Tan Keng Neo
To: My great grandmother I never knew
From: Your great grandson you will never know
Dear Tan Keng Neo,
Ah Cho, if you gave me another day to spend time with you, I honestly wouldn’t really know what to do or say. But here I am, writing this letter to you that you will never read.
It was about a week before that we got the news; that you were hospitalised in Sengkang General Hospital. Group messages were sent, your grandchildren were called, and they all rushed to see you. I came two days before with my mom. There was a problem with the maximum number of visitors that could visit at a time but I remember seeing your bony face and pale smile when you first saw me.
I didn’t even have a proper conversation with you, I just stood idly by your bed, behind my mom as she talked to you. I didn’t fully understand Hokkien but I knew the things you said weren’t even coherent at all. A nurse had to come by to change a bag of urine underneath your bed and it smelt horrible.
You looked so pathetic.
My mom had to go down to fetch my granduncle up and I was alone with you, you closed your eyes and drifted off to somewhere when someone else in the ward started groaning and thrashing in bed. Nobody attended to the patient but she relaxed and I saw that you were awake. You didn’t register I was there but I knew you were scared. I knew you were afraid as your eyes darted around the room, left, then right. Your eyes eventually found me and I waved at you smiling. You raised your hand ever so weakly to wave back before going back to rest.
I knew your biggest fear was to be alone through the night. You told me that yourself, I felt the panic and terror in your faltering voice when you did.
Some time had passed and my mom returned with my granduncle. He had bought your favourite Yong Tau Foo fish cakes to feed you. You couldn’t even eat it as he fed you, you just spat out a barely-chewed mess of fishcakes that you couldn’t swallow. You couldn’t even spit it out, it just dribbled out like shovelling dirt.
Your son gave in trying to feed you as you just laid back again, closing your eyes. The only sign of life was the barely rising and falling of your blanket. I asked your son what was wrong and why you were hospitalised, he simply said that you had some sort of joint issues that resurfaced from an earlier surgery in the past that left you in crippling pain.
I was selfishly content with that answer and I believed him.
It was time.
You had fallen asleep and visiting hours were over. The three of us went down. I could feel that your son’s heart was heavy and broken. I could feel the hurt and agony at the thought of leaving you alone in the hospital ward like that.
My mom drove me home and I went back to sleep, looking forward to a restful Sunday. She asked me if I wanted to go back to visit her but I chose not to. I stuck to justified myself with my granduncle’s words that it was a minor problem. I even regurgitated it to my sister.
But I can tell you honestly that I wasn’t surprised when I received the message on Monday in class that you had passed on.
My granduncle had lied. But how could I even blame him?
Was I really that confident that you would be fine? Or was I just lazy to wake up on a Sunday to visit you because seeing you the day before was enough? Do I feel guilty about it? Should I feel guilty about it?
-
Other venous embolism and thrombosis. 7 days interval between onset and death.
Pulmonary embolism. 1 day interval between onset and death.
Do you know what they mean?
I didn’t. It’s a blood clot that forms in one of your veins that breaks free from the vein wall that blocks blood supply to your lungs. Not some minor joint issue.
Did you go gently?
Did you rage against the light?
Could you?
You passed on with one of your sons by your side.
00/00/1925. You were 94 years old.
Nobody even knew your birthday, but all of us had always celebrated it on the first of April.
I didn’t even know your real name until 8th July, the day you died, when I saw your death certificate.
You were always just Ah Cho to me.
-
I came after school to the wake, on the same day. It felt bizarre knowing that you were just alive not more than 6 hours ago yet there you were in your coffin, surrounded by your family in white t-shirts in a makeshift room draped with white cloth.
The funny thing is that, the wake didn’t feel like a wake at all. Sure there were a sombre undertone. There were people at the front, sitting right in front of the coffin idly staring into space. But there were also people socialising, drinking beer, playing mahjong.
I was at the table furthest away from you, with all the other cousins of the youngest generation. We were talking and having a blast, talking about ghost stories and how you might come back to see us at night. We even played poker with peanuts instead of gambling chips. I took pictures for my photography assignment. I studied for my audio and technology quiz. I edited my video for my video essay. All surrounded by people who were talking, laughing and trying not to cry.
I remember how I even casually and naively saying to the other cousins, “this feels like Chinese New Year”. And that was the most insensitive thing I’ve ever dared to say. But it was true. How different was it really compared to any other family gathering? The younger kids still played and laughed. The teens still gambled. The uncles still drank and the aunties still played mahjong.
How different was it really?
-
I would leave with my mom and sister in the late of the night and come back the day after in the evening for the next 4 days of the wake.
I was pressed on time too. I had to message my lecturers telling them I needed an extension for some of my deadlines. I realised that the word “condolences” is one that is passed around a lot but honestly, I don’t even know that it means. It’s just something that living people say to other living people when someone passed on because they don’t know what else to say.
My aunt had asked me to write and make a eulogy on the day before the last day addressed to you and everyone else. It was technically supposed to be her son since he was the youngest but he had refused and me being the second youngest, had to take over. I told her quite frankly that I would try my best to but I had French on the day itself before coming so I would be late.
She insisted and so I crafted it with my sister when we got home. We had this egocentric idea to make everyone cry but, no one did.
-
I remember being told that the last day is always the hardest. And it was.
The day of the final wake, we had to be there in the morning. I had to skip class to attend the funeral service. My family was late and we even somehow managed to pick up a McDonald’s breakfast before we came.
One of your sons who was a pastor had decided to hold a Christian funeral service for you.
I know that this son had always come to you talking about the word of god and the bible, but I don’t know if you believed in it or not. The service was half-assed. Half of it was talking about you and your wishes and the other half was talking about evangelism. I tried my hardest to keep a straight face.
The only thing I took away was that your biggest wish was for our family to still gather in spite of not having you around. I wondered to myself, why would that be an issue?
Perhaps it might be a little selfish but I eventually realised that you were always the constant in my family that I never really understood. The only reason we gathered for an extended family celebration was because of you. It made sense to me because I realised that anyone could’ve been missing from the gathering and it would still go on. Anyone except for you.
Chinese New Year. Christmas. Your birthday. Some cousins don’t even turn up for the entire year but you, you were always there.
-
At some point, we had to circle around the coffin singing praise and worship and we had a chance to look at you because the coffin was half-open. I peeked in and I saw you. Resting with a lavish amount of makeup and lipstick. It was an ethereal feeling, you were made unnaturally “beautiful” and that has irony itself, that we accept and portray death as unnatural just to sugar-coat it.
The coffin was to be transported to the crematorium in Mandai and you were put in a van.
We all walked like zombies in white, following your corpse in the van. Still, nothing had settled in yet, it felt like any other one of the previous days of the wake. I even told myself, man my photography lecturer would appreciate this picture if I took one, the sea of people in white walking down the middle of the road. You don’t see that everyday.
We had another service at the crematorium and I had a chance to put down a flower on your coffin as you were sent away for cremation. We were all gathered to the observation deck. It felt like one of those exhibitions of performances at Science Center or Universal Studios (the Steven Spielberg one).
The lights started to dim and instantly, the mood had flipped. Like someone split a dam open. I could hear my grandaunt sobbing at the first floor of the deck. I was on the second with my mom.
The moment I saw your coffin travelling by itself to the cremator behind the wall, it dawned on me that I would never see you again.
I felt the grief, it had crept up on me. But not over you. Over the people who had actually lost someone that mattered to them. A grandmother, a mom.
And my heart broke for them. I wonder if it broke even more than it did for you.
I felt the pain in the atmosphere. I felt the loss. I felt the love.
I grabbed my mom’s arm and started crying too. I couldn’t stop. Tears just streamed down my face.
I felt regret. I felt guilt. I felt sad. I felt angry.
And it was over. Just like that, your coffin was gone and your body was being burnt to ashes behind the walls.
The rest of the day passed by seamlessly, I don’t really remember much of the rest of that day. All I remember sleeping on the shoulder of my mom on the bus ride home and sleeping in her room later in the night.
-
Ah Cho, can I ask you something?
You were always the first person I greeted whenever I visited and I remember that you would always say the same blessings over and over again.
“读书聪明，身体健康，开心到一百岁” (study smart, healthy body, happy until a hundred years old)
There’s a whole list of 4-worded Chinese idioms that you would repeat like a broken record that I don’t understand but I wanted to know, if you really meant the last one.
Everyone had always joked that none of them wanted to live to a hundred years old, how they’d be old and fragile. Everyone said that it would’ve been better just to die before age becomes a problem.
Were you happy? When every single task you had to do like eat or go to the toilet would require such extreme and careful precision only to lead to more pain instead of relief? Because I can’t imagine having to go through that and having every part of my body ache and hurt.
Were you content with just seeing all of your children grow up?
Did you feel that way in April when all of your grandchildren including my and sister and I went to the cruise ship for 2 days with you, just to fulfil your wish of spending a holiday with everyone?
Were you okay, sitting in your room with your domestic helper as every one of them flocked to the casino to gamble? Was it any different that just staying at home, lying on the bed, doing the same thing?
Did you lead a happy life when your husband passed away when you were young and you were terrorised by dreams of him haunting you so much so that you’d hide under the bed because you were afraid?
It seemed like all you could do was wake up, get out of bed, sit on the couch to watch TV, eat and go back to sleep, hoping your children would come and visit you the next day.
You got so close to a hundred. Were you happy until then?
-
Ah Cho, It’s odd how it’s the time that I spend without you that are the moments that I think I’ve learnt the most from.
