goodbye grandma

Not all holidays have a happy endings. I woke up on Thursday 16 December in Errachidia to a painful text message - daddy told me that grandma had passed away peacefully in her sleep. Grandma and I are not the closest. In fact, we barely spoke to one another beyond niceties and standard operating meet - the - relatives and -show - reverence and - respect- to -the- elderly-protocol that my parents had inculcated in us since we were wee little things. Yet, I was pained by her passing.

Why did God not let me see her one last time? Why did He not wait till I was back from Morocco before taking her last breath away? Ten days later, I'm ashamed to have even asked these questions as they are such selfish ones. Why do I always want the best opportunities for myself? I hardly knew her, yet I wanted to see her - but she had so many nieces, nephews, sons, daughters, daughters-in-laws, sons-in-laws, and grandchildren by her bedside when she left us. These were people who were the closest to her, who lived with her and took care of her when she could no longer walk, leading the remaining months of her life in and out of the hospital.

Just a year ago, grandma was still a lively creature, running the household like a Chinese matriarch, a force to be reckoned with, despite having been inflicted with cancer of the gum a few years back. I often thought about how lucky I was, that my mother being female, did not always have to share the responsibility of taking care of her the way her elder brothers were expected to - what a toil it must have been on their families. I heard of her antics - antics no different from the four mothers in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club or No Name Woman's mother in Maxine Hong Kingston's novel. They were crazy, and if I were to impose the structures and system of the western world on them, she'd always fit right in with the eccentrics because people didn't understand. Straddled between two worlds,  I knew different because I was Chinese (though I speak mainly English) and she was my grandma, and we were all secretly proud that she had such an illustrious past and an adventurous (factual) tale to tell in the form of a boat trip from China to Singapore where she had to leave behind 2 of the 11 children she mothered - one who was adopted and has since returned to Singapore and another who now lives in Copenhagen.

I visited her in hospital just before leaving for Morocco. And its hard to believe that she could still slip away so quickly when less than two weeks ago, she was still the feisty matriarch who had lots to say! My dad even gave her high-fives and she could return them with gusto, a cheeky toothless grin and a hearty laugh. Although pills, hospital scrubs and doctor's appointments were her best friends leading up to her death, she had passed on to a better world in the most graceful manner m with large number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren in attendance and with an even larger number as witness to the colourful and dignified life she had led.

Your strength is something we can all learn from, Grandma - this is how we "fight a good fight".