Wasabi Heartbreak

I call this the Wasabi Heartbreak.
Why do I always return with such a heavy heart? :'(

I love you, po po. I wish I could grow up really quick so I can drive you around for your medical check-ups or even for your singing and dancing lessons, bring you to many places you've never been to before, and contribute to your monthly allowance. I want to be your prized possession that you can show off with to your friends. I don't want to give them a chance to question about your kids' and grandchildren's whereabouts anymore. But at my age, with the limited spare time and resources I have, I can't do much as much as I want to. So please, let me grow up quick.

Not forgetting you, gong gong. Only today did I realise the hardship you went through as a child, all the way till fatherhood. I didn't know you grew up parent-less and that you belonged to a poor family. I didn't know you only studied up till primary school and I couldn't have told anyway because you could speak so fluently in so many dialects and languages that you even came home knowing how to speak Tamil one day. You are so experienced and wise in the different aspects of life and I don't know why I find this especially astonishing but you're even talented in dentistry, even though your main career remained at the oil rigs. I didn't know you travelled out to sea for months or even years just to support the family, even though the marine oils that clogged up your ears almost caused you to lose your sense of hearing.

I always thought you were a neglectful dad, until I noticed the tears welling up in your eyes as you unfolded stories about the sacrifices you made for your children to me. You were always so cold and expressionless and I thought you never once appreciated the times we brought you and po po out for buffet dinners, until po po told me how excited you actually were each time.

Whenever you brought me down to the void deck as a kid, you would announce to your friends, "这是我的孙女, 我的孙女 leh!" If I had to count the number of times you repeated this per occasion, I might just have to use all four limbs. I know you were proud of me, and I'm proud of you too. I remember the times you travelled all the way to my house, just to accompany me to Tampines for my weekly swimming lessons. You'd wait for hours for my lessons to end, then you'd take me back home again before going home on your own. You'd hold my hand everywhere we went.

Someone once asked me, "How would you describe a sunset to a blind person?"
Now that you're almost losing your sense of sight, this question keeps haunting me at the back of my head. It's not that I'm really bad at conversing in mandarin that I would really suck at describing the sunset to you, but it'd really be a pity if your eyes can't last to watch the next sunset; the sunset that I want you to watch with my kids.

Each time I return, these conversations and stories leave me in deep thoughts; thoughts that I need to sweat off with a run at the beach. But on a brighter note, as I start to run, I start to breathe.