My lil bro, Khairi just reminded me of how surreal it was when my Grandpa was around. As a lil girl, I was just my Grandparents' brat. My mom n dad worked during the day so basically my Grandpa or we called him Yaii (Grandpa in Javanese) and Granny took care of me and my bro, Khalil went we were cute lil kids. I was his first Grand-daughter.

Every morning, after subuh, Yaii would go down for a morning walk around the neighbourhood, by himself, and came back with breakfast for us. Yaii never failed to bring back home Tau-Hway (Beancurd with syrup) and hot soyabean milk for both of us. I remembered when we woke up, Granny will shower us and we will wait in anticipation at the steel gates for Yaii to come back. In the afternoon, despite the fact that our parents disallowed us to play at the playground, we will beg Yaii to bring us down. And he held our tiny hands, one left and the other, right and brought us down for us to have a whale of time.

Yaii would take us to the neighbourhood mamak store, where he will stop and chat with his good friend who is mending the stall, and he bought us Yakult to make sure we were preoccupied. I remembered how panicked he became when he lost my lil bro at the coffeeshop. He put me in the corner of the coffeeshop under the watchful eyes of the neighbours and went to search for him. Yeah, he bought me Yakult to keep me occupied.

He would tell us stories of the Communism. At that time, I was a lil girl and what we could decipher was that Communist were 'Bad Soldiers'. So when we played our mini M-16s, one of us will be 'Soldier' and the other 'Communist'. It was a duel of Good vs Evil.

My Grandpa had a lump on his toe. It was round-shaped and as he was kinda dark-skinned, he called it chocolate. He would joked on whether we wanted chocolate and then, grinningly pointed to his toe. And we fell for it everytime.

He religiously watched Japan Hour everyday at 7pm then.

He bought me my first ever Barbie doll. I remembered he wanted to surprise me on my birthday and wouldn't tell me what it was. Me, being a brat, demanded to see it, and took a peek in his drawer... and couldn't keep my delight! I jumped up and down like a monkey, knowing that I have a Barbie doll, just like my classmates were boasting about! It was a sporty looking Barbie doll, with yellow overalls and sports shoe. I decided that my Barbie doll should have short hair just like me so... SNIP! Off went the poor Barbie's hair. My mom was so angry that she told my Yaii not to buy anything for me ever again. But he still did after that....

When he went away, I cried... no I bawled like a baby. I was 10. I couldn't believe that he was gone. I couldn't hug him for the last time. I couldn't visit his grave as he died peacefully at Makkah. I couldn't believe the fact that he is no longer is in my life. For the next few months, everytime I went to his bedroom, I will hug his pillow and cry. Devastated. My Granny will hug me and tell me it was okay. He was the one man who loved me and more importantly, I love him.

Every time someone mentioned about my Grandpa, I would cry. It took me 8 years to swallow the fact and digest it in my system. Sometimes, I felt that it was a good thing he did not live to see his beloved Grand-daughter disappointed him in life.

I'm tearing right now as I typed this entry.