Elsie

‘If you live hard, and strong, perhaps you live forever…’

There is an old, dusty memory I can’t shake. I am accompanying my grandmother onto a ship, I can’t even remember how old I was. We are walking into this dark and stuffy place, and her settling down on a bench deep inside the bowels of the vessel, I am sure my grandfather would have been present. She takes out a paper fan, I was quite fascinated with that fan, and played with it before I said goodbye. She was going back to the land of her birth in southern India, a state called Kerala, and she had bags filled with things for her family there. I was too little to understand at that time what the bag meant, what the long journey meant, what migration meant. The chasm, the separation from all you know, and how hard it was to move to a strange new land and leave everyone and everything behind, these exact emotions eventually became very familiar to me.

She cooked beautifully as all grandmothers do (and some grandfathers)! She made traditional Malayalee foods, and the food fest in the holidays would start at breakfast, a hearty hot meal to start the day! This was no ordinary religious woman, she was deeply spiritual, I remember her always with the backdrop of the Catholic altar, pictures of saints, rosaries, candles and prayer booklets. One of my favourite 'comfort' memories is saying the Rosary bilingually every night without fail. It was fascinating when it was her turn to lead, she will do the first half of a prayer in Malayalam and the rest of us would follow in English and vice versa when someone else started in English she and the older ladies would continue in Malayalam. My cousins and I grew up with this, I look back and think of how absolutely exciting to have shared that unique experience.

I remember once when I was 14 or 15, I had spoken to her over the phone and said my legs were aching; I was pretty avid sports person even back then. The next thing I knew, about two hours later she was at the front gate. She had got herself to the bus station and got on the bus for an hours ride. She then walked all the way to my home carrying her ‘potent' oil in her bag, just to massage my legs and look after me. This was my grandmother in essence, she had 10 grandchildren and each one of us felt special to her, because of her. Each one of us felt that we were the only ones, and I know now that very few people in the world can make people feel like that.

My family is the reason I pursued medicine, so many of them felt sick, there were so many visits to the hospital and so many painful incidents I witnessed as a teenager that forever changed me. I developed a hunger to be different, to provide an outstanding service regardless of someone’s age, gender, socio-economic status or background.

When I finally left for India to embark on my pre university journey, I found myself all alone in a totally intimidating environment. Something I had never expected, and somehow my grandparents made the trip to India again, this time of course, they flew. Lo and behold, my grandmother found her way from the whole other state to come and visit me. It was truly serendipitous; not only did she visit me but she told me that one of my best friends studying right there with me was my second cousin. When you are far away from home, especially at a time when there were no personal mobile phones, no internet; in fact there was a 4 week wait for a letter to reach home and get a reply back, a reunion like this was a miracle. We would go on to occasionally communicate long distance, she would write me an 'aerogramme' in Malayalam, and my friends would translate, and help me write back. I was so supported during my medical studies. It was clear I was never ever too far away.

Money. This lady was something else. She would wear clothes that were in need of mending, she wouldn’t spend any money on herself despite her four daughters wanting to provide for her personal expenditure. There are two really good reasons for this, both of which seemed to be unreasonable at that time — both ‘flawed’ generosity. The first was her insistence that she should scrimp and save and send funds back to her family in India; she will send cash back, as much as she could collect, and I am sure she constantly dreamt of her people ‘back home.’ She had a brother and a couple of sisters and all of this was very hazy until the time when my sister and I got an opportunity to actually visit her hometown. Her brother’s small wooden home on the beach, a stifling square space, with the tiny wooden bed on the floor which was sand! It was then I realised why all that money had been sent, it was to feed them. My grandfather, had he stayed in that coastal town would have continued on being a fisherman. Had it not been a different road that he had taken, or a ship, to move to Malaysia — my cousins and I would have been fisherfolk. I still remember them saying to us ‘when we get fish we eat and when we don’t we can’t eat.’ My grandmother’s second reason, there were many, many more people than just her children living in their house. She had her brother’s children and various people who would come over from India in the hopes of a new life. She looked after so many people. She was always kind and always generous to a fault. It was so unclear then, but now I see the personality clearly, it was one of ‘how much more can I give?’ and 'how many more times can I give?’

When I had finished my studies and return back to Malaysia, my 'to be husband' and I had a long serious discussion on where we should apply to do our internship. Malaysia is divided into the East Malaysia where my husband is from and West Malaysia where my family and granny lived. With a heavy heart I told him I would love to come with you but my grandmother is ageing, I have spent 10 years overseas I would really like the opportunity to spend some time to visit her, like she visited me so many times in the past. It was so interesting how he totally understood; he said since he spent so much time away, he would like to spend time with his mother and brother. So we parted ways sadly but happily at the same time.

I was 26 and I made good my promise. I took the bus and travelled the old highway,  and popped in the green shop where I got her green apples because back in the day that was what ‘they’ said was good for diabetes. I walked to the house and visited her all by myself, feeling very happy and grown-up. She was delighted, and of course she made me fish curry in no time and I spent a few days with her. During this time we did all the things that were important to her, visited her beloved neighbours and I went with her to the local district hospital to get her wound dressed. She had poorly controlled diabetes and frequently had a couple of medical issues that needed care, wounds that need dressing and I was delighted to be able to go with her to get these done. I am very grateful that my sister had an engagement ceremony because for the first and last time, my then fiancé Adrian would meet my grandmother. She was most delighted that her doctor granddaughter was going to marry a doctor grandson. It was always beautiful to see her smile and she smiled a lot that day.

It was really gratifying that I made that solo visit, because I had barely got into my internship a few months later in another state, and it was during the end of my first posting that the phone call came. It was my mum saying that my grandmother had passed away. I was in the ward making notes, taking blood; I stopped everything I was doing and rang my senior medical officer. There was no expression of empathy, no 'sorry for your loss,' no understanding. She said yes, you can go, but ‘make sure you have someone to cover you!’ It was my first of 1000 experiences of the cruelty of the hierachical hospital system, a sad universal reality. Tears, tears and more tears; but I got someone to cover me, called a taxi ,and took the two buses to get to where she was. It took me a good RM70 and 6 plus hours, it was a lonely and long ride, spent reminiscing; I was picked up at the bus stop by my uncle. I never got a chance to give her some of my brand new monthly pay, RM1618, to send back home.

Last memory. It is so difficult to record my last memory of her lying in the coffin in the home where she had spent the last few years of her life. I remember being up all night randomly taking the time to pop into the hall and look at her face, and think to myself I wish I didn’t have to see her like this. I still wish this image didn’t have to be ingrained into my brain. At the funeral and while waiting for the mass what we do is say the Rosary — over and over and over again. The mantra is comforting because it gives you something to do, something to hope for and you know that someone was watching over you, and her. Of course it was no longer bilingual, it was in English this time, with my grandmother gone it would be the last of the bilingual Rosaries.

I do believe though that the people we love, live on and on in us. I see very strong glimpses of her in her 5 daughters and her 10 grandchildren, also so much in her great grandchildren. There is the flawed generosity, fierce attachment to family, inner unshakeable strength and finally the smile, always the smile.

Thank you Elsie for showing us the way. We love you and I hope one day we can say endless bilingual rosaries together.