Have you ever tried eating the whole sugarcane (mind you it’s with skin- which means you need to bite the skin off and chew the flash) all by your mouth instead of drinking the ready squeezed sugarcane water? Have you ever travel 2 hours or more to a place just to strive for tasty food and head back to where you staying? And yes! I have tried all that, and it’s thought by my grandpa!
Drop by to aunty May Cy’s blog accidently today, and found out that she wrote a post about her beloved Ah Pak, my beloved grandpa (Ye Ye- In Cantonese), it touches my heart to the deepest. Whether or not by fate or by coincident, today is the date which my grandpa passed away 10 years ago (in Chinese calendar), she wrote this blog on September 14th and it bumps into me only today, this touches me even deeper.
In my memories, he is a strong, brave and optimistic person (or I shall say for the whole family). He fears of no thing. Whatever happens, no matter how bad the situations he would be able to come out with a solution and solve it one by one, and this makes him my hero, my ironman. This recall how he helped me through all my primary art projects such as lantern making, Chinese calligraphy writing (this definitely make me crack my head as I have a very bad hand writing) and etc. ( all these sound so small but it’s big for me-my homework man!).
Every Sunday, never missed (only if I’m sick!) I will go to the market with him and grandma. When grandma was busy doing her shopping for groceries, I’ll be busy persuading him to buy me gold fish! (Haha!!) I’ll got screwed by him as I will be the one who choose the gold fish and he will be the one who needs to take care of them for the rest of their life! Weeeee! But…I was always the winner, kekeke! Never mind, he was very good in taking care of fish, they normally turns into fat` healthy fishes under his good care. My grandpa liked to plant flowers as well, and he’s an expert on this! He could easily turn a dying plant back to life; sometimes these plants would grow even more beautiful than before! Basically, my grandpa was good in almost everything, literally, I have not come across anything that he don’t know, from cooking, sewing, planting, taking care of animals, he knows almost everything, except music (Piano!), and this is why he always feel proud because me and my sister know how to play the piano. (Not saying that we both play very well ya…) Yeah, besides playing music instruments, he is good in almost everything; he is a very smart man! (A perfect man instead!) I always believe that if he has had a chance to learn music, he would become more professional than us as well!
Just like what aunty May Cy mention in her post, my ye ye was an excellent cook, whatever raw material goes into his hand, it will turns into irresistible dishes- finger licking good! His sweet steamed egg is always my favorite among all cooking of his; I can never find it in anywhere else until now. How good would it be if I have a chance to taste it again?
He is always a thoughtful man, out of 10 stories that he told me (normally would be those that happened in his passed-the true stories), almost all contained a deep thought behind, even jokes. He has been suffered a lot when he was young, but I heard not even one complaint or grumble as he treated them as a learning field for him. I still remember he always teach me to have gratitude, be thankful for everything; always remember to help as many people as I could and be kind to everyone whether or not the person will appreciate my help or not, or even to the extant they might betray me in the end; and always appreciate people who lend me a helping hand, repay them when there is a chance. This is why he names me Hui-惠 (meaning to be thankful and to be kind in Chinese).
For him, family is the most important thing than anything else; his family values were so strong. He does not allow any of the family members to skip any of the festive dinner, especially Chinese New Year Eve’s dinner. All must be home for dinner; there is no any excuse for this, except for the daughter who’s married and need to go back to have dinner with the husband’s family; but they will have to be back home for dinner on the second day of Chinese New Year as well.
He does not allow any fighting or arguing within the family members, or else, even you are in your 30’s, he will screw you upside down for this. He always believe that nothing couldn’t be solve, there is no need of fighting or arguing, sit down and have a blunt talk to sort out problems and settle it on the spot, not bringing it any further. If really couldn’t sort out anything, he will use his greatest weapon- his principle to sort it out. After all, he has been living in this world for 70 years and things that he went through definitely way more than his sons or daughters or even is brothers. And yes, this is exactly who my ye ye is. Everyone, even outsiders respect him. If I were to write everything out about my ye ye, I bet it will turns into a very thick book!
I miss the time when we have fun together, telling jokes to make each others laugh; the time when we have dinner together as a whole, together with every single family members and ye ye, enjoying the every single meaningful festive season.
Ever since ye ye passed away, lots of things have changed. Without the strongest man in my family, festive season only another normal holiday for me to rest after working for months, as the chances of having the whole family to sit down and have a proper meal decrease every year; no more jokes for us to laugh; even topics that we could share become so little. I feel very sad, sad for my family; sad for ye ye. His dream of his whole life is to see us living happily, helping each others, live in a “real” family. I remember very clearly, ye ye passed away in the house, after doctor examination and told us to bring him back so that he could leave this world in his own house (this is always what my ye ye wanted to-his last wish). We were all beside him except for one of my uncle, for some reason he was late. My ye ye was in a coma (or unconscious, I couldn’t remember clearly) but he waited. He only took in his last breath after hearing my uncle called him, and he left us peacefully.
Ye ye, I am sorry… I know I couldn’t do much to hold the family back together just like last time as what you always wish, as I am alone, my power is just so small, I am helpless, but i promise I will try my best, for you, your dream, my family, and myself.
