Grandpap

I visited my grandpap at the nursing home. It’s really sad to see that he no longer recognizes our voice. He is not as verbally or physically active anymore. He is 84 years old. As I fed him food and massaged his back, I hope that he feels some human touch. He was half asleep as he ate. Drifting in and out. He could hardly speak. I could hardly hear his mumbled speech.

As we wheeled him back to rest in bed, the worker told us to leave him outside his room in the wheelchair till dinner time came. As there was at least an hour to whittle away, I explained that he is tired and needs to rest comfortably in bed. They agreed to put him back to bed. It broke my heart to see the way they handled my grandpap. It felt as if they didn’t treat him like a fellow being. It felt like they were loading goods. Lift and hurl. No words of kindness or gentle touch. Cold. I really hated them in that instant. To them, it’s a job. To me, he is my grandpap. An old fragile man who survived hardship to support his wife and bring up 3 children.

He was kind yet strict. He had good money saving habits. He taught his children well. I remember my childhood holidays, whilst rich kids get to go overseas trip, my holiday travel was to stay at my grandparents house. They were delighted to have us over of course. I and my elder sister were excited too. It’s so much fun to stay somewhere else other than my home. My grandpap would bring us shopping at emporiums and buy us treats and yummy food, sometimes even small cheap toys. He is a music and electronics lover. My first FM radio was a gift from him. Mine was bright yellow and my sisters’s was red. It was so hippy to carry a portable music player at that time. So cool! Haha.

Because my grandpap was penny pinching, I always thought of him as Disney Scrooge MacDuck. Little did I know, it’s actually a virtue. Saving every penny and not letting it go to waste on silly useless items.

My grandpap had a fierce face especially with his thick black bushy eyebrows and big piercing eyes. Yet, when he smiled and laughed, it was infectious and his face would suddenly look so genteel. He was always had a headphone wrapped around his head. He sat on a stool and tuned his hi-fi set, hands all over the tv and tape players, obsessing over cassette tapes and video tapes. Old school of hard-knocks. He could never bear to throw things away. Anything and everything was hoarded as a treasure or deemed useful in the future. haha. Right down to every red packet he received, he kept the monies in it. He never spent it. He has a book whereby he records the amount and the giver name. He lost his eyesight years ago due to eye cataract. I shall visit him the soonest I can, this weekend.