Grandma flew in from London today. She arrived in Singapore at around 7.35am and will be staying with us for a week.

Grandma wanted to go to the market by herself to pick up some stuff, but Mum and I were rather reluctant about an old woman scuttle all the way to the market. What if she got lost? Can you imagine MY Grandma? What would people think if they see an old woman, clutching 6 bags of shopping, with a sweater and old sweatpants, with her hair secured into a beehive shape with numerous bobby pins, and walking around the place struggling to remember which way she came from? Where the hell would we even start?

But Grandma insisted that she’d be okay and Mum finally agreed to let her go all by her lonesome. After she left, she instructed me to stand by the phone at all times in case she calls and demands to be found.

Mum then left for the gym. Grandma came back shortly after Mum left – thank god – and started unpacking her stuff, and started scuttling around the house with the broom in her knotty hands and sweeping every nook and cranny she could reach. I tried to tell Grandma to leave it; that she should be resting after her 13 hour flight, but she was adamant about doing something. So I let her be and read my book.

Then after a while she sat down on the chair in the living room. So it was Grandma, my sis and I at home and honest to God I wasn’t sure what to do. It’s not everyday we have visitors to the house, especially a grandparent who only visits once every 3 to 4 years. I was certain that my bratty sister wouldn’t keep Grandma company, so I took my book and went to the living room and accompanied by grandmother.

We engaged in conversation, and it took less than 5 minutes for me to realize that my grandmother had definitely gotten old. She struggled to find words and had difficulty remembering what she said. She’s talk about chicken rice one minute the next, she’d leave me confused with buying tee shirts for Fred and Tim ( my Granddad and my Aunt Christine’s boyfriend), and on to some other topic.


Here is a transcript of what she and said about something amusing:

Grandma: “You got a boyfriend?”
Serene: “Nope.”
Grandma: “Huh? No boyfriend?”
Serene: “No boyfriend”
Grandma: “You don’t like boys?”
Serene: “Er…”
Grandma: “Or you like girls?”
Serene: “I like boys and girls, Grandma. But it’s just that I don’t like any
particular boy now” (desperately wishing the floor would magically
open and swallow me whole)

Grandma: “I thought you liked one Indian boy?”
Serene: “Nope.”
Grandma: “Oh.”

Then I decided to ask her something I’ve been meaning to ask for so long. I asked her about Granddad. Apparently Grandma was an entertainer in a bar in Singapore when she was much younger. My Granddad was a pilot for the British Air Force and was involved in World War II. So he entered the bar where my Grandma was working and struck up a conversation with her. They became friends. A few months later, he asked her to marry him.

I asked Grandma if Granddad was handsome and she smiled so brightly and said yes. It hurt my heart to see her smile like that, because I know what my Granddad did to her. How be betrayed her trust and broke her heart. Grandma seemed to be in her own world at that moment as she fondly recalled of how he looked. Granddad, according to my Grandma, was extremely handsome. He had blonde hair, blue eyes and was 1.83m. He had an oval shaped face and thick eye brows. He had a light scar on his left jaw from an accident her procured when he fell from his bike at 11. He had an ugly brother (Grandma’s words – not mine), whom he never got along well with, who had married a German woman.

Then she stopped for a while. And then I asked what happened – even though I already knew - and Grandma just stared at the floor and went all quiet. She was so silent. Then she spoke, and I noticed that her voice was quivering, and I never forgot what she said,

“10 years. Lasted only 10 years. He had another woman. They have 1 boy and 1 girl. 10 years only. He was very young. He was 20 when he got married. I was 24. 10 years. 10 years only.”

And she fell silent again. I didn’t dare mention anything and all I could do was look in her eyes. They were glassy and empty, and I realized that they had been drained of love; her eyes stripped with betrayal from the man whom she thought loved her. It pained me to see Grandma so sad, because she’s been such a strong woman. Bringing my mum and Aunt Christine back to Singapore and having to raise them alone and work 3 jobs to keep them alive, while my Granddad cadoodled with some other bitch who made him change his surname to her maiden name when he wed her. So he turned from Frederick William Clout to Frederick William Bennington. When they divorced 6 years ago, he assumed back to original surname and how lives alone, indebted to my Grandma for the pain and suffering he inflicted upon her.

I remember writing to him when I was in Secondary 1. I wrote once a week. In every letter, I’d tell him what was happening in Singapore, what my family was like, my hobbies and I’d always end with the same question: Why won’t you answer my letters?

Finally he plucked up the courage to call me and admitted that he did not know what to write to his granddaughter who was willing to write to him and acknowledge him as her Granddad.

I wish I could meet my Granddad. I’ve never seen him before. I wonder how he looks like. I know how he sounds like, since we’ve spoken on the phone, but pictures convey a different meaning don’t they?

So Grandma ended her reminiscence by recounting that she had dabbled in fortune telling a few times and she discovered that of her granddaughters would marry a Caucasian and she said that that granddaughter would be me. Thanks Grandma! We’ll wait for the time to come (:

Shall continue in another post. I’m DYING to return to my book. I’m re reading The Time Traveller’s Wife for the third time.

peace and love (: