Last week, my grandmother passed away

Last week, my grandmother passed away. She was 93. I was heartbroken.

She was my last surviving grandparent, and the last surviving great-grandparent of my children. I am consoled by the fact that my children and I managed to spend some time with her before she passed.

When she died, she was in a nursing home, where she had been for more than a decade. Her children had made the joint decision with her on this, because they didn’t want her to rotate through their homes as if she was homeless, and they knew her well enough that she would always feel she needed to be there for all of them.

Before we talk about her death, let me tell you about her life.

My Teochew grandmother was born in 1930. She spent her young childhood living through the aftermath of the First World War, and her young teen years experiencing the horrors of the Second in Asia Pacific. She was a petite sweet woman who was known as the beauty of the neighbourhood. Back then, there wasn’t much schooling to be had, and she married early, catching the eye of an aspiring young banker. My grandparents went on to bring up 8 children.

That’s not to say she had an easy life. Not at all. She and my grandfather came from very modest backgrounds. The wars and political upheavals had destroyed much of what they owned or loved. She was the force of nature at home that shaped all her children, while he was always out of the house.

As her children grew up and started families, she became the one who cared for her grandchildren. No one in my family could afford to be idle. We were mostly dual-income families because my father’s generation all had eyes on sending every single child to university, to the UK or USA.

This is where my story comes in. At least, this is what I remember from my childhood.

I remember my grandmother as the one who cared for me from a very young age. I was not alone. She had 4-5 grandchildren in the house, all within 5 years in age of one another. I remember being about 6 years old, sneaking a snack of Mamee from the kitchen, and conspiring with my toddler sister to hide in the tiny gap between the sofa and the wall…. Because I knew the adults would never think to look there – while we ate the entire packet just before dinner.

Grandmother ran the house meticulously, and even reared a few chicken in the backyard – for eggs and meat. Every now and then, there were ducklings too, for the same reason. She had a wonderful “ais kacang” machine. On sweltering days, her grandchildren would gather round the kitchen table as she took cylindrical blocks of moulded ice from the freezer and shaved us each a little baby bowl of ice over sweet canned corn, red beans and chendol…. And off we went to the toppings bowls to layer on whatever sugary thing we wanted.

She cooked for the family. And it was a big one. She had been a young bride, and was a young grandmother. Many of her children and their families stayed together or close by, and sometimes dinner was like a clan gathering. Wondrous things came out of her kitchen. Some of those dishes are no longer found, even in restaurants. The rice cooker was enormous. The soup pot humongous.

As we grandchildren grew in numbers and through our school years, our individual families branched out into newer bigger homes. She did rotate through, spending a few days or weeks here and there. Whenever she stayed with us, she would always remind us that we needed to rely on our wits and abilities, to study hard and earn honestly, and to treat the world with compassion.

She was a smart and sociable person, and taught herself fluent conversational English from scratch. She showed me that it is not where life starts you off, but what you do with your time and life force that makes you who you are.

One by one, she saw her dreams fulfilled across two generations. Her own children had attended university, and so did her grandchildren. What she had lost in her youth and could not have, because of global events, she saw us bring about. She came for my graduation beaming with happiness and dressed so beautifully. I felt so proud, and forever will be proud to be part of her legacy.

Her grandchildren took flight to many corners of the world.

Aside from all of us, Grandmother came from a big family. Every Chinese New Year, her sisters and brothers and their families came to see her at my parents’ home, as she was the eldest sister. It was always a few riotous days of conversation, mahjong, karaoke, fireworks and just children underfoot everywhere playing without bedtime. This made her happy – to see her family nurtured and together. 家和万事兴。

As time passed, she was struck by diabetes. She lost a leg, and that really took a toll on her independence. Nevertheless, in a wheelchair, she was still Grandmother. As she aged, we presented her with great-grandchildren. Family ties remained intact even as the family tree grew and grew. There started to be a contentedness now, mixed with the weariness of great age.

At one point, after trying several living arrangements, the joint decision was made to find her a nursing home that she felt comfortable in. That way, her own ageing children could spend valuable time with her as they wanted to, and as filial hierarchy goes, they came to her and not the other way round.

In 2019, we coordinated a big birthday party for Grandmother on the grounds of the nursing home. Everyone had a great time. The staff still remember many of us – this massive family that came out of one tiny little woman. We didn’t know that it would be her last big party.

COVID struck the year after, and in those three agonising years, my grandmother whittled away. Isolation measures, travel restrictions, and the general morosity had diminished her in her great age. When I saw her again after COVID, she was tinier and so much more frail than I remembered.

The nursing home staff loved her. They had cared for her for so long – that was her and their home together, and we were visitors.

This year, in May, my father texted into the family chat group that Grandmother had taken a turn for the worse. With her diabetes at an advanced stage, overlaid with dementia and other issues, her prognosis could have been anything from months to days. This is how chronic diseases move when each one is advanced, in an elder. It simply isn’t possible to predict precisely, but I felt the urgency and slight panic that I could lose my grandmother anytime.

We have a few doctors in the family, so we could take her care into our own hands, to augment what the nursing home could provide. Essentially, because Grandmother had spent enough time with most branches of our family, we were all quite clear what she would have wanted. She received palliative care more and more until she deteriorated very quickly but peacefully over days, and slipped away in her sleep.

The last time I saw her, my children and I held her and assured her that we were fine, that we would continue to be fine (and all the achievements that the children had), and that we loved her. Most of the family, either in person or through technology, did the same.

At her wake and funeral, all but those of us too far away came. The nursing home staff who cared for her came too. We spent time grieving together, but also sharing so many stories that celebrated who she has always been, the adventures she had experienced in her life, and the debt of gratitude for what we have become because of her.

She received a good close from a pastor who had known her and her children, and was cremated. We laid her to rest with the full identity of her culture and background – with the post-cremation 集骨 (collect bones) ceremony, a symbolic journey to her “new home”, and traditional rites to settle her into the columbarium, reunited with my grandfather at last.

Death is very often not the end. It is the grand finale of a much bigger greater story of each person’s life. The palliation period is the time when all gains and losses are consolidated. I truly felt that in those last days, we as a family really, truly connected and understood that Grandmother flowed through our veins - that we could bear with the loss of her body because she really did live on in all of us.

I have cried and cried over my loss, yet in my bereavement I am grateful that my family had the knowledge, resources, and had had those conversations with her long ago…..to put control of her last great finale in her own hands through us, even if she had not been conscious in her last days.