This is my Ah Ma. She is 80 years old this year but she often likes to say that she is 81. This picture shows her plucking beansprouts early in the morning.

After suffering a fall about 4 or 5 years ago, her memory has been failing her. She tends to repeat her words and she finds it hard to remember names. Doubt she remembers my name. She just calls me Ah Girl, or recognise me by asking my mother if I am her (my mom's) daughter.

But one thing she never fails to do is to bless me with her words. I tried talking to her in my terrible Teochew but all I can do is to ask her whether she wants to watch TV or sleep, or bathe, or go to the toilet.

In the past year, she has been dropping by my house for one or a couple nights' stay. I see her sitting quietly sometimes in the morning, folding clothes or just sitting there, as if waiting for something. When we talk, she just sits there to listen and occasionally quips at the most awkward time.

Our family thinks she may be suffering from dementia and she doesn't know or recognise a lot of things. But I look her staring into blank space, I imagine her to be in her own world, yet not detached from the real world.
She probably knows a lot of things that's going on around her. She is aware. She must be thinking.

Maybe, her staring into space, her quiet waiting is an ingenious way to gain the unspoken peace amidst the many family problems and idle chatter around her.

Labels: family