I don't know why exactly I choose to be sad only now. I haven't given it much thought about my grandfather since he died almost 10 years ago, but something Lynn said this morning sort of triggered some fragmented memories.
I never really knew him much. He lived in Terengganu, and I've always hated that place and I still kinda do now. It's trauma from the hours spent getting there when I was younger. That time my dad made some smartassed decision to take a 'shortcut', and in the end we got stuck in a jam somewhere in Kelantan and only reached my grandparents house at 8pm. 8 hours I sat in the car, stuck with three other people at the back, listening to a cassette filled with oldies playing over and over and over again. Incessantly looping. For 8 hours.
But anyway, I digress. The point is I never really knew him. I don't remember much, I barely even recall what he looks like. I only have about three or four specific memories of him. It's quite sad, and only now do I feel how much of a loss it was when he was gone.
I remember him giving me 10 ringgit for no reason at all. That time I was still in JIS, an international school, and BM in my house was almost non-existent, so I can imagine how jarring and weird it was for me to ask, in perfect American accented english and with no attempt whatsoever at speaking BM, why he'd given it to me. It must've been like Norm now (sorry Norm.) I don't remember his answer, but he let me keep it. I remember thinking to be a very nice kind of man after that.
And before, when I was even younger, I'd ask him how to spell the name we called him, Ki. I think I wrote him a card or something, but I addressed it to 'Key.' He laughed. I was confused. I'm a bit embarrassed at how un-Malay I was then. I'm embarrassed because I still am, a little bit, now.
Years later, he had to go for a major heart surgery. Maybe it was a bypass or something, but it was really big because all his kids, spread out all over Malaysia came to see him before he went. He has 7 kids. Grandkids, uncountable then and the number still spiraling upwards today. The point is that practically everyone came to see him. He was about to go into the theater, and my mom told me to well, salam him before he did. So I did. All the grandchildren were crowded around his bed. And then the doctors wheeled him away.
The gravity of the situation never really hit me then, but now, almost 10 years on after his death, it does. It never crossed my mind how incredibly touching it was for everyone to be there, giving him support and stuff before they did weird things to his heart with a knife.
And then comes the worst memory. It was night, and we visited my auntie's house all the way in Gombak just to see him. He was in bed, sleeping. Hopefully sleeping. And I was just outside, hanging around, sitting on chairs and dangling my feet, wishing to go home.
The next day I woke up unnaturally early and I saw my mom was in a baju kurung, looking ready to go out.
She told me he'd died.
I was shocked of course. I said there was no way he could've died. My reason : "We just saw him last night!" That was a stupid kind of reason. Forgive me, I was nine. I went to his funeral, but I don't remember feeling too sad at his leaving. I did feel sick though, but I think I feel way sicker now.
God bless his soul. I need to lie down now.
