Ah Ma

Ah Ma looks alittle spaced out hor?, she turned and whispered to me while sucking the pincer of her big Sri Lankan.

Yah, I replied, cracking the carapace of my own crustacean between the teeth as I glanced over at the white-haired Bibik from across the table, She does.

Then it dawned upon me how Grandma behaves like our pooch Ginger these days. The bitch is 9, and in doggy years, that's 63. Not exactly a Le Grande Dame but old enough, I suppose, to be spending the greater part of her waking hours seated, Sphinx-like, on the sofa and staring blankly into space.

I communicated this sudden revelation to her in hushed tones and was promptly reprimanded for being rude. Comparing Ah Ma to a half-blind canine on her birthday? Tsk! How inappropriate!

Don't get me wrong, I love Ah Ma. She's not the type of Granny who would hug and kiss her grandchildren but I know she loves me too. You know what they say about grandparents and their First-born male grandchildren. Well if you don't then lets just say we have the privilege of being called Ah Boy. Its a tradition I am told. Why I have yet to fathom.

Ah Ma's a fantastic Peranakan cook. And when you read childhood stories about how some people helped their Grandmothers cook, I am proud to say that I have assisted the fastidious Bibik in the kitchen on many occasions, pounding belachan, making rumpah for all her wonderful curries and yes, even cracking open Buah Keluak. Its a pity I never learnt how to actually cook. But with Peranakan dishes, if you can whip up a decent 6-course meal, you could probably send a rocket to the moon. Its that complicated.

Anyway when Mum said for the coming Reunion Dinner, Ah Ma would probably not be cooking, I felt that the Lunar New Year would lose much of its meaning for me this time. And yet I understood that it would be inevitable. Looking at how bent she was becoming and frail. Ah Ma could possibly still manage with my aunts around as her hands and she, the cooking-brain. But I think its about time we let the old lady sit back. Although really, they don't built them old folk like they used to. Ah Ma, touch wood, hasn't made a single trip to the hospital or has anything seriously wrong with her. She's just aging, and I must say, until the time we noticed she was staring into space, quite gracefully.

Its not easy, for a woman to watch her husband die when her eldest boy was 10. And then to bring him up only to see her son give his life up to cancer before her. When Daddy died, I think a big part of Ah Ma died as well. The fiesty lady who used to knuckle me on the head for being a petulant child became so withdrawn. And on her mein, the lines of Why Not Me, seemed etched gently on the contours of her face.

I read in the papers today about how our dear Minister Mentor stressed the importance of constantly keeping physically active and the need for mental stimuli in the golden years in order to carry on living meaningfully. Slowing down, he says, would be a sure recipe for dying.

Maybe we should let Ah Ma cook afterall.

If she has communicated her love for us through her food all these years, then perhaps this would keep my favorite old person going for many more.

Happy Birthday Ah Ma.