Pain & Tears

sigh, mom called to complaint about grandma again. My grandma is 80+ and require 24hours care. So, my dad and his siblings have no choice but to put her into nursing home. It was not an easy decision and the my dad's siblings actually had a big argument over this. On top of that, money issue which always the biggest reason for family disputes and jealousy. I guess I cant blame them. My grandma is the opposite of the old fashion old folks. She actually prefer and favor the daughters more than the son. My dad, her eldest son and child was actually taken care by my dad's grandparents. Perhaps that is why the relationship between them has never been that close.

But with my grandma in the nursing home, my dad tries his best to be a good son. He visit her everyday except Sunday (Sunday is when the other kids and grandkids visit her). And every time he visited her, he will definitely bring some of her favorite food because she was complaining that the food in the nursing home is tasteless. Just a few months ago, my dad organised a birthday dinner for her at a chinese restaurant, inviting relatives such as my grand aunt and grand uncles. There were some presents and ang pau for my grandma which was of course handed to my dad.

All in all, the dinner cost around RM600 which is a pretty big sum for us Kuchingnite. But dad insist on footing the bill since h e is the one that wants to organise the birthday dinner for grandma. It was a beautiful dinner actually because we get to meet relatives that we have not seen for a long time and repeated exclamation and reminiscence of old times. As usual, I get the popular question: When want to get married? :( Anyway, I thought that it was beautiful and memorable. After all, with my grandma health condition, not sure how many birthdays dinner such as this we can enjoy in the future.

Sigh..what is so sad to me is that my grandma, instead of remembering and feel happy that my dad celebrated her birthday in a big way, she only remember the angpau money. Since that day, she been pestering my dad about it. Sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. Occasionally, she will suddenly say she wants to get herself a new glasses when her current one is perfectly fine. Or suddenly decided that she needs something that is extremely expensive and is senseless to get. But to top it all off, with Chinese New Year around the corner, he tells my dad to change RM500 into RM10s and RM50s for ang pau for her grandchildrens.

I cannot tell you how much that hurts. I feel the pain on behalf of my dad. Here we are, trying to give our best and love to her and yet all she can remember is the money. My dad even bought her a bed table that cost more than RM200 when he went to his KL trip recently. We (my bro & I) try to help out as much as we can but both of us are working and basically the only time we are free is in the evenings. And imagine my father who has a history of heart attack, driving to visit my grandma everyday and bring her lunch. No matter how tired he is, he will always make sure that he visit her. I feel like sobbing thinking about it.

And instead of being appreciative, my grandma have to be a mean person that she always was and 'slap' my dad in such a way! So, I told my mom to tell grandma exactly how much the amount was received as ang pau during the birthday dinner in case she thought it was a few thousand ringgit. And also explain to her that if she would like to change RM500 to small change, then she would have to request the uncle/aunties that is holding her ATM card to help her withdraw the money and pass it to dad to change (grandma has pensioner salary from government every month and also pensioner salary from my grandpa who has passed away). Also explain to grandma that dad has spent alot of own money for her and dad not working much now. So not much source of income. Just small business that is enough for everyday expenses.

Am I wrong to ask my mom to say that? sigh.....pain in the heart with dry tears in the eyes...

By the way, the ang pau money for her birthday only amounted to RM310!