世上只有妈妈好
没妈的孩子像根草
离开妈妈的怀抱
幸福哪里找
My maternal grandmother passed away after being admitted into the hospital on Monday night. She died of acute kidney failure and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. She was ferried back home in an ambulance and died shortly after the oxygen mask was removed.
On my way home from work, I kept having flashbacks of the times I spent with my granny. How she loved KFC and we would spend my holidays going to the library in Bukit Merah and having KFC after. How I had asked her how long she was going to live and she said "100!" proudly. The many holidays that I had taken with her to Indonesia and China with my mother. All the hot afternoons when I had cosied up to her chatting and playing cards. How I had picked clothes for her when we went out.
My siblings and I took the late bus back to Bidor for the funeral. I burst out crying when I saw my granny's fragile small frame lying on the stretcher. She looked so peaceful and it was hard to believe she had died. If not for my mother's and my auntie's bloodshot and teary eyes, their loud sobs and broken spirits, I would not have believed my granny had passed away.
My granny had a grand funeral; I think even by Singapore's standards. My aunties and uncles spared no money and ordered a huge 2-storey mansion, a Mercedes Benz (complete with chauffeur) and two servants. In addition, they specially ordered a bank and a gold jewellery shop for my granny. This is because my granny loved counting bills and buying jewellery when she was alive.
My cousins thought of a picture slide show presentation for my granny on her last night. There was a live band playing <<世上只有妈妈好>> which of course made my mother and aunties weep. It broke my heart to see pictures of my granny flashing on the projector and hearing my mother cry her heart out.
I am praying for my granny to be happy wherever she is. I miss her.
I have had 14h workdays since I started in my new department in January. I enjoy the work because it is far more challenging and I gain more product and business knowledge. I enjoy solving issues and the sense of achievement when I get to the bottom of the overlimit. I do not even mind being scolded by bad-tempered traders. It is just unfortunate about the long working hours and that I have not had a weekend for myself since. Not even during Chinese New Year because I was supporting Australia and I had to work on Monday and Tuesday.
I feel that I do not have time to breathe and spend time with myself. It is just work, work and work everyday (weekends included). My favourite pet phrase became "I have a backlog"; which depressed me because I worked so hard and yet I still cannot complete my work. Hopefully, things will get better by March because my managers are looking into this resourcing problem.
Besides work, there has been interesting stuff going on in the office. I have had lunch with my #1 shoe fan last Thursday. I was glad to finally have a chance to know him better as a friend. He is humorous, witty and in general a really nice guy. I had a small crush on him back then but realised now that he has a girlfriend. Still, I think he is a good friend to have and I would want to know him better.
Then there is another guy who has been calling me every night. He is from work and based in Hong Kong. It is really strange how well we hit it off and have pretty similar interests. The way he knew about me was really strange too. He actually found out about me from a colleague and saw my picture from last year's Dinner & Dance. So we had a chat on SameTime (my company's internal chat program) and just did not stop since.
I have a happy feeling.