Ee-Poh

Ee-Poh.
Is what I call my grandaunt.

THE BACKGROUND
It happened quite unexpectedly and over just a short period of time. I guess it took everyone by surprise.

My grandaunt was hospitalized on a Thursday morning, 20 May. She was discharged by the same evening and given medication to expel excess liquid from her lungs and legs. She went home and all was fine.

Come Saturday 22 May, she had a panic attack, couldn’t control her bowels, couldn’t breathe properly and was sent to A&E. She was warded and had to go for an immediate heart op the next afternoon to clear a blockage they found in a major artery. They did the operation but right after it, they realized it wasn’t working and wasn’t doing much for the blockage.

And so they performed a second consecutive bypass surgery immediately after the initial heart op. She came out and was put into ICU and was doing okay up till the next day. She could speak. But on the second day after the op, she suddenly deteriorated. Organs started failing. Bowel, spleen, kidneys all stopped working. Body couldn’t get rid of toxins. Liver was failing as well.

And at 320am 26 May, she passed on. At the age of 86.

It was a sudden affair. I remember I had trouble sleeping after I received the SMS shortly after at 345am that morning.


THE 4 OF THEM
I was close to my grandaunt when I was in primary school. She came over every Saturday or Sunday to play mahjong at my place. She was fortunate enough to have had education when she was little. Girls of those days rarely had the chance to go to school.

There are four of them siblings. My grandmother, the eldest at 94 now, followed by a brother aged 91 now, followed by my grand aunt who was aged 86 and then the youngest granduncle who is 82 now and still plays tennis regularly.

The 4 of them. Now minus one.

My Dad mentioned before that once the old folks pass on, much of the CNY visiting won't happen anymore.


SIGH
The thing that hits me the most during this whole episode is that we cannot tell my grandmother of this. Don’t think she can take the news.

As it is, I think my grandmother felt it on the night my grandaunt passed on. Call it sixth sense or what. I don't know.

Apparently she woke the very next morning and started crying alot. She was crying the entire morning. The nursing home folks told us that she insisted on going to see her younger sister. She even told them that her younger sister has passed on.

How could she know? When none of us told her? When none of the nursing home folks even knew what happened?

I was in the midst of arranging a lunch for my grandmother and my grandaunt. I thought it would be a good idea for them two old sisters to sit down and have lunch together, with some of us grandchildren around. I’d already contacted my cousins and brother and we'd even settled on a date already….30 May.

But alas, the lunch was not to take place.