~JcZw

Just came back from a short hop to Peninsular Malaysia. A saturday and a sunday. A unique trip, for it was no ordinary holiday.

My first impression I retain of my paternal grandfather was that he was a stern but kindly person. He usually looked serious and rarely smiled (or that i can remember then). I recall that whenever we visited him in KL (my father was formerly from Malaysia) he would offer a lot of things to us to eat. I remember being slightly nervous of being around him, for he talked very loudly and scarily, although of course, he didn't mean to. Heh... such were the memories of a primary school child.

As I grew older and began to understand more things, I recall more qualities about him. He was a very active person. Whenever we visitied him he would take us out to many places, bring us little people to roam the large garden of the house to pluck rambutans from his tree. Heh. The result would be us running about trying to evade red, hairy, falling fruit. He was very fit, and even my maternal grandparents admired him for that.

I also found that he had a passion for soccer and was an avid fan of Arsenal. In 2002 we were visiting him at the height of the World Cup. Many evenings were spent watching England vs. Denmark, Spain vs. South Korea etcetc

We'd never talked much, besides the courtesy "Good morning/night/evening" and the usual "have you eaten enough", "how are you" (a routine question after we'd stepped out of the car when we arrive). But occasianally he'd asked me about school. He'd congratulated me with one of his rare smiles when I'd got my promotion to commander of my St. John unit. He was happy for my prelim results at the end of 2004.

I think the last time we had a one-to-one conversation was in the middle of the December 2004 holidays, when he came to stay for Christmas. He'd asked me what position I played in soccer. When I told him "goalkeeper" he had replied "That's a responsible job". I'd smiled wryly when I'd thought about all the blunders I had made but I left it at that.

Christmas came and went. I received my posting to VJC and was happily talking to Wei Lun online on 1st January 2005. New years day 3.35 pm.

A phone call. I heard the word AMI ---> Acute Myocardial Infarction ---> Heart Attack.

It doesn't take a genius to realise what had happened that day. If I froze up at the conversation at that time, well, my psychic team leader, you know what happened.

The first and second days of school was quiet. My parents and my sister on whom I had relied so much on to guide me through my first few days of bewilderment left for Malaysia in a hurry. I was torn between following them or going to school. My parents in the end asked my brother and I to stay for I was starting a new school, and him a new class. So we stayed.

Christmas 2004 had been an eventful one. My grandfather who had always resisted any mention of Christianity, this time seemed touched by the message, listening to the pastor and my mother, and this time accepting what they told them instead of resisting. But when we'd offered to pray for him, he did not want to.

Maybe though. They say a man can tell when he is not feeling well. Maybe he had made his own transaction with God. Why not? Anything could happen. But its all ultimately in God's hands. Since he is in charge of everything.

So it was that on Saturday we bore the ashes of my grandfather out by boat to the Straits of Malacca. The sea heaved with gentle swells as my father poured the ashes into the water. The sun blazed through the haze as we took turns to toss flowers into the water. They were the last things we saw as the boat dispered them with its creamy wake. I think everyone was not particularly sad or anything. We believed that my grandfather was now with God in heaven, in a better place, so to speak.

We had a good time in Port Dickson over the weekend. Besides the short time of commemorating the passing away of my grandfather, we also hung around in the hotel, slacked, ate, got fat, kayaked (Nearly knocked my sister's head off in a moment of unsynchronisation). Spent a few hours scrunched up in the car there and back.

Yeah.... so it was an interesting trip. True, all of us felt a loss of a loved one. But y'know, when you know that God is in charge, it is much more comforting.

"Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever" Pslams 107

=)