今天,赶去了医院。匆匆忙忙的去,匆匆忙忙得照顾小孩子,匆匆忙忙得上去病房。直到到达病房,才真正的松懈下来。
这才仔细的见到了她。
她真的瘦了很多,脸颊整个陷下去了,手上原本已经显而易见的青筋全都浮了上来。因为脸瘦了,那对眼睛显得大了许多。
“她是阿诗。”
她那双眼睛看着我,但我却只觉得尴尬,眼神是漂浮的。我不敢直视她,因为有限的方言让我不敢说话。她好久没吃东西了,但声音再微弱,但她仍然很想聊天。我想这是我第一次,看到她笑得如此开心与知足。
好命的她,有十一个子女,二十三个孙子,九个曾孙。这一生,虽然不富裕,但也总算三餐温饱。她生命中唯一的不幸,可能就是另一半的早逝。
离开了医院,我才开始回忆起以前的她。现在才想起,她以前真的很凶。小时候有几天离开家里住在她那里,把我给吓坏了。但过了几年,她变得慈祥了一些,常常跟我开玩笑。那时的她,脸颊圆通通的,虽行动不便,但气色很不错。对她最深刻的印象,就是她那永远分不完的旧钞。
其实到现在,那揪心的痛,我仍然未体验到。此时此刻,我仍然无法联想到,我和她身上流着同样的血液。但看到她躺在床上的日子,我想念她拄着拐杖,打麻将的日子。
我真的希望,我能早日领悟到,她是我爸爸的妈妈。
Monday, September 14, 2009
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4 comments:
I have similar feelings, though I may not be able to convey as eloquently. More than 10 years ago, between my A levels and the start of college, I actually spent a day or two alone with Ah Mah in the hospital, looking after her when everyone else had to go to work. In my limited Hokkien, I had nothing much to say to her. You can imagine how it must have been....just multiply the time you spent in the ward on Monday by a few times. :P Now that I see her on the hospital bed again, I still have nothing much to say. I wonder how is it that my grandma can feel almost like a stranger to me. I have come to realise that much of this is not up to me. What is within my control, however, is that when it is my children's turn standing my their grandparent's hospital bed, they will not face the same situation. So....since you have derived some thoughts from your teaching stint, how about helping me work towards the above by helping my kids with their Mandarin? Haha :)
hmm...how come that says 'kelpie'....it's from HL BTW.
well yah then we better make sure that the four kids can have a smooth conversation in Chinese. Ermm, pre-primary Chinese is not my forte...
I didn't have such feelings as you all had, maybe I'm a person who needs deep relationships to have my heart connected. I was prepared for her departure actually, and honestly, it would be another tearless one, like for our grandfather and great grandmother over the past years.
I don't know if I am cold, but since young I was taught to respect them because they are my elders. Honestly, I cannot remember much about how they treated me as a grandchild. Of course, I also know that they have brought up our parents and that itself is of great achievement and significance to us already.
But like HL said, this reflects off something else that we need to think about, which is the people that we truly are connected to with our hearts. We can no longer take it for granted that they will be there to take care of our children, cook delicious feasts for us, or give us a ride to our workplace. When you think back now and recollect those memories of how they brought us up and what they have done for us, and realised that those memories seemed so recent and time flew so fast, just think about this: we probably only have less than what we have spent with them, to continue spending with them.
So, we cannot continue to take them for granted, we cannot assume they will always be there when we need them, and we should put aside any annoyance that their character may pose to us. We should keep in mind that whatever time we have with them now, we should make it count. We tend to get lost in our new stages of life, forming a family, having children, starting a new job, buying a new house. Sometimes we will need to pause and think about things like that, which will make us more appreciative of what we still have with us.
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