One For Poh-Poh
A few days ago, we held a wake for my grandmom of 80-odd years. I wonder which pervert saw it fit to call a funeral service a "wake". English is so fucked up.
Poh Poh or Chan Ah Heng as she officially called herself, had been bedridden for the past 2 years. During her final months she was somewhat senile and over her last days, drifting in and out of conciousness until her shrunken frame finally heaved its last breath.
I didn't visit too often at the oldy house where she was placed. I was too indifferent. I told myself it didn't make a difference since she couldn't recognize me anyways. That view was much too short-sighted. Visiting her would have made a difference to me.
My Poh Poh lived nothing short of a tumultuous and tragic life. Orphaned at a young age, she was then separated from her siblings. As the story goes, all but one sister died. No contact has been regained till this day. But that's not the worst of it. The darkest and most evil parts were never revealed to us. Nobody for instance, knows her real name or her age. Nobody knows why she chose to be a single mother after her second child. Nobody has ever spoken of why she's missing her left eyeball. Nobody can remember what her husband was like; his looks, countenance, or even the location of his grave. We simply know him as Louis Pharamond who died when my father the first born was still wetting his pants.
I myself never brought these questions up. A sort of merciful negligence since it was inferred that such queries were too painful or too deeply buried. I caught murmurs from time to time but these things will never be substantiated. Once as a child Ebony's age, i overheard my father say he suspected she was tortured by the Japs when she was young. Those fuckers deserve a hell all of their own. It's a very colorful, very engaging and if truth be told, very misleading comment. Who can ever know?
Whatever her story she kept mum till the very end, with every secret secure in her heart. Never to be revealed, as if she broke the key in it's lock when she turned to leave her secret garden. She would have been a great novel. Tragic, beautiful, poignant and all the other wonderful adjectives that accompany a work that moves people to review their place in this world.
This post is for her, the lady who never forgot my birthday. Maybe I'll still find out her story one day.
