14.9.05
OK my handphone has returned to me, so as promised, an entry.
My grandfather just passed away. Metastatic papillary thyroid cancer, plus two strokes, and a host of other pains. It must have been a release for him. We're going to his funeral on Sunday.
I cried, but it somehow doesn't seem enough. I never knew him that well (he spoke only teowchew, which i am totally clueless at), yet the fact remains that he was my grandfather, that he loved me. And I can't forgive myself for not getting to know him better. I don't even know his
name, for god's sake.
I can't say that I've been floored by pain and despair, which makes it worse. I should be crying now, remembering all the things that we did together, but I can't remember anything. The closest memory was three days ago, when my father and I went up north to see him; there he could still talk and walk like... a normal person.
I expected, no I
wanted him to live to his next birthday, but in the end that was not my decision.
No, what's most fucked up is the fact that I couldn't do anything. I knew what was happening, down to the name of the bloody disease, but i couldn't do a single bloody thing. Not a one, right up to the time he died. Its the helplessness that i hate most, that i fear most. Now I know why people become religious, its for the emotional safety blanket. Well I don't belive in Him, and for me gong gong is simply... gone.
I guess there's nothing to do but move on. Remember him, and do him proud, and make him happy, wherever he is now.
Strange that we honour the dead but forget the living.
It'll be our turn next, son of a malaysian kampung boy, grandson of a farmer from china
ate your heart out at 9:35 PM
