Requiem of Love

I hold you immortal. I shall cast you immortality...

It was a typically humid day in Malaysia, but was always made cooler when one was so near the secondary forest of Ulu Klang. Grandma was preparing a feast that night. Mum, dad, my uncles and aunts were all coming down for dinner. Now, a traditional Chinese dinner was something that no sane Asian would slight. She was making Shitake mushrooms coated with Oyster Sauce on green, crispy Bak Choys. Preparations were made for two large plates of whole chickens that were marinated in Chinese wine and herbs and slow cooked in a steamer. Of course, what is a dinner without the freshest fish in the whole of Kuala Lumpur? My grandma had connections.

Grandma shouted my name from the kitchen and I ran with those stubby legs of mine. She held up a humungus plate of mushrooms and asked me to dry them in the garden. She asked if I could do it? Precociously I said, "Of course!" Now, I remember she specifically demanded that I was not to drop the mushrooms on the muddy garden. I could hardly see over the edge of that massive plate and felt my way through the doors to the humid space outside.

PLANG! CLANG! DING DANG! DING DANG!

Or at least that's how I remembered it. The mushrooms were on the soggy earth. Now, when a person specifically asks you not to do something, and you do it exactly the way she asks you not to - I mean, you're in a lot of trouble. Grandma was always forgiving, but not until the cane met your backside. And so I got caned three times. I tried not to cry but somehow that look of utter disappointment from grandma always gets me.

I shall cast you in my staglamite of memory. I shall let my thoughts drip through the minerals of time.

When she was in her middle-years, Grandma loved to play mahjong. I'm sure she loved to play mahjong before her middle-years, but that's being conjectural now isn't it? So, anyways, she always went to Aunty Lucy's to play and I never knew what went on, but I always got excited when she pulled-out a funny animal from the pile of marbles. I said, "Pong!" It's a chinese exclamation for a stack of cards that made a suite or something along those lines. She used to rub my head and said I brought her good luck. And then I'd get bored of the game and slept on this huge bench made of marble and wood. A very uncomfortable bench but there was nothing else to do, except maybe sometimes, if I'm lucky, a rat would run around in the kitchen and I'd scream in excitement.

Don't forget - ever. Help me remember. Help me remember in your hearts.

There was always a smell in the morning. Coffee and cigarettes. She smoked Benson and Hedges. I remember stealing one from her when I was a teenager. I nearly retched at its taste. But grandma made the smell exotic. It was always around her and there was always something comforting about the heady intoxication of cigarettes. She would smoke one in the morning and head straight for the toilet. I got my habit from her. And then she's light one after making lunch and there was always this pleasurable bliss in her face. It was her little time off from the world. She would stretch over clumsily and sit on her chair made from blue and red ropes. Then she'd click her lighter, burn tobacco and just closed her eyes with a smile.

I remember. I remember the smell. I'm crying again.

Grandma loved telling stories about her childhood. It was always filled with noise, colour, people and fun. She was a tomboy. A t-shirt, a pair of cut-off pants, and clogs, and she was off running with the boys. She always envied boys because they could take off their shirts in the heat. Not to mention they never had to touch a mop or a broom to save their lives. She always compared our toys with those she played in the 1940s. There were no Transformers or Barbies in her days. It was bottle caps and cigarette boxes. She would collect bottle caps and shoot them across her palms or hands and knock-off her opponent's bottle caps. And she would collect all sort of cigarette boxes as a collection and show-off to her friends.


I will be strong. Strong and fierce just like her.


Everyone with a WOO to their surnames had a temper. Grandma's was the worst of them all. Once, grandpa had a taste for Cha-Cha and couldn't get enough of it. Grandma gave hints that she wasn't happy but, as usual, grandpa didn't get it. So one day she called him up at the school and told him that my dad was dying from fever. He cycled home immediately and gasped up the stairs. Grandma was ready for him. Once through the door, he met a bottle of Turpentine and it was forced down his throat. Grandma was so mad. She said if he couldn't be bothered with the family's welfare and that if he prefered to philander about with hussies in tights, then she'd first kill him and then all the children and finally suicide. She was never known for her subtlety. Of course, grandpa was frightened out of his wits and dashed down stairs and out through the doors. Now, I never knew if grandma ever lied about this, but she reiterated consistently that she ran to the kitchen, pulled out a butchers knife and threw it at grandpa as he left the bulding. The knife chopped into the door just as grandpa closed it.

One more.... just one more. I can't see clearly through this gossamer in my eyes.

What made grandma "Grandma" was always her strength. No one could put this woman down. If God was to knock on her door and asked her to go with Him, she'd say, "You can wait a bloody minute longer" and she'd finish her speech about family values. She said this once to me, "My darling, when you grow older and have kids of your own, I want the middle name of your first child to have the word "Ka" in it. It means family. Remember it. This is my wish." I will try grandma. I will. And grandma would make me promise that on her death bed she will look beautiful and young. She said no one will ever say that she did not die with grace and beauty. Her cheeks will be rosy and her lips bloodied in vibrance and youth. She will look like Sleeping Beauty. You will grandma. You always will. And there were other promises that I made as a child but forgotten in the headiness of adolescent exuberance. Perhaps I will remember them in time.

I etch you in memory, in time, in space. I etch you forever in love, in forgiveness, in passion. The pain is worst when I said I would take you out for lunch and we'd do the things you'd love like shopping and eating. We'd go to your flower shop and buy plants you never keep. We'd walk in the streets and chat about everything and nothing and laugh about everything and nothing. We'd buy sweets and I'd tease you about your false teeth. And we'd just sit at the coffee shop and lament how silly teenage girls and boys look like these days. But now these are all lies. Lies I made to you and me. Forgive me... Forgive me. I love you grandma - always.