Pitiful Ah Po

It must have been about 8 + P.M (the date I could not remember), I was rushing up the staircase to see grandma (Ah Po) who had been very ill. She was warded at Assunta Hospital in PJ. Just as I approached her bed, I heard nurses calling, " Ah Po! Ah Po!.." Unbeknown to me, it was precisely that moment that Ah Po passed on. Ah Po died at Assunta Hospital that night. She was 90 at least.

Ah Po outlived three of her sons-- Pa (eldest son), second uncle (who died in the jungle, killed by the communists) and uncle Kwong Sin (fourth son). Apart from second uncle's death, Ah Po was never told about Pa's and Uncle Kwong Sin's death. The grief brought about by this cruel truth would have killed her...

For years after Pa's death, Ah Po though never told the truth, must have suspected that something was amiss. When Ah Po was too frail and weak to be taken care of at home, she lived out her last few years in an Old Folks' Home. Uncle Kwong Sin's wife, Aunt Siew Kheng --Siew Key's mother-- who was taking care of her for some time, developed heart problems and could no longer take the stress. Occasionally, when I visited Ah Po, she always asked about Pa because she had not seen or heard from him for years.

She must have missed her sons very much. Uncle Kwong Teck was living in Australia and Uncle Wong Soong in HongKong/China. At the later stage of her life, Ah Po was rather subdued. While her small body frame had most visibly shrunk, her mind was still alert as she could remember and talked quite a lot of her past.

I wish I had visited her more often and talked to her more. But I was living in Singapore at the time and really did not see her much.

In her younger days, Ah Po was quite a fiery character. She was the strong Hakka woman -- probably ran the household and made most of the decisions for the family (till Pa was old enough to take over). Ah Gong was quiet and docile, too timid to incur Ah Po's wrath. So for her, to live out her last days, lonely and desolate away from her family, must have been despairing. It is undeniably pitiable.

My sympathies are with her still...