Gramps

I just got back from visiting my grand dad at the village. It was a year or so ago when I last saw him. He is very sick now and was admitted to the hospital for this thing they tell me as 'severe case of stomach complication'. I don't really know what the problem is and I don't want to know but as far as the doctors prognosis is concern, its not very good. The doctor said 'a few weeks to maybe a few months' and recommended that he went home. There was nothing to be done.

I met him at my dad's family home. He was happy to see me, he says. I was too, although I couldn't help being overwhelmed by sadness to see him lying on his bed, frail and thin. His legs were so thin I could barely see them under the sheets and his stomach so distended that it looked like a basketball had been put under his shirt to fill out his tiny little frame. He spoke to me in whispers. He was no longer the same grand dad I had always known. Vivacious, adventurous, the grand dad I walked to the padi fields with. No longer the grand dad that I had gone to town for kolo mee or the grand dad who had given my brother and I the advice to “always tell the truth” because “you will get no where in life by lying”.

Occasionally he let out a good laugh at some jokes and repeatedly reassured me he was fine and eating well. I spent a whole day just chilling with him last weekend next to his bed. He asked if I was to stay till Christmas but told him I couldn't and that I'd try to visit in the next coming weeks.

He was quiet for a few seconds and I felt guilty.

He nodded and that is when he started.

"When you were young. About five, I think..."

There I was, sitting next to my 86 year old grand dad recounting stories and listening to tales he used to tell me when I was kid. Mostly stories told by his father. Stories he heard when he was my age. And he still remembers my favourite. The one about the tortoise who carved an instrument, a ruding, from the bones of a forest lizard. There is also a monkey in the story who stole the ruding from the tortoise and ended up having his dick bitten by a crab. It later dies a miserable death. Its funny, really.

We laughed and he told me some more.

My grand dad loved to tell stories, and over the last few years I would encourage him to tell me stories from his life at every opportunity. I must have heard the story of how he met my grandmother a hundred times, each time with the same zeal. He told me stories of his days as the village chief and stories of his days in the field during the war. His stories were always punctuated by some victory or other, small or large and displayed his stubborn fighting spirit and his will to prove naysayers wrong.

I used to be at my grand dad's house quite a lot when I was young. I remember that quite clearly. He and my late grand mother dotted on me. My own dad wasn't around most of the time as he was working in another town and grand dad took over the role. He provided me with the kind of wisdom, guidance and fun a young kid would need. I know grand parents raise their grandchildren for a lot of reasons such as death, divorce, child abuse, neglect or abandonment. For me, I was just happy that my grand dad took the time to help raise me. Grandparents raising grandchildren offer them a special bond that will impact their lives forever.

I don't recall most of the things he told me. Mostly about my exploits and the shit I got myself into but knew somehow those things happened. Some were unpleasant and mostly to do with chickens that strangely went missing from the coop and then there are the few I can now vaguely remember. But it was just amazing to sit there to listen and notice how every details are still fresh on his mind. He still remembers them as if it happened only yesterday. At times he paused in between whispers and I could see how he was probing his mind for the exact details just to make sure he got it right.

And that was when I realised how little time he has. And that he also realises it.

But there was not a sign of resignation in his voice. He was calm and at peace and I could sense his will to carry on was strong although in essence he was all ready for the next journey. He tells me that he was in a lot a pain sometimes. The pills helps, he says.

I think I may have been sitting there and talking to him for four or five hours and I knew he was just making sure I remember the good times with him. I saw him just before my flight back yesterday. I went to his room, told him I had to go and promised to see him again soon. He was in good spirits and said he has one or two other stories to tell.

As I think about life and especially after my visit, I feel hopeful. Hopeful now that I believe that life is grand and there is fucking hope.

And that life is lived in cycles.

A beginning, a middle, an end.

But the end isn't necessarily final.