Yesterday, we were celebrating our nation's birthday.

i did not really get to enjoy the national day parade as around 6 plus in the evening, we received a phone call from LA that my grandma had passed away.

The news did not came as a surprise as she has been in and out of hospital since the heart failure episode about a year ago. Since then, she was plagued with kidney failure which resulted in regular dialysis sessions. Then followed by the amputation scare of the foot which turned out to be misdiagnosed. The recent event was that she was admitted for acute appendicitis and had the appendix removed surgically. Complications after surgery as she did not really regain her appetite. Guess that also made her prone to infections. She was admitted again on monday with colitis and UTI. As usual, she was put on antibiotics which probably made her even more sick. Clinical history of our family is that we could not take strong antibiotics. Our bodies will develop negative effect from the antibiotics. That's something i observed from my mum and myself. Nothing to really pinpoint the medical treatment she had received over there in states.

i guess she had enough of the pain and suffering she has tolerated so far. She could not take it anymore, she had chose to give up the hope of living , her will to live has diminished even further after the final blow to the fact that she had expressed more than thrice that she did not want to live and more. She wants to die. she dun even want to wait for my cousin's wedding next year and my younger brother's wedding at the end of the year.

To a certain extent, we wanted her sufferings to end too. Being confined to bed was already a torture for an active old lady like her. At least, from what described to us, she died peacefully.

Although she was a very fierce grandma when i was young, the recent meet up with her had changed my impression of her as i grew up and understand all her unpleasant plights she had underwent during her younger days. She is the maternal grandma of mine and i will always remember how she took time and effort to cook for me and my mum when we went over to states to visit her four years ago. Even when she came back to singapore for a short visit last year, she was elated that she could come over to our place and whip up a decent dinner for us and my favourite dish , sambal prawn, for us. i could see that she was contented to be able to cook for her bunch for grandchildren whom was not closed to her due to the fact that we were always closer to our foster grandma more than her. she always like to mention that i finished all her sambal prawns in states the last time. Regrets that we did not manage to take a family photo with her then.

At her healthy days when she shifted to elderly home, she would make a point to give us an oversea call every sunday to chat with my mum. And according to my auntie, grandma even prepared several sets of blankets at home in preparation for our visit to states again. We had promised to go last year but was postponed due to my foster grandma's medical conditions. With her heart failure episode, we wanted to visit her after my younger brother's wedding this year. She could not wait for us. ...... ....

Sad that i did not really do much for her and of course in a way i am glad that she dun have to suffer anymore.

in memory of my grandma....... ..... may u rest in peace..