A Tribute to My Maternal Grandma and Some Gathering Times

As mentioned in my previous post, my grandma passed away 4 days ago, on Saturday at 335am. After discussing with my family, I decided to fly back to pay my last respect.

Grieving and Mourning the Loss

I made a trip back to my mum's hometown, my birthplace, Sarikei and was spending time with my mum's side of the family in grieving for the loss of my maternal grandma, whom I call waipo. She is 84 years old this year and has been suffering from Parkinson's for 2 years. She had serious vertigo before that and suffered a bad fall last year.

Since then, her condition had gotten worse and became bed-ridden. Earlier last week, she seemed to know her timing and she told one of my uncles that she was going to leave already. Soon after, she lost her ability to speak. We sort of prepared ourselves for the worst since months ago. It is her relief from all of the sufferings she had to go through so the family has peace with this.

There were many touching moments before she left. My grandpa who is still alive held her hand without saying anything. I too was feeling in the spirit that she needed to bid farewell properly to her spouse. I know she was also very worried about my uncles who aren't married yet.

How's my waipo like?

Visited my waipo and prayed with her.

All her life, before she got very sick, she was active in gardening and also helping people around her. She worked really really hard. She is known to be very helpful among the neighbours. She always smiled. I remember when I was young, she hand sewed pyjamas for us. Her house was always the huge playground for us to return to whenever there were school holidays. She was very hospitable. Whenever we went back, there would not just be a tableful of food, but two whole tables of food. I used to love eating with my mum's family a lot because my uncles would tease us nephews and nieces when we eat. It was always full of a lot of laughter till when it was time to leave, we were always very reluctant.

The very thing she told me was she wanted to be promoted to be great grandma and Levi promoted her. They met once and that time she was already sick. I wished they meet more honestly, but the journey to her place is really quite grueling due to the bumpy road conditions and it takes 6 hours drive from Kuching(my home before I got married).

Earlier this week, before her spirit departed, I actually bid farewell to her in the spirit and thanked her for being my waipo, thanking her for living a good life too. She had stayed through the Chinese New Year this year, when she could only recognize her sons-in-law but not her own children. I have already settled within my heart and cried with God on that. I came over to be with my mom, her eldest daughter who had been traveling back every weekend since the beginning of the year.

Today, when we were at the wet market, people who got to know she had departed from my mom actually said it is a good relief after hearing her suffer for such long time. From their response, I think she was really likable even by non family members when she was alive.

So, I'm okay! I have peace. I am thankful that my grandma lived to a good old age. Now, rest in peace, waipo!

A Huge Gathering at the Funeral

With part of my mom's brothers and sisters and their family as well. These was just the four out of the seven siblings she has, as many have gone back to work or studies.

With one of my younger cousins who shares the same faith as me, when we were "on duty" to take care of some love gifts.

This is the cousin sister who is just few months apart from me. She is the eldest cousin among us all now, because her elder brother passed away. I was quite close with her as we spent 3 months in the national service together, so after many years of not meeting each other, we had so much to talk about that it was hard for us to part!

Yesterday, as I was sitting in her funeral service, one very good impression was the house was full with us, the children and grandchildren. She has 8 children with my grandpa, 4 sons and 4 daughters. There are altogether 13 grandchildren, 10 were present with 1 of us sitting for exams and another working in Australia by contract. However, my eldest cousin who is her grandson passed away 2 years ago too. Visitors who walked in said she is blessed to have '子孙满堂' (meaning a full house of children and grandchildren in Mandarin Chinese). It was actually a huge gathering for I haven't seen some of my cousins for years. We clicked instantly though. I wish we took more photos especially group photos with my mum's siblings and us cousins but there was a super heavy downpour right after the funeral and we were drenched. We were all so occupied with trying to get to the eating place where we treated all visitors to thank them for paying their last respect.

Spending More Time With My Family

The original siblings without any 'new addition'!

My family with my brother-in-law having a good dinner last night, filled with laughter.

My mum, sister, brother-in-law and I walked to the market early in the morning. Took this with the landmark of Sarikei when we passed it by.

My family consists of my dad, mom, me being the eldest child, a sister who is one year younger than me who is married and working in Singapore, a brother who is studying his last year in dentistry in the northern part of Peninsular Malaysia, and my youngest sister who is also leaving soon to study Pharmacy at the same university. It has been a very long while when all can be present and going places together because of our different schedules. We took this opportunity to just talk more and laugh. It was very nice to be able to do this again, very much relaxing too as we joke like the old days.

Joker behind!

Even after some of the extended relatives had left, we stayed on an extra day to look into the more official procedures like obtaining the death certificate, getting the letter of authorization for the assets under my grandma's name to be released and etc. Usually, this is what my mom does. Hence, I went around the different government departments with her. I know everywhere she goes, she has memories with her mom. We were buying express tickets when she saw some small chicks and she remembered that my grandma used to love to buy these cute little chicks to rear. She stays in the outskirt where homesteading is definitely encouraged. I too remember there was once when I was younger, I was startled with a chick which wandered into the toilet!

Check out these little fluffy chicks! They are super cute!

I know my mom is mourning and getting over the loss of her mom. She would reminisce the times when my grandma was still well and she got lost in the marketplace. It's like every corner we went in her hometown today, she has a story to tell or remember about my grandma. So, I walked with her and listened to her story, perhaps processing the whole loss with her. I'm glad I chose to stay back for an extra day to be able to do this with my mom.

Grieving is not forgetting. Nor is it drowning in tears. Healthy grieving results in an ability to remember the importance of our loss—but with a newfound sense of peace, rather than searing pain. Source: University of Washington, Counseling Center

Thank you for reading my post. I would really love to apologize for not being able to reply many of your kind replies and words yet, as I have been giving priority to my family. As I'm finishing this post up, I'm boarding to fly back to Kuala Lumpur, to my beloved husband and son!

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