grandma

Lam Sok Ngor was my most beloved grandma. Today marks two years to the day since she went up into heaven to live with God, and I’d just like to tell you about her, about what a wonderful person she was.

Born in 1933 in the Hokkien province of China, she moved down into Hong Kong when my mum was only two years old, or thereabouts, then had two more daughters. When I was a little kid, I’d laugh and ask mother, “Hey mum, you came from the Hokkien province, right? Did you all haveta make Hokkien noodles when you were younger?” mother would scoff then not even deign to answer me. XD

After I was born and mother returned to full-time nursing once her maternity leave was over, grandma became my primary caregiver. Indeed, my earliest living memory was going to sit on her lap when I was a little girl!

In 1990, when the parents decided we’d immigrate over to Brisbane to live, my grandmother actually went over with us for the first six months, while mum and dad went to Logan TAFE to learn English. I was only 3.5 years old then, but by the time she returned to Hong Kong, she had already taught me how to recite the Lord’s Prayer in Canto!

I can’t remember if she ever came back to Brisbane to visit us, but we sure did return to Hong Kong to visit her!

Five years back, when the cruel and unfaithful god totally wrecked my life by smiting me down with the brain tumour, my mother rang my aunty in Hong Kong and told her to carefully break the news to grandma. At first, grandma urged us to come back to Hong Kong for the operation, but mother refused, thinking the quality of care provided in Australia would be better than that provided in Hong Kong.

Then, in 2007, a miracle happened! My mum’s youngest sister fell pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy! ‘Twas a miracle because (1) she was forty-two when she gave birth, (2) the poor woman had suffered two miscarriages and (3) she’d even tried IVF once, but with no luck.

When I talked with grandma over the phone, I asked her, “Umm, grandma … now that you’ve got little baby Mickey now, does that mean you don’t love me anymore?” dearest grandma just laughed and replied, “Of course not, silly! If anything, it means that I love you even more, coz I’ve had you for twenty years before he came along!” hah, take that, Mickey. XD

When we went back to Hong Kong in 2010, to celebrate my paternal grandmother’s 90^th birthday, I tried to spend as much time with my most beloved grandmother as possible. My only regret was that, on the final night, when we were leaving, I’d stood up in Sparkless (my manual wheelchair) to hug dearest grandma. Only, dad must’ve decided that we were running late or sth, coz he roughly shoved me back into the wheelchair and started pushing me away really fast! >< I tried my best to stamp my foot down onto the ground and turn Sparkless back to hug her once more, but hey, he’s a fully-able, grown man while I’m just a disabled, useless young woman. Meaning all I could do was wave to her from the window of the taxi that was driving us to the airport, and hope that I’d see her again. Little did I know, though, that it’d be the last time I’d see her alive. ><

Back in Brisbane, normal life resumed, until one Sunday in June, when mother was supervising my shower, that someone from Hong Kong rang to inform us that dearest grandma was in hospital with pneumonia! ><

Mother immediately flew back to Hong Kong and looked after her for one month; somehow, the pneumonia had developed just like that into fourth-stage lung cancer! ><

I remember writing a letter to mother the afternoon before she left, telling her please to take good care of grandma, and that whatever little cash I had in my bank account was hers for the using, if grandma needed any financial help ever. But mostly, I remember drawing on the letter to mother a poo and the threat that I’d NEVER FORGIVE HER!!! if she let grandma die without giving me the chance to see her and say goodbye to her and tell her that I loved her the most, forever.

The night she’d left for the airport, I’d given her caramel (a little round stuffed toy that could be turned inside out so that he had a light brown coat one way and a dark brown coat the other way) and scrawled in Cantonese on a piece of paper “grandma, I love you the most” and asked her to please give them both to grandma.

While she was overseas looking after grandma, Uncle Slam was awesome and set up a roster of people coming over to have dinner with dad and I nightly.

From memory, mother arrived safely back in Brisbane on Thursday/Friday. In a sense, I only blame my own stupid self that I wasn’t able to see my most beloved grandmother one more time before she left to go live with God up in heaven, because mother had rung her back in Hong Kong and told grandma we’d all come back in a few days time, just not immediately because I was still recovering from the flu.

However, that Saturday morning, about 2am, the phone rings, and shortly afterwards, both parents enter my room. Mother holds out the phone to me. ‘Em, say bye to grandma.” She instructs. “It’s time for her to go and live with God now. She can’t reply you, but she can hear you.” So I take the phone and tell her that while I love her the most, FOREVER, that it’s not good for her to suffer and it’s time that she goes up to live with God and that hopefully, we’ll meet again one day in heaven.

