I thought i just saw your eyelids rise, the thought of something restless, caught you by surprise...

the death of my Grandmother is a strange affair.
My grandma died when she was ...89, or so her death certificate would say. My dad says that she is actually something like 91- because she lied about her age, but it never really made much difference, because for about 20 years she looked exactly the same- she had white whispy hair tied into a funny little pony tail with a rubber band, she had wrikly yellow skin and tiny little asian eyes and wore old-people vests and slipper and trackpants and smelt like tiger balm or old-people cooking cabbage.
She had asthma and didnt like to treat it for some reason, and because her granny flat has had carpet since forever and her breath is always a constant low rasp, and so you could alwyas tell when she was coming down the hall to check doors and windows were locked and then harass you about why they weren't, or to comment on your violin practice or laugh at the photo of you on your table becuase of your upper lip hair. >8( But you can't run away becuase its not like she was blind to see you bolting away down the corridor so you would just have to wait till she made it to the door of your room :)
Its not that i hated it, it was just routine, and i got very used to it and everything, because it lasted like that for the 16 years i was alive. Am alive...

My grandma was born in China, my dad says, and then moved to Hong Kong where she lived next to a little fishing village at hte top of a big hill that had lots of stairs. Her father was a hot shot criminal lawyer and so she went to UNi too and trained as a lawyer, but i dont think she ever became one. She married...a man- i dont know anything about my grandpa, except that he taught english to the ...army. I think it was the british army, but they were chinese :)
So Lai Kan Chan pretty muched handled the whole household and its expences and its walls together every weekday when Mr Chan had to stay in the barracks for work, and when he did come around each weekend she would do everything to make his favourite food. Appanrently Food was held in very high reguard by G.Pa Chan so she went to very special effort. Mrs Lai Kan Chan did this all whilst running a small school for hte cute little fisherman's kids. SO she was a teacher too.
And then after Mr Chan died from cancer, My dad and G.ma Chan came to Australia for oppertunitied for Dad's career.
My Grandma lived with my dad then, and then for the 23 years they were married. :D Everyone called my mum a saint for living with her mother in law for all of the years that mum and dad went 'out' and then when they got married. But mum says it was no problem, because Mamma was really independant. During all of her 80s Mamma was Uber sharp in the brain and knew exactly what she was on about and what was going on. Her legs weren't as fast to catch us though :)

I guess as grandkids, who live with they're grandma, it was really easy to take Mamma for granted. Becauyse mamma was an Asian grandma, and you know asian Grandmas. All that tedious routine of trying to expain your laziness of WHY you didn't lock the door, and of course you can't say you were not bothered to do it because that dousn't translate verywell in broken english, or canto, for that matter.
And all that nagging. I dont think i copped much, it was mainly my dad, but still, you always got the impression thatMamma was always paranoid about everything and everything and everything, and she couldnt 'Chill-ax' like a young'un.

Plus, everyhting meaningful my grandma wasid was in Canto, so i never got a peice of her mind. It might have been nice if i did, i wonder, because all i got from Mamma was the paranoid routine part. Apparently, Mamma was an incredibly strongly opinionated woman, sharp and informed and questioning of social issues. One particular issue of her youth dad was talking about the yum cha after the funeral, was of her beef with organised religion and the hypocricy of the church. unfortunatly, i can't remember how God finally won her over, so i can't tell you. Its still a bit of a fuzzy mystery of how Mamma became a christian, but i guess out family clings to the fact that mamma went to Saint Phil's church down our street, and that she did study the bible. I guess i never really hear of Dad talkinga bout God+mamma too much to know.

