The Best Ah Kong Ever

Today, my ah kong passed away.

It all happened so suddenly. The last time I saw his being his usual self was on Monday. He and ah ma came over to my house just to bless us with two cabbages, some big prawns and fishes. I never saw this coming. Although they only stopped for a few minutes before driving off, I was really happy to see them. I'm always happy to see them.

On Thursday night, ah ma found him vomiting in the toilet at midnight. My family were in KL, so it was my uncle keeping us updated. They went to the closest hospital, Columbia Asia, but because they were lack of facilities, they couldn't do anything for him. When my mom asked the doctor to refer him to the general hospital, he said some bullshit about my ah kong being so old and it's highly unlikely that they'll take him in. We tried anyway and they accepted. Columbia Asia is a useless hospital that employs stupid doctors that doesn't know how to do his job. The general hospital, Hospital Sultanah Aminah was efficient as they immediately did a CT scan when he arrived at the hospital. They found out that his blood vessel burst due to his high blood pressure that shot up all of a sudden. And because of the burst blood vessel and his age, there's no point taking the risk in operating on him. So we could only hope for a miracle.

We went back to JB on Friday. It was so sad to see him laying on the bed, breathing heavily, unconscious. When I looked at him, I can't help but to cry. I just saw him on Monday, he was fine then.

Ah kong was the best grandfather. I wouldn't ask for more.

When I was about 2 or 3 years old, my mom would send Michelle to kindergarten about 5mins drive away. I would wake up while they're gone and realize that I was alone at home. I cried and the first thought that came to my mind was to give call to ah kong and ah ma. It was like an involuntary reaction, it just made sense to me then. When ah kong picks up, he'd hear me crying and mumbling to him that my mom wasn't at home...except that he doesn't understand cz ah kong and ah ma spoke only Teochew then. Even so, they'd arrive in less than 10mins. I did this every single day for probably a year, I don't remember. And they never fail to show up to my rescue. I remember this from a very young age cz it made such a huge impact on me, I'll never forget that.

As a kid, whenever my mom scolds me and my sisters at their place, both my grandparents would be on our side and they'll scold my mom back. Of course, that made us big headed cz the elders of the family were on our side haha

When my mom and dad scolded or caned me, I've always had this imagination that I wanted to leave home. Where would I go? The route to ah kong's house was already mapped out in my head. Even at such a young age of 5, I just knew that whatever happens, ah kong and ah ma would save the day. I never had second thoughts about that. So I was never afraid when my parents threatened to throw me out or anything like that(although they were just trying to scare me).

Ah kong was awesome cz he picked up some English to communicate with us. Ah kong and ah ma only spoke Teochew when we were little. Because my family spoke mostly English, we the kids can't speak to them in Teochew. Unlike other older generation Chinese, they didn't force us to learn Teochew..but instead they learned some English words and phrases so that they could just say those few words to us. Ah kong also learned Mandarin to speak to my cousins. His famous English phrases would be "Who you?"(Who are you, when on the phone) and "Eat eat". Typing this actually makes me miss hearing him speak broken English to us. We communicate better now cz my sisters and I would speak some basic Teochew and Mandarin with him. Though there's a language barrier, it was no challenge at all. We loved each other all the same.

Ah kong has always been the one who does all the cooking during Chinese New Year, but in the recent years, his legs started to hurt. So he rarely cooks anymore. He was the best cook. Although every CNY he'd cook the exact same dishes, they were the dishes everyone looks forward to. He would cook our favourite braised duck and broccoli, and others. When mom told us he won't be cooking last CNY, I was rather disappointed cz Joe was here and I felt like tasting ah kong's cooking would be such an honour because his food is good.

Now there's no more. No one for ah ma to shout at and instruct, no one to randomly drive over to our place just to send us random groceries...his favourite fruits to give us are banana, papaya and watermelon.

Ah kong and ah ma are not wealthy money-wise, but they sure are wealthy love-wise. Ah kong was very generous, he seldom save his money unlike ah ma haha. His habit whenever his children give him money would be to give back to them in form of groceries and food. Ah kong is very much loved by all of us.

I wish he lived longer to see us all graduate, be there when we get married and then see us have kids. But that's okay, at least he's in a much better place and he no longer has to suffer with all the pain.