds who only know how to bat their eyelashes at the men.

 

I am the strong-willed, independent kind of girl who does what she likes and thinks is right. For instance, if I want to travel, I will travel, whether the guy comes with me or not. Afterall, just because the guy does not like to travel or cannot travel for some reason, do I have to give up what I love because of him? Do I have to stay at home and shake legs because the guy does not allow me to travel on my own?

 

The same goes for my family. My mum and grandma did what they thought was right on their own, without depending on their husbands. But that do not mean they are any less a good woman. In fact, my grandma and mum live for their families, and will do everything for their families. It is fortunate indeed that even though my grandparents were match-made, their marriage somehow worked out and they had a very healthy relationship with no complicated issues or domestic violence, which is more than I can say for many modern couples with free love nowadays.

 

My grandma was an educated woman of her time. She went to school during the days in her village in China when girls were not allowed any education. She had a good elder brother who made sure she went to school and stopped the other boys from bullying her. She was the only girl in her class every year, and topped her school every year. She had to stop schooling after Secondary One because the government made it illegal for girls to go to school.

 

Despite being educated for people of her time, she married my grandpa, whom she was bethrothed to at the age of four. I remember asking her why so once, she said in those days, when you were bethrothed, you had to marry each other, even if the other person could turn out to be ugly and crippled and handicapped.

 

My grandpa was also educated for his time. He went to university and the military school. In fact, when the second world war came and the Japanese invaded China, my grandpa was away at Nanjing University, and my grandma single-handedly took her two young children, her in-laws, her mother, and a whole lot of relatives out of China and sailed to Singapore to join her elder brother. My grandpa reunited with her after the war and that was why my dad was a post-war baby, and that both his siblings are quite a lot older than him.

 

My grandpa then found work together with my granduncle, and my grandma then took over the running of the household. She not only took care of her own family, she also took care of her in-laws, her mother, her brother's family, and the children of the relatives whom she brought out of China (both my grandpa's and her own relatives), whom she raised and educated as her own. And this also explains why her relatives (some still alive), be it here or back in China, even though they have reached great levels of success, never forgot her kindness and upbringing.

 

She was so successful at running the house that my grandpa let her do whatever she liked. My grandpa never questioned my grandma's judgement and let her be the decision maker in most things. In fact, as far as I remember, I have never heard my grandpa arguing with my grandma, and he would always go along with whatever she wanted to do. Besides running the house, she also set up a business selling drinks at a school canteen, which was later taken over by her daughter-in-law (my uncle's wife).

 

My grandma was the default "head" of the house, until many years later, she relinquished that "title" to an even stronger woman - her younger daughter-in-law, my mother. My grandma knew when to step back and let the younger generation take over.

 

Like my grandma, my mother was the strong and capable decision-maker, and my dad also just let her do whatever she liked and never questioned her judgement. My grandma officially "retired" and let my mum run the household, and never questioned her too. Despite the horror stories of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, both my mum and my grandma got along very well. I have never heard them arguing with each other, and my mum took care of my grandma much better than my dad ever did.

 

Growing up, my grandma would occasionally bring me to where my grandpa worked and fed me with all kinds of snacks. She would buy me my favourite ice-cream and biscuits, and my mum would always disapprove and interfere. Even if my grandma disapproved of the way my mum did certain things, she would never interfere in how my mum brought us up.

 

In fact, my grandma was full of praises for my mum. She once said luckily my dad married my mum, otherwise the house would crumble. I could not agree with that more! Beacuse my dad is the laid-back, relaxed and mild tempered kind, he needs someone like my mum who has the drive and inclination to get things done, otherwise forever things will never be done. It is due to this that I never have any qualms staying with my in-laws if I get married next time, because I have seen a fine example in my own house.

 

My grandma had three children, eleven grandchildren, and at last count, thirteen great-grandchildren. I was her youngest granddaughter, and the one she doted on the most. One of the things I regret the most is that I never fulfilled her wish of seeing me married before she passed on.

 

I missed her cooking, her Hainanese rice balls, her Hainanese cuisine, her rice krispies. What I regret also is that I never got to learn her recipes before she was gone, and none of my aunts nor cousins learnt her special dishes too.

 

And what I also regret the most is that I never got to celebrate her last ever birthday with us in November 2010. I was sick in bed with a bad viral infection, so never joined in the celebrations at my place where my cousins and their kids came and took photos with her.

 

Despite that, my grandma had lived a long and fulfilling life. Besides the fall in March 2010 that rendered her invalid and bed-ridden, otherwise she had lived an enriching and active life. She passed away just three months short of her 100th birthday.

 

Rest In Peace, grandma! I will always miss and remember you!