Grandmas are the greatest, aren’t they? And my Mama was the best 🙂 When I was born in 1975, my Grandma’s youngest son was only 9 and I was her second grandchild, my older cousin was only about 7 months old and my other cousin was due 9 months after me. So needless to say, alone time with her then was few and far between. That was the amazing thing about my Grandma, with 5 children, 5 children-in-laws and 12 grandchildren, she still managed to makes each of us feel special.

As we all started to grow and find our own independence (for me that was went I was in Perth, Australia enjoying myself with University) she started to have more time for herself and one-on-one time with us. I was real fortunate to have had a few and some of my favourite memories of my Mama, are simple things like her waking from her sleep to make me a cup of milo after I came home real late from rehearsals or an editing session, scooping me more of her yummy sweet and sour and her comfortable hugs I sink right into.

My favourite one though was circa 1996, I was home for the summer holidays.When I came back during the holidays then, I was the official family chauffeur 🙂 So most mornings, I’d take my sister to school and my Mummy to work and usually after that, I’d go home and crash right back into bed. One morning, I decided to drop in on my Mama. She was surprise to see me so early and was a little happier than usual:-

My Mama: Did you drive?
Me: Yes (and pointing to the car)
MM: Great, you can drive me to the market.
M: Ok, Tekka?
MM: No, Pek Kio.

So there we were driving from Thomson Road towards Cambridge Road and I was thinking it’s been a while since I went marketing with my Mama. Markets aren’t my favourite places but I found myself looking forward to it. When we got there, I started to look for the carpark and my Mama told me that there’ll be no need to park. She wanted me to wait for her by the street. I remember being a little confused and thought to myself that it’s so considerate of my Mama, knowing that I’m not into wet markets. She then proceeded to tell me to wait a little further away from the market. Here’s where I got really confused. I was like ‘huh?’. I watched her get out of the car and walk away from the market, I lost her as she walked into the alley of shops.

There I was sitting in the car and wondering what my Mama was getting up to. In about 15minutes, my Mama was back bordering on gleeful. she gets back into the car and showed me little dockets from the 4D store and said to me, “Today big sweep $5million!”

It’s been 9 years today since she went back home to heaven, and I finally understand what people mean when they say. “there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of so and so.” I use to think it was a cliche statement, now I do understand. It’s strange but everyday in the most unusual and common of things, like 4D dockets or milo that I’m reminded of my Grandma, my other maternal Grandma and my Grandpa.

Mama, Gonggong and Popo, till we meet again, have a Merry Christmas!!! Love you all HEAPS.