Mother leaves me with dad while she discusses some more things with the nurse that’s rung us from Hong Kong, and dad PINKY-PROMISES me that I’ll see grandma in heaven one day again.

In the morning, mother leaves for work, and dad kindly rings up Vincent the physio and cancels the torture session appointment I’ve got with him in the early arvo. That afternoon, I hop onto Facebook myself and send a message to his wife, explaining our absence.

I honestly can’t remember what food/movies were available on the flight back to Hong Kong; I guess I was just grieving the loss of grandma.

We spend at least another three weeks in Hong Kong. I think mother managed to contact several of her high school friends and arrange to meet them.

For the funeral, mother asks if I would like to sing a song for grandma. I agree and choose ‘Amazing Grace’ coz I know it’s one of grandma’s favourite hymns. At the funeral, when our turn to sing comes up, I walk to the front podium and say to the audience, “Hello. I’m Tsz Yin (that’s my Cantonese name). I’ve lived in Australia for like twenty years, so if you can’t understand my Cantonese, just poke the person beside you and ask them “she’s saying WHAT?!” after the laughter dies down, the pianist starts playing the introduction for Amazing Grace! I was very surprised and impressed, coz I hadn’t given the pianist any music! Anyways, my parents and I all sing the first verse together, dad stops to watch mother and I sing the second verse together, mother stops and allows me to sing the third verse by myself, and then we all sing the last verse together.

Afterwards, we all go and have lunch together, and something amazing thing happens! See, the Cantonese language’s a monosyllabic language; ‘mum’ is one syllable long, ‘dad’ is one syllable long and even ‘elephant’ is one syllable long. Now, when we were back in Hong Kong during the start of the year, little Mickey had learnt to call my dad ‘uncle’ (in Cantonese, ‘cheung cheung’) and my mum ‘aunty’ (in Cantonese, ‘yee mah’. Now, I said to Mickey ‘Look, brat, my name is Emily, but that’s got too many syllables for you to manage, so just called me Em, okay? Em Em Em Em Em.” He looks at me, and then tries? ‘Um?”

‘No, you brat! My name is Em!” but Mickey very proudly calls me again, “Um!” My aunty (his mother) comes over to me and explains, “Oh, Emily, Samuel wants to call you ‘Em’, but it’s just that his vocal chords haven’t quite yet learnt how to produce that sound” Huh, fine. I sigh to my aunty. “Don’t worry, aunty. My mum can be ‘yee mah’, my dad can be ‘cheung cheung’ and I’ll just be ‘um’ for the time being.” However, what I didn’t know was that when we returned to Brisbane sometime around mid-February, my aunty kept teaching him! “Samuel, you cousin’s name is Em. Emily, not Um. Em, Em.”

So here we are all, sharing lunch together after my most beloved grandmother’s funeral. Just as I look up, Mickey looks up also, and our eyes meet. “What’s up, brat?’ I ask him. “You enjoying your food?” he looks at me for quite some time, not saying anything, then, suddenly, he says my whole name, Emily! Not Um, or Umily, but Emily! “OMG!!!” I screech, and you can bet that, for the rest of our trip back in Hong Kong, you can bet I was walking on thin air, I was so happy! XD

One last thing I’d like to tell you about my most beloved grandma: she actually knew lots of English words! See, she could call me ‘Emily’, she knew I loved drinking ‘milk’ (when we used to chat over the phone at night, she’d ask me, “Have you drunk your milk yet?”), I taught her how to say ‘good night’, when Mickey was born, she learnt how to say his whole name ‘Samuel Fung!’ and the most amazing thing, was once when I was talking on the phone to her, the amah was getting little Mickey ready for his shower, and I heard grandma say “have you got his under yet?’ I was amazed! “Grandma!” I said, shocked. “How come you know this word, ‘under’?!” Grandma just laughed. “I don’t think that’s the whole word, but that’s all I can remember!”

Well, in conclusion, my grandmother was an amazing woman, simply the lady I loved the most in this world. I hope she’s happy up in heaven now, and I hope I’m doing her proud, so she can boast to all her friends up in heaven, “You see that girl down there? That’s MY grand daughter!”

So yeah, grandma, today marks two years since you moved up into heaven to live with God. I miss you heaps and I love you even more, and I look forward to meeting you again one day, up in heaven!

Next post here … well, it should come tomorrow, if I find the time! I’ve yet to gloat how the mighty maroons smashed the smelly blues for a SEVENTH CONSECUTIVE SERIES! Well, until then~

Cheers,

Em. ^^