but its crazy, because God + Mamma was all i could cling to when her funeral came around. I've never had any immediate Human family die before, and so mamma's funeral was the first ever. (i say human because Guinea pigs don't classify as humans :( )
Her death came around as her body functions stopped working. It was a pretty fast demise, in some aspects. Mamma took a fall one night. It was uber freaky to wake up to her screaming da's chinese name at 4 in the morning, and as i am the closest to her room i had to run and get dad. She was pretty shaken, and for a good reason, because she had broken...the femur? i dunno what bone, but its meant to tbe the stronfest bone in the body, and it snapped. Ostioperosis, mum says. mamma never liked milk. And i guess where she lived, there was not much, so she guessed no need.
She went to hospital, but then suddenly, out of no where her alzhimers (sp) which had been creeping up a few months prior, sort of crashed onto her brain.
She forgot she couldnt walk, and broke her other leg. She recovered in Hospital again, but wasn't that independant mamma again. That mamma walked to eastwood by herself all the time and cook and understood things. This mamma was a bed ridden lil' ol' asian lady who couldn't walk and had to eat gross boiled hospital mush. I know, becuase when we visited her she made us eat it. And it was...it sort of made you very aware of the grossness of sickiness and gangrene and stuff in hospitals.

Well, by that time, it had already solidified in my brain that mamma would never be the same. And it was weird when my oldest sister, who found herself bonding with mamma the most in those last few months than in her whole life, said that she never wanted to grow into such a state that your family just waits for you to die, and wonders why it takes so long, because thats what i found myself doing. Not because i wanted her to die, but it sort of gave me and idea of my distant relationship with Mamma, made even more distant because we lived so close to each other- it was a 'heartless Azn' relationship, and it disgusted me to think that i almost felt like i din care about my own grandma, who lived so close, yet was so far. This was the most apparent when we said out last goodbyes two days before she left.

Now that was a weird night. My sister, when i saw her, had a red face and big puffy eyes from crying. I didnt cry- and the nurse shoo-ed me away during my last goodbye because we were disturbing the other patients because it was like 11:30 pm. But that was alright, because i din have much to say. when i went outside again all i wanted to do was figure out WHY i wasn't crying. Isnt the death of someone your meant to love hurt a lot more than it does right now?? It was incredibly frustrating and frightening.
I guess, it boiled down to a couple of things, and then some excuses that i made. I dont know if they're true or not. I guess, it felt like mamma didnt have much of an impact on my life, being so far- a big cantonese language barrier in the way, and, just the general taking for granted-ness part of everything.
The other one is that because her mental and physical state started failing so dramtically, i was just waiting for it. and then i just got angry at myself for the waiting part. Grandma/Grandaughter relationships aren't meant to be like that surely. Plus, i know i would bawl my eyes out if my other grandparents died (on my mums side) Thats sucks.
There was nothing i could do to fix what i felt or what our relationship was like, but God comforted me in the knowledge that i could thank someone for who she was and how she was made and what she had done and how she loved, becuase in reality all that nagging and paranoia was done in love and nothing else. and i knew God was tell her what i thanked him for when she got there- and yea :) I guess, after life i could honor her by remembering who she was. Sometimes its kind of hard because my most thoughtful htoughts of grandma came form the time when she was fading, not when she was being taken for granted, so i remeber so much of her weakness and frailty. Thats definatly something she would not like to be remembered by, and iknow she can see me so i try to forget that cos thats just creapy.

But something else i was incredibly grantful for was something that i knew nonone else but God gave me. I dont even know why he gave it to me in that moment. The night i said goodbye, after my frustration, i was struck by nothing else buthe frailty of death. That there was only a tiny bit of time because i would assuredly see her again. For some reason, God made it so apparent that death had nothing of Mamma, because at the end of time she and me would be resurrected together for the new jerusalem. In thessalonians it says in better words, that 'don't grieve and cry in despair like the pagans do, because those who are dead are just sleeping.' And when Jesus was about to raise the little girl back to life, he said she was 'just sleeping'.
Its crazy, because, it sounds morbid, but death is almost everything i aspire to. It holds everything that has meaning and is the door to the purpose of my life. I mean, it starts in sunday school at church, and its strange becuase this attitude to death is so silent and solid in your heart you forget its there. And when you come to a time when everything Physical is laid bear, when you looking into that big drain that sucks the meaning and purpose out of all physical toil in your life on earth, you just have YOu, and God, and then peace.
Its not weird and morbid when i walk into her house. maybe a little bit weird, but not really. Because it feels like she's just left the house for a bit. But her old-woman cabbage smell still lingers :)And its equally weird when i look at a picture of her, becuase its like all thats left of her now is felt and made out of plasticy paper. She's just 2D. But thats only Physically.
It will be nice seeing her again, after all this actualisation and stuff.