Grandpa's death and my personal discovery.

My grandfather passed away on Sunday, 6th July 2008. He was 79 years old at the time of passing. I miss him dearly and am still deeply saddened by his death. Nevertheless I pray for the best for him, and hope that one day in life after death, God would reunite us as I really wish to see him and speak to him again like I used to. May God answer my prayer. Amen.

-------------------------------------------The day he died-------------------------------------

In the not-so-early morning of Sunday, 6th July, I received a call from mum who said that grandpa was very sick. Well, grandpa was not someone with a chronic disease or even serious illness, so the news was to some extent alarming to me. However, because of his old age conditions, I have been receiving such news of late and so the phone call, though quite alarming, did not convince me of his real conditions on that day, if you understand what I mean...

So I took my time to get ready to visit grandpa and even re-scheduled my plans on how I should be spending the day. My initial plan was to spend the day shopping at Orchard Road with my beloved husband, Kenji, but later on, I re-scheduled my plans to visiting grandpa first and then shopping at Orchard later.

At noon, Nunun and Asyraf came over to my place and Nunun, who had seen grandpa earlier that day, told me how grandpa was. With a bit of knowledge of the signs of death in hand, I finally understood that grandpa was dying and that I realised I wanted to see him urgently.

In the car, I called up a cousin (whom I think probably didn't get the news about grandpa's deteriorating conditions) and told him that grandpa was dying.

When I arrived at grandpa's place later, I found the flat very quiet and empty. I asked my dad who was standing close to the door where everyone was and dad pointed to grandpa's room. I walked over to the room and upon reaching the room, I heard voices of women reading Surah Yaasin and the Quran rather loudly as though it was a Quran recital class.

I entered the room and saw grandpa lying on bed and a few other people, mainly my uncles, aunts and cousins, surrounding him were sobbing. Mum asked if I wanted to say out loud the phrase "Laailahaillallah..." to grandpa's ears. She also asked if I wanted to read the Surah Yaasin for him, but I rejected every request mum had asked of me including an invitation to sit next to grandpa. I don't know why.

I guess at that time all I wanted to do was to just watch grandpa as I still wasn't too sure if he was dying. So I came close to grandpa afterward and watched him. I even touched him gently on the hand.

To me, grandpa didn't look like he was dying. His facial expression was calm. Everything else about him appeared cool. It's just that he seemed as though he was having a bit of difficulty breathing. Still, I have seen him in a worse state than that before.

Minutes later, grandpa became more and more lifeless. If he could recite "Laailahaillallah" minutes ago, now, only his eyes were moving.

Grandpa died at 3:05pm. I was there with a few others in his room. We watched him die and at that point in time, I have begun to miss him already.

The burial took place the following day. Murni and Hasan, who have just left for Perth on Friday night, made it home that Monday morning. And I was so glad they did.

-------------------------------------------What I Learnt--------------------------------------

I never knew that the death of someone close to my heart could take away so much of my energy. I went to work the following day (after the day he was buried) and felt as though I was behaving like a zombie as I walked around school, not being able to produce emotions. I couldn’t get angry, I couldn’t be happy, I couldn’t even produce a smile. It was as though the feelings that I had deep in my heart had all hardened and all that I had become on that day was a robot with my grandfather on my mind.

I also felt weak and tired, perhaps from all the crying I had done in the few days. So in class, I wasn't able to project my voice like how I always could. So I told my students about my grandpa’s death and informed them about how I was feeling on that day. I told them not to make me angry in any way as I felt so fragile and as though I could brittle way too easily. I never knew that sadness had taken away so much of my energy :(

As I made my way to school earlier on in the day, I came across some old men on the road. Those old men were carrying what seemed to be their grandchildren’s schoolbags as they walk their grandchildren to school. Seeing those grandfathers around reminded me very much of my own grandfather and back in those days when he’d pick me up from school and buy me nice stickers, stamps and bookmarks from shops we had passed by. Recalling those moments had hurt me a little. And without realising, tears welled up my eyes as I walked past those children and their grandfathers. Certainly, I didn't know that seeing other people with their grandfathers on that day could hurt me ‘that’ much.

In school, I did some marking of my students work. As I was marking pages of piles of Activity books in school, I came across a short story about a grandfather and a grandson. The short story wasn't something new to me as I have read the passage to the class a week ago before the children were made to do the work. Still, reading the text hurt me very much and I remember many times during the marking had I have tears welling up my eyes. But I managed to keep those tears from falling, so it was good. At least I didn’t embarrass myself there and then. But what I learnt from this experience was that I became very sensitive over things that have got to do with the recently departed loved one, which, unexpectedly include stories that I have read that didn't have any impact on me previously.

Grandpa's death took place exactly a week after Murni's wedding. And I know I have a thousand and one reasons to thank God for it. At least grandpa could attend Murni's wedding and didn't pass away then. I mean, imagine what it would be if grandpa had passed away on Murni's wedding day...I can't imagine.

In life, I've always prayed that grandpa would live long enough to see me getting married. And I didn't know that God had given me so much more than what I have prayed for. I only knew about it when I saw grandpa at Murni's wedding - grandpa was alive but not kicking, very different from the day he attended mine. He seemed to have enjoyed himself so much then. But really, I didn't know that God had given me so much, in fact, a lot more than what I have asked for.

*Post was written on Saturday, July 12, 2008, and first published on Sept 04, 2008*