Happy Father's Day to the Male Species Past, Present and Future

ZY's note: In celebration of Father's Day this year, this is a story of a great man and the great (and not so great) times we had together.

 ‘Kung kung, you can make the best cup of Milo in the world,’ I cooed to my grandfather. He always smiled with pride as he heard this. I knew I made him happy, because whenever he knew I was coming, there would be a cup of hot Milo waiting for me when I arrived at the house.

I was not saying it to please my grandfather though, because it really was nice. He knew I was sincere because I usually ate 10 whole pieces of the Jacob’s biscuits to go with the Milo. The expression on my face showed how much I enjoyed the cup of Milo specially made for me by my grandfather.

There were also two of my favourite dishes which I would always remember. One was the soy sauce chicken with the sauce just dark and thick creamy enough and the other was the long beans fried rice. I loved to stand beside him and looked up at him stirring the food on the stove, even though I was too short to see what was happening on the stove, I could tell from the delicious smell wafting from the pan.

My grandfather was a short and stout man, who spent most of his time tending to his plants, fish, birds, or whatever animals that happened to come by for a visit. Once there was a green frog that took to the plank on the pool for his Japanese coy, and took temporary residence there. He always came back to hang out even after venturing out for some adventure or hunt for food. He was in a shade of bright green with red eyes. I loved to creep out slowly into the backyard to take a peep at him, hoping that he would find a partner and bring her home some day.

 Just like the animals, I loved to hang out at my grandfather’s house those days. It was like National Geographic right at the backyard of the house.

‘When I was still working at the shop during the first few years after I came down from China, there was a bird,’ he told me.

‘It would wait for me on the roof at the back of the shop and when I came out from the shop, the bird would fly down and perch on my shoulder to greet me. But it would not go near any of the other shop assistants. It would only answer to me. It totally ignored the others at the shop,’ he said proudly.

My grandfather was born in China. He had a twin brother. According to my grandmother, when my great-grandmother was giving birth, she never knew that she was having twins. When she delivered my grandfather, she felt that there was still something inside her belly, and then out came my grandfather’s twin brother after a few minutes.

‘Is he your identical twin brother? What happened to him? Is he still in China?’ I bombarded my grandfather.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘He died of an illness when he was 6 years old.’

My grandfather had magical hands. The animals loved him, so do the plants. Rows of bonsai trees were nurtured by him personally into beautiful shapes and sizes. Even the pots were personally hand-made from scratch. I had never seen him taken any pottery lessons of learned under any master, he just produced each and every one of them like magic. There were a couple of square pots embedded with rows and rows of 1 cent coins. Talk about creativity and originality. At that time, I never knew how to describe the feeling when I was admiring the pots and the well-tended plants on his front lawn, but now I know. I was bursting with pride.

After my grandmother passed away, he had no choice but to come and stay with us.  He did so quite reluctantly, and I didn’t blame him. How could any other place be better than his own home where he could do anything just as he liked?

But we had no choice either, as he kept seeing more and more animals.

‘Hey, look!’ he called to me with an excited glint in his eyes. ‘There is a tortoise under the trolley,’ he pointed to the well polished granite floor in our dining room.

‘No,’ I said, ‘There is nothing there.’

‘Yes,’ he said with conviction. ‘Can’t you see it? There is another one crawling out, and another one!’ he looked quizzically at me as I did not say anything. I could see question marks in his eyes.

It was heart wrenching to see my grandfather deteriorating each day, affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

I would always remember the image of my grandfather standing outside the bathroom in his white underwear while waiting for my mom to give him instructions to go into the bath, to wash his head, to rub his body with soap as he lost his ability to take a clean bath independently.

There were also a couple of nights when he woke the whole family up saying that he was going to go home, and proceeded to venture out at 3 a.m. in the morning. After walking up and down the street with my father by his side, he finally came back ‘home’ satisfied.

My mother took an early retirement to take care of my grandfather. But he passed away just 6 months after that. He was in his eighties.