It was just another day when he is not doing what he supposed to do. Instead he sits in a corner of the library all alone, figuring about how to change the layout of this blog that you’re reading. I want to change to something new, he thought. But as he is half way repairing the mess and damages he done to his blog, the little brother’s Messenger conversation box comes.
Anyone informed you yet? Sure don’t know yet.
Huh?
Grandma passed away around 12.20-12.30pm (GMT+8). A bit sudden, she started to breath heavily, then after a while the breathing slowed down. Then…
He couldn’t take it in. He was sort of tensed because of the mess he had done, and yet the last thing that he want to hear that time came to him. It was like giving a rabbit to eat meat – the rabbit stomps the ground to show protest.
What else can I say?
Don’t know. Just pray for her lor (* ‘lor’ is just an expression in Malaysia)… Remember a… No more CNY (Chinese New Year).
He is left stunned. His mind wondered into a dark blank space. His head is flooded with blood. Headache came. For some time, he don’t feel the urge to cry. Maybe because I’ve at least prepared an umbrella, although there are some holes on it, he thought. But the reason could be also the so-far-away distance where he didn’t see her face with his weakened eye.
He couldn’t continue on on what he was doing. The books, the papers, the drafts, physics lab report… are scattered on the table. So he let his mind going around as it will…
He sees his grandmother’s face – but much younger. She was sitting at one corner of the house with her ace-shaped rattan fan. he came into the house, and walked straightly towards her to get what every child liked – ang pau (red packet). He did what his parents told and rehearsed with him before they came.
Remember, get the packet with two hand. And remember to say ‘thank you’.
His grandmother gave him a warmth smile, and asked the him and his family to go to the kitchen to get something to eat – the best food of all time – grandmother’s cooking. Her cooking was so delicious that all the grandchildren loved it. He remembered once that while he was drinking the so-called “grandmother’s soup”, he asked her how she could cook so well, and all she answered was ‘just put in everything and cook like normal’. Maybe that was a skill that took her so long to master, just like all the kung fu masters were all white haired and long beard. The best food ever, and it’s free! What else could be more better than this? A satisfied smile.
He then remembered the routine that he had always done last time. Because his aunty stayed at grandmother’s house, his father had to send her back from the pottery factory that owned by his grandfather. So every time he would sneak into this opportunity to follow the ride to grandmother’s house in a white mini lorry, just to get Kopi-O sweets from his grandmother. The ride that took 20 minutes always seemed nothing compare to the satisfaction that he had by getting a sweet from his grandmother, not to mention the chance to jump into the shallow pond to play around with the tadpoles and frogs. Remember the pond with frogs? The sweetest memory was that when he learned that frogs are amphibians, he thought that the babies should also be the same. So, he caught a big plastic amount of tadpoles, and poured them to a flat cement ground. The tadpoles struggled, and died a while later. He was of course, being scolded, not because of the dead tadpoles, but the mess he made around the nicely maintained pond – the bricks were untidy, the rocks were misplaced, and the fishes were scared and hid in a small dark corner. He cried, and of course, but he was comforted by his grandmother…
The reality suddenly stroked him. Hey, your beloved grandmother is gone. But that’s not all, he is not even sure where his grandmother will go – heaven? Hell? Her heaven is my hell? Something that he really felt sad about. No more Gloria to secure him where she is. It’s sad that she cannot go where I will go in the future, he sighed.
He suddenly remembered the verse Jeremiah 29:11:
‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’
Plans? ‘Someone who is close to you die and you know even know where she’s going’ is a plan from You? He somehow, a thought came into his mind, “look for the bright side in this happening. It did not just happened.”
At first he thought that he is coming to an dead end. But after a deeper thoughts, he gets something. Indeed the Vetos asked him not to go back, but if he says he don’t feel sorry for not going back, he’s obviously lying – not just to people around, God, but he himself as well. When the decision was indeed hard to make, and the influences from surroundings were strong. Instead of turning left or right at a T-junction, God provided a way – to go straight, go beyond the T to form a Cross. Jesus died on the cross to provide us a new way. He learned that this God is indeed a real God. This God took away the complicate that he was facing. Just when he wasn’t sure which chess piece to move, God showed him the move. What would happen if God just let him handle things that he couldn’t handle? Definitely would he had gone crazy. Feeling down, emo, sad, disappointment, failures… He would take all his pain away from him.
Once again he was amazed by God’s power of love and grace. He indeed moved the pieces on his own to checkmate the problems in his life, and only seek Him when he faced dead end, but this God although might be angry or disappointed in him, His hands are still warm every time He pulls him out of the dead-lock situation. Just when series of unpleasant happenings comes, this God really never let him deal with all those things with his very bare hands. His hands are there. Always. For him. It’s just that, how many times does he want to ignore the comfort offer and chase around the loop for something insecure? How many times he needs to trying things on his own without practicing His Words in Psalms 46:10?
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
The last goodbye that he never had the chance to bid. Somewhere, some time, He guesses… I guess.
Christmas isn’t Christmas, till it happens in your heart. Remember, my friends.
