Grandma's Silent Confession of Sadness

Today, first day of raya like previous years we always start with visiting our two grandmothers. I have two Grandmas from my father & my mother side. One stayed here in Muara, while another one live in Tutong. We visited them both today, and also some of my relatives.

Aidilfitri is a happy season & everyone should be happy and have fun. However, some people said, don’t forget to those who can’t celebrate raya such as relative who are sick, the poor and the loner. We are not saying that we couldn’t celebrate raya or to be sad during raya but at least we offer some help to them or visited them. I would like to share story of my Grandma who couldn’t celebrate raya again like before.

My Grandma of my father side was still active & healthy although she was about 80 years old but we don’t know if she may be hiding some pain or sickness. She was fobia to hospital so she didn’t want to tell the family if she got fever or injured. It was because she can’t forget the sadness and grief when her husband (my Grandpa) passed away 18 years ago. Thankfully, she was still there at her home, just having eye sight problem (typical for elders) but still have a strong memory. When we visited her today for the raya, she still remembered me and said that it’s been long time I didn’t come there. Ops it’s true~ =P

My Grandma on my mother side suffered with terrible stroke and paralyzed. She can’t walk, can’t stand up, can’t sit and can’t even talk anymore. She can only lay there seeing people, mumbled, and open her mouth to be spoon-fed. She had to be bath, given porridge to eat, drink through the tube from her nose and had to be adjusted her position. All she could do is sleep. If awoke, she could only stared at whoever in front of her.

We were not sure if she still have the memory of us in her mind but hopefully she remembered. She did, but only to those who are close but she forgot anything happened after a minute. She remembered some memory of the old times. She may forget some of us, but she felt the familiar feelings in her heart. I could see tears from her eyes whenever someone from our family comes to visit her. I knew she was very sad.

Stroke is diseases where the nerve in the brain was blocked by a blood cloth. This blockage causes malfunction to the whole body because brain control everything in the body. Patient with stroke will suffered numb or paralyzed through half of the body or the body and became weak. In Malay, stroke was called as ‘angin ahmar’. In which in old belief whoever passed by this evil wind will not be able to move forever.

Before my Grandma got stroke, she was still able to talk a lot, walk, help with kitchen work, laugh, angry, eat a lot and join in family function. I always remembered she will be very happy during hari raya when we brought her to our relative (her siblings) home.

My Grandma did talk a lot before; she even repeated her words such as asking same question every 10 seconds to us. This sometimes caused some of my cousins got annoyed. Actually, my Grandma wanted to talk to us but just didn’t have the topic. What makes her worse was she had a short-term memory loss in which she forgot words she said easily.

Another problem of her is she often complains a lot, sensitive, easy to get down and often angry when no one talks to her. I knew she wants attention. Nobody wants to be abandoned or to be useless. I understand her sometimes. She just wanted to be taken care, to join in doing works especially during function and wants someone to talk to. She was lonely all this time although she lives with my Uncle & his family. That was because my Grandpa passed away 16 or 18 years ago so she felt alone. I could see how happy old couple is because they were together. Even their child busy, they still can talk to each other, sharing their time and can contribute to any family function. My Grandma however, can only rely on love from her son and daughter. It’s sad to see when she always sat near her house’s door, looking outside and expecting for someone to come to her. I remembered this quote from a movie: “The older you are, the useless you will be”.

I didn’t usually come to visit my Grandma. That’s because I was too busy with the social life. Besides, I prefer to visit my Grandma with Pau (my cousin) but he also didn’t visit too often. I still cared for her and love her but I’m just her Grandson. I’m sure my Grandma needs care & love by her child more. Anyway, she was now at my Aunt’s home.

For how long will she stay like this? I did some research from the net; it was very rare for stroke patient to fully recover. Brain surgery was the only way but my Grandma was too old to had surgery. Some patient (in Brunei) stayed like that for 2 hari raya’s already (2 years of pain!). However, some story from the peoples said that traditional kampong medicine and massage can heal the stroke but not completely but does heal. Wishfully, my Grandma may be recovered (at least can stand up again) no matter how slim the chances is (in the net said it was 0-1% chances). Nothing is impossible. Miracles did happen sometimes.