\since we're such awkward bedfellows

nostalgia!

hello!

I took some time to remember those people I love that are no longer on this earth, and the first people that came to mind are my late auntie and my late grandpa. I won't go into the details, cos I'll never stop if I do. but I really did love them so and I don't think I cherished them enough when they were alive.

I love them very much. (:

but the thing is that they both played an instrumental role in my childhood. and then I grew up and I kind of forgot about them because I became to absorbed in my own life. you know. psle, friends, fitting in, all that bullshit.

my earliest childhood memory was of my auntie. I used to sleep at my aunt's house every friday night when I was small, don't really understand the rationale behind it. I guess they wanted to have another child. :P no really. how else would they have got the chance to make my brother's existence possible, so to speak.

OKAY MOVING ON! I hated friday nights the most because I hated when they had to leave me. I'd end up screaming and crying at my aunt's front door while they disappeared down the stairs. no matter how long my mum stayed behind I'd never go to sleep until after they were gone, and I'd never let them go quietly. I was extremely attached to them. haha. guess you can call me manja. :P

anyway I remember my aunt used to set up this hammock for me in the doorway of the guest room and lay me there, and then she'd rock the hammock so I'd go to sleep before my parents went off. but that never worked of course.

my earlist childhood memory goes like this: I'm lying in this hammock and I'm clutching my bolster like I'd die without it. and my aunt's rocking the hammock and she's trying to make me sleep. she's even trying to sing to me. but I don't care that she's doing that, I don't care that it's her house that I'm sleeping in, I don't even care that she's trying to make me go to sleep so I don't have to feel the pain of my parents leaving. so I shout to my aunt, and I tell her that I don't want her, I want my mum. and she goes away looking very wounded. but what did I care, I was just a baby.

pretty sad memory haha. but I loved my auntie all the same. she was like a second mother to me.

and my grandfather.. he was one of those strong and silent people. strong, not physically, but he just had this quiet confidence and he didn't say much, but it was impossible to ignore his presence because he just had this aura of authority. but when he spoke to me it was with a tone so kind and so gentle I didn't figure out that he could actually be fiercer than my dad even, if he wanted to, until I was older.

anyway I have this memory of them asking me what I want for breakfast. it was saturday and my aunt and my grandpa and I were in the living room. he was getting ready for one of his morning walks, and he never failed to ask me what I want for breakfast before setting off. I always wanted apam! this colorful miniature sponge cake that came in different colours.

at the time I was obsessed, like COMPLETELY obsessed, with power rangers. no shit. other girls were playing with pretty little dolls and combing barbie's pretty blonde hair and making her kiss ken, and I couldn't get enough of power rangers. HAHA. (x I tried playing with dolls! but it never worked, it was never exciting enough. in the end if I couldn't get my power ranger fix I'd play with my cousin's toy racing cars and monster trucks and GI Joes or whatever they were, and I'd always make the cars crash or drive off a cliff and GI Joe would always have a leg missing by the time I was done with him. how distinctly ladylike. :P

anyway, my aunt knew how obsessed I was with power rangers (I even had a crush on red ranger I think hahaha) so she'd always ask me which colour apam I wanted, pink ranger or green ranger or yellow ranger or white ranger or blue ranger. or something. because apam colours more or less correspond to power ranger colours. quite cool right! see how my smart aunt was. hahaha. (x

I remember my aunt and my grandpa kneeling in front of me while I hugged my plastic inflatable power ranger bolster, to ask me "what color ranger do you want!" I liked yellow ranger. whenever I asked for pink ranger I felt like I was being too girly for my own good. 0.o

she used to tell me loads of stories at night to get me to sleep. bedtime stories, I suppose, except they weren't of the hansel&gretel variety. auntie always told me news. yea sensational news stories she'd picked up in the newspaper, or watched on tv, or something. it never, and I mean NEVER, failed to make me stop crying after my parents left me at her house on friday nights.

there was one story about a hotel that collapsed in singapore, and my aunt told me about this dude who was bathing at the time the hotel collapsed. his wife told him to get out five minutes before the collapse but he wanted to smell nicer I guess so he continued bathing. it was indian couple on their honeymoon here. I think the guy died, I'm not sure. I swear I stopped crying immediately, I was so intrigued.

sick little kid i was, come to think of it. stories of people dying in hotel collapses made me stop crying. how bout a nice bedtime story like goldilocks? no thanks! HAHAHA.

sigh. and then when I grew up I forgot how good they were to me and how much they loved me because I stopped being such a baby and so I became less attached to them, especially after I stopped sleeping over at my auntie's house after my brother was born.

I remember my auntie sitting in the hallway of her new house and telling me to help myself to a banana in the kitchen. cos everyone in my family knows that banana is my favourite fruit. apples, the second favourite :p anyway I thought I was being kind by paying attention to her and using this sweet tone when I talked to her, but really I must've hurt her more. when you have to put on a tone like that to talk to someone, it just shows how estranged you are from that person.. I rushed off after telling her ok, just so I could play with my cousins.. sigh.

it was the same with grandpa. he never failed to ask me if I wanted a banana every time I came over to my auntie's house. never said much else to me or anyone else in the house at the time, even if all my aunts and uncles and cousins were there, like there always were and still are, almost every saturday night.

I know the first time that I ever cried at anyone's wake was at my aunt's wake. I was playing all the way until I saw my oldest cousin kissing my late aunt's forehead. and then the tears just came so hard, I remember me and my cousin clutching each other's hands so hard it hurt. I ran off to the guest room and pulled my cousin along with me and I locked us in, and I only came out when my mum told me they were bringing my auntie's body to the cemetery already...

don't much wanna talk about my grandpa's death. I missed watching him give him his last breath because I was sleeping at home -.- he died in the morning, I suppose I was so tired from staying up with my mum to watch him at the hospital the previous night I wanted to sleep in. but that was the single most selfish, stupid thing I've ever done in my entire life. I'm not even kidding.

I hate that feeling of helplessness you get when you watch a dead body being lowered into the ground, all wrapped in white.. you're torn between wanting to run to the men and slap them so hard to stop them lowering it into the ground, and staying put where you are to pay your respects silently and read them a prayer and pray for God's mercy when they face Him in the afterlife.. it makes your heart kinda disappear for a while, and your stomach's twisted in a thousand dead knots, your eyes sting from crying too much. you want to do something but you can't. what can you do? they're gone, they're never coming back. even though you're hoping against hope that somehow they'll spring back to life and shout "don't bury me alive!"

sigh. well. He takes back what is rightfully His. no one can tell Him not to do it. but it still hurts all the same. I know I'm not supposed to cry at a wake. it's a mark of how far you can accept His will if you don't cry, especially so if it's a loved one's wake. it hurts damn bad. it makes me wish momentarily that He made everyone immortal. but that would just be very wrong. only He's immortal. I guess you think up of all kinds of irrational things when you can't deal with loss. -.-

pretty intense post.. think I should go now. bye (:

posted by aney @ 7:49 PM