My Ever-Present Guardian

            Another aspect of her care for me was shown in that she never ever left the house when I was at home. This aspect was unknown to me until years later, when our maid mentioned that Mama had sometimes gone out to buy oranges. As our maid had not started working for us until after I had finished my A levels, I thought she had remembered wrongly. I was starting to disagree with her when it struck me that this had been deliberate on my grandmother's part. She had truly never left the house all the time I was at home, during my growing-up years. So she must have re-scheduled all her outings and errands to the times when I was at school or out with my mother.

 

            I was embarassed to acknowledge this in front of my cousin, who was also present and had been a latchkey child, like some of my other relatives and friends.  This was because both her parents had been at work and they stayed on their own (without either set of grandparents).

 

            The amazing thing was that Mama had never verbalized this policy of hers. She'd simply done it, without saying anything to anybody. On hindsight, this was typical of Mama. She was truly a person of few words, even when she was in pain, she would say little, and stoically bear with the pain in silence.

 

            Her care for me was evinced even in the dishes she cooked for me. Quite often, she would fry ikan kurau or prawns with sambal belachan. I love this dish. With the ikan kurau version, the skin of the fish is thick, so that when fried, it becomes delightfully chewy. The sambal belachan is a perfect accompaniment, as it is salty and slightly spicy. Seen below is the prawn version.

 

            How much care she had taken of me I never quite appreciated until years later, when I asked my aunt, who had taken over the menu planning, why she so seldom cooked ikan kurau for us. My aunt pursed her lips and started complaining about the price of kurau and how it was so expensive, compared to other fish.

 

            It was then that I realised how my grandmother had taken painstaking care to feed me good food, things that she herself must not have had much of, since her family had been so poor when she was a girl.