My mom told me you were depressed and I can’t imagine how that must be when you’re old. When all that’s left at the end of your life feels like you’re just waiting to die.
I know it isn’t fair for me to assume how you felt like that but part of me wonders about it a lot.
I remember Chinese New Year last year, when I think I spent the most amount of time with you in one single sitting. I don’t know why but I went up to you and sat down on your bed. All I did was show you pictures and videos of Marshmallow and you were smiling and thanking me. Just for accompanying you.
I looked over a lot when I was showing you my cat videos. I couldn’t really tell but it just seemed like you were staring blankly at my phone screen. I even took a picture with you and you didn’t even know how to look at the camera. You just smiled. Looking at me, with your toothless grin and lazy eye as I clicked on my phone.
I still have that picture; I’m looking at it now in fact. It confuses me to look at it because you’re usually just someone who’s far away. On the other end of the island, being taken care of by somebody else.
You’re someone I don’t see that often, maybe twice or thrice a year, someone I don’t think about often.
Now you’re someone I won’t see ever again.
And that kills me a little inside. It’s an awful dulling ache that goes on unsettled as if your heart is raw with cuts and bruises. Not broken. But not unbroken. Like cracks and tears between the seams that seem to only appear when you’re aware of it. Like an unused wine cup that you realise is only leaking when you pour a drink.
-
Ah Cho. It would be a lie for me to say that I miss you. But it wouldn’t be truthful to say that I don’t either.
Can you blame me for that? Maybe you’re tossing in the urn as I write this.
I’m in an awkward space, thinking about you. This is potentially the first semblance of what grief is like.
As a writer, I’ve tried endlessly on how to convey what it’s like. Especially challenging for someone who has gone through 18 years without “loss”. Like I’m wearing some blissful veil that I have to take off eventually.
This year, I have a small taste of what it’d feel like and I’m not prepared at all.
I’m not prepared for it to be someone that truly meant something to me and I hate how selfish that sounds.
I’m not ready at all. Not the tiniest bit even after this precursor of how bitter life is.
But the truth is, who really is?
-
Ah Cho, I dreamt about you for the very first time not too long ago. About a month ago. The strangest thing that I remember so vividly was that I was talking in Mandarin in my dream. Never once has that happened before, but I was, talking to you.
We were in my old house, in my grandmother’s room, you were lying on the bed, as we were having a conversation. And you said that there wasn’t any time left and I started bawling, not like a kid in denial, but someone who embraces fate as inevitable.
I carried you dramatically in my arms and I felt the life draining out from you. I saw the life whisk away from your eyes as tears streamlined my face. The last thing I remember was me saying this to you,
“我在这里。我在这里。我在这里。” (I am here. I am here.I am here.)
Needless to say, when I woke up, I turned on my flashlights and room light immediately. I had this numbing ache that swallowed my chest and my eyes were sore. It felt like a nightmare, I couldn’t catch my breath.
I thought I had would have a hard time falling asleep, I slept with my desk light on, peeping my eyes open occasionally, just to be sure. But I wasn’t worried. I just needed to know.
I eventually fell asleep with a peace of mind. A stark contrast to the many days where I would toss around anxiously, afraid of ghosts and demons my mind would conjure up.
Somehow I felt at ease.
-
Ah Cho, I’m sorry if this letter is more about me than it is about you.
Maybe it speaks for itself how insignificantly significant you were to my life, even after passing.
But what is death but cruel and selfish and what is life but any different?
I fall back to a quote from my favourite books.
“Do not pity the dead, Harry, pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.”
The truth is I never really knew the kind of person you were and it’d be another lie to say that I didn’t have time to. But this is still for you, for the memory of you that resides in me and the hearts of the children you raised. You lived through the war, you lived through pain, you lived through things that I can’t imagine at all.
I don’t know if I loved you or not. Maybe it runs more than just filial piety. I’m stuck in this grey area where I feel like you were ripped away, not forcibly but ever so slowly, like I was voided of the person that I could’ve known and loved. But yet it felt like a seemingly conscious choice the more I look back at it.
What stopped me from spending more time with you when I visit? What stopped me from getting to know more about your life?
I don’t like how selfish I am; how selfish I’ve been.
I’m responsible for these choices and I wonder if you ever felt that rift too.
I’m not guilt-ridden, I don’t think I am. I don’t know if that’s an issue but I’ll just chalk it up to grief being a complex emotion.
Maybe one day I’ll be on the other end of the stick looking back at my own children the same way and then I’ll truly understand how you felt and maybe it’s as simple as that.
But for now at least, I suppose that’s all I can do, in your memory that I very poorly honour in this letter.
-
Ah Cho, I hope you see it in yourself to forgive what kind of person your great grandson has grown up to be even if you didn’t know the kind of person I was. We can call it even.
I’m not going to thank you for dying but I’m going to thank you for loving me like your own and for what it’s worth, I did love you for the person you are to me and to everyone else too.