Kinship

Wednesday
13:17 hours
Cafe Faru
Four Seasons Resort Maldives Kuda Huraa

I was informed last night by my mum that my granny passed on and that she missed her by minutes.

I haven't had the experience of literally losing someone close to heart before and it felt pretty unreal that I am here in the Maldives when my mum msged me like any other daily occurrence. I was having dinner with my pals in the resort and was planning to head to the gym later on.

I rushed to my room with an unsettling feeling that my fit and able grandmother would taken by nature just like that. My phone was charging and to my annoyance, my value's too low to make calls and I had to rush to get some top-up cards.

I called my grandma's place, my mum's phone, my sister's phone and I finally got an answer on my bro's phone and it was my sister.

In my anxiety even though I knew what happened, I had to ask, "What happened?"

My sister explained that after my aunt-in-law gave birth, she has been feeling unwell, and she has been having diarrhoea and the likes of it. Everyone was there, she said, and my beloved aunts were crying. I was wondering what she meant by that as my beloved aunts were Jane and Serene, she couldn't possibly be referring to them as they weren't close to my grandmother.

And I enquired if Uncle Nelson was there as well, and she had her head twisted, "Why would he be here?" I said isn't it grandmother's relative and then we realised, it was my GREAT-grand mother.

To be quite honest, at that point of time, the tragedy turned into a comedy, and unsettling became relieved. It all made sense now, my grandma was in perfect state of health for her age and my great grandma was supposed to be celebrating her 91st birthday this Saturday.

My condolences to my family.

It's quite amazing actually, that my family has a span of four generations until last night, my great grandma, my grand parents, my parents and my generation, and that I am quite lucky I have seen all my great grand parents. Even though I'm not sure if I should feel privileged as I can hardly communicate with them with my minimal Hokkien capabilities.

There was a lot of crying at the scene last night, even though my great grandma was quite the difficult woman, but then again, as I recall one of our family portraits, it's quite a feat for one lady to have started an entire family that spanned generations.

I always talked about how much history and heritage lies in these elderly folks, the things they could tell us about their time are probably what we take for granted in this lifetime.

The barrier to communication, the hectic lifestyles we lead despite the government attempts at forging family ties in its citizens, and the changing times where Google and Apple rule the planet, I think it's only a matter of time that kinship is eroded and limited to your immediate families. And in my generation I've come to realised that those ties are a lot tougher to keep than they seem in previous years.

The many expectations we each have of our family members, the ones we do not meet, wouldn't it be a lot easier if we just appreciated the existence of our flesh and blood.

May you rest in peace.