grandma.

My paternal grandmother is a small woman, with tattooed eyebrows and still thick curly hair. She looked harmless enough but one should not be fooled by her small stature for she is someone to reckoned with. She had lived through so many hardships that I cannot help but wonder how she survived all those years.

She was a teenager during the war, dodging the Japanese and discreetly helping the guerillas. After the war she finished studying and pursued a career in teaching at a time when women were not expected to have careers. During the post-war era she traveled all over the country teaching at different schools. It was during one of these forays in the country that she met my grandfather, then an aspiring lawyer. She got married at an age that was considered old by that time and then put my grandfather through law school. When my grandfather died she raised my father and his siblings alone, putting them through professional school and law school just by her meager principal's income. She was a working mother long before working mothers were accepted by society. She fought prejudice in every turn.
She retired at age 60, lived in Bangkok with my aunt and her Thai husband. Went to Saudi for a few years with my uncle and his family. Then went back to live with each of his children here in the city. She got her small intestine removed at 70, had her eyes lasered at age 75 and went to live alone in her big house at the province at age 76.

She is smart and funny. Strict but loving. Family-oriented but independent. I adore her completely.

She is old now and she can't do all the things that she used to do. She has mellowed through the years.

And now she is sick and I can't even visit her.
:(