Goodbye and enjoy the swim

This is severely delayed... I was back home in SG for a week. Why?  I flew home for my grandma. 

She passed away in late May at the ripe old age of 88. Got back just in time to say a final goodbye, though logically speaking, she was already gone. 

I used to be terrified of my grandma when I was a kid. I had this impression that she was super strict and fierce. An impression created by my parents... when I bit my nails, didn't finish my food, procrastinate over homework, picked on my brother, refused to go to bed... the threat was to send me to my grandma's house. Never happened of course. But it effectively made me think of her as the Dragon lady.  

Only in recent years did I discover that she wasn't that "dragonly". True, she seemed a little grouchy. But I think most old folks are like that. She was in fact a person who was very determined to live life on her own terms, determining what she ate, wore, shopped, prayed and which maid she got stuck with. Some of the stories my aunts and dad tell me of her antics are just hilarious. The underlying message I got from each story though, was this was one tough and crafty lady who didn't care what others thought. She held firmly on the reins of where life was taking her and she wasn't gonna take no order from her 7 children.  

I admired her for that. She lived the way she thought best, refusing to become a burden to anyone and retaining a rather wry sense of humor that I only learned to appreciate in the last few years. She's gone now, ashes scattered in the sea and all as per her instructions 9 see... even to the last, things had to be done her way ). I just want to say her feisty spirit will be missed.