Posts tagged with "grandma"

Here, Scared

Grandma’s at the hos­pi­tal. She woke up this morn­ing with pain all over her body, but more severe­ly in her low­er abdomen. They quick­ly drove her to the doc­tor, and it turns out there’s been a block­age in her colon. This after­noon they per­formed a pro­ce­dure to expand the colon, and it went through with­out any com­pli­ca­tions. She’s rest­ing at the hos­pi­tal for the night, and my fam­i­ly is tak­ing shifts to stay with her.

I’ve been stuck at home all day. Everyone else has been at the hos­pi­tal and they decid­ed to leave me behind. I’m on immune sup­press­ing med­ica­tions and the hos­pi­tal is full of germs; get­ting sick myself is the last thing I need, espe­cial­ly when it means that I would­n’t be able to see my grand­ma, as her immune sys­tem is even low­er than mine right now. I would only be in the way if I was there any­way.

I’m scared. I’ve nev­er dealt with any kind of sick­ness like this before. The only peo­ple in my fam­i­ly who have passed away were always far away in Hong Kong.

And now I’m here.

Another Day With Grandma

Grandma and her adopted son

My aunt tells me that my grand­moth­er is a very still sleep­er. Sometimes she gets scared when they’re lying in bed togeth­er, because my grand­ma does­n’t seem to breathe or move at all. I find myself hop­ing that she goes this way, pain­less­ly and peace­ful­ly in her sleep.

But every morn­ing, when she slow­ly walks out from her bed­room, I’m relieved and hap­py that she’s with us anoth­er day.

Having It Maid

It’s the maid­’s day off.

To be hon­est, her brief absence has shown that I already got used to hav­ing her around.

But then again, it’s not hard to get used to such a lux­u­ry. You wake up and feel like eat­ing some­thing, and she’ll have it ready by the time you’re dressed and fin­ished brush­ing your teeth. She draws your bath water. She irons your clothes while you wait. She picks up the gro­ceries for din­ner when you decide what to eat. Some of the dish­es are so com­pli­cat­ed that she begins cook­ing the night before, and has her niece (my aunt and uncle’s maid) come over to help.

Nothing needs to be said when it comes to chores around the house. When a meal is fin­ished, every­one gets up and heads to the liv­ing room. The next time you come back, the dish­es are gone and the table wiped clean1. I fold my sheets before leav­ing the house, and when I get back they’re refold­ed, only neater.

My grand­moth­er has a his­to­ry of live-in ser­vants, although there haven’t been any wet nurs­es, gar­den­ers, or chauf­feurs for a while. Ever since her chil­dren grew up and left the house (or coun­try), she’s only need­ed one maid at a time. It seems to be a great rela­tion­ship, as there’s a respect that goes both ways; the maid is extreme­ly good at her job, and we treat her like fam­i­ly. When the last maid died after 30 years of ser­vice, all her funer­al arrange­ments were tak­en care of. In the last years of her life she had gone blind from dia­betes, and was then served her­self. That’s how we found the cur­rent maid, who’s been with my grand­ma ever since.

One of my favourite rit­u­als2 is the way the maid is giv­en din­ner. After all the food is cooked, the maid lays the dish­es out on the din­ner table, but does­n’t take any for her­self. So my grand­ma will take a plate, pile food onto it, and bring it to her.

  1. Admittedly, this was the hard­est thing for me to get used to. Something in me would keep scream­ing, “PUT THE DISHES IN THE SINK”. [↩]
  2. And as a Taoist, I’m gen­er­al­ly deri­sive of rit­u­als. [↩]

Being Strong For My Grandmother

The can­cer has spread to her bones and sev­er­al major organs now. We asked the doc­tor not to tell her, but we can’t do any­thing against his moral oblig­a­tion to inform the patient. Either way, she does­n’t know how seri­ous it is, whether it’s from shock and denial, or mem­o­ry loss.

But she’s awake, and aware, and feel­ing no pain, which is good enough for me. The most we can do now is to try to make the rest of her life as enjoy­able as pos­si­ble.

She thinks she’s going to be fine. Keeps telling me that she’ll take me to a near­by park when she’s bet­ter. As much as it hurts me to know this won’t be pos­si­ble any­more, it’s reliev­ing to know she’s so obliv­i­ous. We don’t let our­selves cry around her, for fear that she may real­ize how bad it is.

Her face is more sal­low, her fin­gers and legs ema­ci­at­ed, but she still has her thick, black hair1. Aside from a dis­tend­ed stom­ach, it’s hard to tell that she has such a grim prog­no­sis.

But by far the hard­est part is hav­ing to cod­dle her like a child to take her med­ica­tion. Telling her she’s a good girl if she swal­lows her pills and reward­ing her with ice-cream. That we’re only strict because we care about her. It tears me in half when she gives such a painful look of dis­taste with every pill we hand her, 18 a day.

She used to be so strong. Now we have to be strong for her.

  1. “I used to have even more”, she tells me. [↩]

Walks With Grandma

walks down the street

Thumbnail: School alley
Thumbnail: Building roads
Thumbnail: Convenience store
Thumbnail: Foliage
Thumbnail: Neon sign
Thumbnail: Store parrots
Thumbnail: Parrots
Thumbnail: Schoolgirls
Thumbnail: Villas sign
Thumbnail: Holding hands
 

In the last few weeks, she’s been too weak to leave the house, but we can take her for walks in the after­noon now. Going around the block takes half an hour and leaves her legs shak­ing, but she’s hap­py to be out. Before we go, she gets dressed and puts on her make­up and does her hair. Even now, she retains the class and dig­ni­ty I’ve always admired in her.