On Grief: to my beloved Grandma

You are loved and remembered.

I spent most of today crying.

Or at least half the day.

Because today, we sent my grandma away.

Someone I loved very much.

My last grandma.

It is a srwange thing not having a grandparent anymore too.

She was the last to go.

A hundred years old.

At first, I thought I was okay this week.

But I think over the course of the week, spending time with family again, the memories started coming back.

Memories I had not touched for a while.

Memories of being young.

Of Sundays.

Of the old shophouse in Springleaf, Jalan Leban.

Of my grandma’s place.

When my mother passed away, I was five.

My grandma was one of the precious few people who helped look after us.

Every Sunday, we would go to her house with my siblings and cousins.

She ran a restaurant downstairs in that old shophouse.

And upstairs was where the family gathered.

That place was our second home then.

I remember the smell of Sundays there.

The smell of her tradition, of our Hakka food.

The peppery pig’s stomach soup.

The white Hakka chicken, steamed with ginger and spring onion.

Mountain bowls of rice.

Soft drinks, which felt very special to us as me and my brother because that was the place where we could get them.

Ang baos at Chinese new year too.

We always left feeling very full.

My brother loved eating there.

And I think now, looking back, it was not just the food.

It was the feeling of everyone being there.

The cousins.

The adults.

The noise.

The familiarity.

The kind of place where, as a child, you did not have to think too much.

She was always there.

Gentle.

Strict when she needed to be.

Kind.

Always providing for us.

Always loving us in the way she knew how.

I remember her old patterned clothes. The kind many older Singaporean grandmothers used to wear.

I remember her hairband.

I remember sitting on her lap.

Looking up at her.

And her smiling at me.

She called me "Ah Ping".

I'll always remember her voice.

And today, all of that came back.

Not as a giant glued perfect memory but of many scattered pieces.

Those precious Sundays.

The shophouse upstairs.

The food.

My cousins.

Her smile.

Her voice.

Her looking after us after my mother died.

And I could not help but feel: "What a precious person she was in my life."

For the last ten years, Alzheimer’s took much of her away.

She spent those years mostly in bed.

I visited when I could.

Not often enough.

And yes, there is some regret there.

I wish I had gone more.

I wish I had sat with her more.

I wish I had known how to be with someone who was slowly leaving for such a long time.

But today, at her funeral, what came back most was her love.

The quiet kind.

The kind that cooked and provided.

The kind that created a home.

And I think that is why grief is so painful.

Because love does not simply disappear just because someone does.

The person may no longer be here in the way we want them to be.

But the love remains.

In the memories, places, food and even in the names we called them and they called us by.

So for those of you out there grieving too,

whether through death,

distance,

separation,

or the loss of someone you can no longer hold close,

I hope you know this.

Grief is painful.

But grief is not only pain.

Sometimes grief hurts because love was real.

Let yourself miss them.

Let yourself cry.

There is no need to rush love out of your body.

To my Grandma, my Popo,

I love you.

I will always remember you.

Thank you for loving us.

Thank you for looking after us.

I'll see you soon,

Your Ah Ping.