Patience (and praise) is the key to grandma's heart

Recently, my son discovered that he has a way with her 91-year old (a.k.a a nonogenarian) grandmother. Despite initial snub, Beng put his arm around her and said, “How can you be senile when you were able to make so much money?” The recognition of her past success certainly hit the right note and she smiled immediately and said, “those people think I am crazy.” Beng followed with stories of his childhood with grandpa who taught him how to repair a bicycle puncture and other stories which he knew would endear her.

Following that success at melting his grandma's heart, Beng suggested to his cousins to give her a dinner last night. Batu Gajah was chosen instead of the usual Ipoh where better restaurants are found, because it is her home town (near enough, she is actually from Pusing but moved to BG, which is just 2 km away). Somehow, Fon Hing (my friend's new restaurant) was chosen because it is co-owned by her cousin's son and arrangement could be made to have them present to chat with her, something old folks badly need but which most of us seem to ignore and neglect, and assume they are being difficult.

I had in mind, to bring my mixer and amplifier to play some VCD or DVD which I hope would be entertaining, but I had my doubts mainly because it is difficult to please everyone since my last experience with bringing in the drums kit. I had also thought about bringing my two acoustic guitars for the two nephews (Shaun and Fung) who seem to enjoy playing all kinds when they are together. But I gave up at the last minute because I had a wedding lunch to attend at Clearwater Sanctuary and I knew I would be required to entertain my guests as well as to co-ordinate my son and daughter, and their cousins who came from KL for the purpose. My daughter even had to collect our house key from me at CWS! Later, they even had to ask for directions to the restaurant which is right in the middle of town!

It was better than expected in terms of turnout because John and Teng and Fung came back recently from Sydney and Adelaide respectively. John's girlfriend Kim came on her first visit from Hong Kong. So, despite my wife's absence (every friend we met seems to ask me about her), we had 10 plus one maid. Actually, it was supposed to be grandchildren's treat and I was not in the original plan. I made the effort to get the restaurant owners to get involved by asking the distant relative to speak to my MiL to see if she could recognize him. Then his wife, followed by his parents and I could see her laugh for the first time! Then I asked Fon's mother who is from Pusing to chat with the old lady. Everything seemed to work out as planned, or so it seems.

Later, Beng's girlfriend told me that they took more than an hour to convince her to attend! Even having agreed (she was at the factory), she actually wanted to go back to Ipoh to have a shower and change of clothes before coming to BG! I knew about this because while waiting in the house, we felt relieved that she changed her mind and decided to come straight from the factory instead.

On the way back to Ipoh, Beng took the short cut via MTD which goes through Pengkalen industrial estate and Jalan Pasir Puteh. It was dark through the kampung area and she could only recognize upon reaching Pasir Puteh. Then Beng realized that grandma likes to travel during the daytime so that she could see where she is going! Lessons learned.

When she got down from the car, she told Beng that on their next visit, she would like to treat them prawns at Tg. Tualang. Incidentally, we are going there for brunch soon (as in leaving the house in 10 minutes).



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