Lost in transition

Mixed emotions as I stepped into the house I once had grown so accustomed to playing with my cousins. I was stifled the moment I walked in. Tension built up in the atmosphere as my brother and I waited in the living room. It was a foreign place to us now, despite the physicalities not changing much at all. We have grown much, grown distant from the childhood we once had.

It's 2 more months to my paternal grandma's first death anniversary. The 2 of us bowed in respect to her tablet while my uncle handed to us what she had left behind. And I realised, she had been the constant thought in my mind this past year. Every night, moments as I lay in bed with the day's events flashing through my eyes, just out of the corner of my eye, the image of my grandma, hung by her neck at the windows of her flat, stayed in my mind, for every single night.

I have personally witnessed both my paternal and maternal grandmothers' death. Then, I was merely 4, lost in the chaos as ambulance sirens wailed in the distance, paramedics flooded the place, I was just standing there, watching my maternal grandma lying on the floor with the chair toppled and yet way too young to really understand what really happened.

Both of these last images of what I saw of my grandmothers have left such a deep imprint in my mind. After 14 years, and 1 year, respectively, I can still close my eyes and immerse myself in the replaying of the scene so clearly.

One has left peacefully, while another has left with hearts and family ties broken.

Grappling and still grappling with it, wondering what I will be like in the future, and how much of a grandmother I will be remembered as.

Every subsequent future mid-autumn festival, I will be reminded of the harshness of reality, of her message delivered to us on that very day, of how much the entire extended family has fallen apart; with her death loosely threading the blood lines together. The emptiness I feel is irreplaceable and unforgettable.

But life goes on; and so should everyone else's too.