I Miss My Grandmother Who Passed Away

Granny would stand at the flat window on the sixteenth floor and wait for my uncle to come back from work. She would only start cooking then as she wanted the food to be warm for him. It could be a simple fish or meat with rice and soup. Sometimes she'd open a can of baked beans for me. My favourite dish was her mashed potatoes.

Those years with Granny made me see how much she cared for those in the family from her children to her grandchildren. Granny lost a child during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore. It was in the 1940s and people lived in wooden shacks then. She had, sometimes in her living years, recounted that there was a huge deafening explosion outside the house. I did not know then that there was a casualty because she did not mention the child that was killed. Perhaps the memory of it was too painful for her.

Post traumatic stress manifested in the form of extreme anxiety later whenever any one of her grown children came back late. She would pace up and down the small flat, clutching the rice cooker. Sometimes she would call people on the phone and mutter to herself when they did not seem to be concerned. I saw it when I had my stays with her during my school holidays. At that time, I did not know about the history of her suffering. I did not even know it as a psychological condition. I just knew that it made me extremely sad. And I cried often seeing her like that.

Sometimes I see her again in my mind's eye dialing the phone and mumbling to herself. Most times, my image is of her back, at the kitchen window, her face leaning against the metal rails. And soon the sun would set.