Family,  The J-brothers,  Travels

Because family matters more.

Last Monday, I took urgent leave and made a last minute trip to Malaysia to visit my grandpa. You know how we always give ourselves the excuse that we will visit someone when we have the time but the time never come before it is too late?

I don’t want that to ever happen to me again ever since my maternal grandma passed away 2 years back. So, I had to skip a training at work and brought the entire family on a road trip to visit my grandpa. After all, he is turning a century old next year. The stars aligned that day and my uncles and aunty were going to be there too and I figured I couldn’t miss this impromptu family gathering.

Jerome with his maternal great grandpa.
Jerome with his maternal great grandpa.

I can’t tell you how glad I was, because of the smiles that I was seeing on my grandpa’s face the entire day. He just sat there and watched the kids in fascination… The kids also clocked in some precious memories too while I relived my childhood through their eyes.

Guess what Jerome is doing here?
Guess what Jerome is doing here?

He is peeping downstairs from a hole in the floor. My grandpa cut a hole in the floor on the second storey of the shop house so that he can check on who is ringing the doorbell downstairs. As a kid, I had so much fun with the hole because it is so fascinating to watch people from right above them. I remembered even tying a string to a small bucket and lowering it downstairs and fetching small items up. My brother and I spent a lot of time fighting over the hole.. and guess what? The 2 brothers did the exact same thing. Ahhh…

Jerome staring at the hole the entire time!
Jerome staring at the hole the entire time!

Jerry also found a toy that I used to spend a lot of time with. Something that is almost non-existent in most of our households these days. The fly swatter!

Jerry with the fly swatter!
Jerry with the fly swatter!

Jerry spent hours running around the house swatting all over the air because he isn’t fast enough to actually hit any flies. Do you think the kids need the ipad/gadgets? They just run round and round the shop house swatting everything in sight and happiness is when…

Excited Jerry with a dead fly.
Excited Jerry with a dead fly.

I swatted a fly and the kid is so happy seeing the dead fly! Man, even I took a long while to swat one. To think I used to compete with my brother on catching the most number of flies alive. We were quite the experts back then and it was our favourite past time in a small town where there is no recreational activities available.

Jerome watched in awe while Jerry just went around swatting non stop.
Jerome watched in awe while Jerry just went around swatting non stop.

The 2 brothers ran up and down the stairs, hung out at the balcony for a while, watched and made friends with the house dog, speak with the talking pet parrot in the house and enjoyed the attention lavished on them by everyone else. The most important one being…

PIctures with great grandpa!
PIctures with great grandpa!
The kids and their great grandpa.
The kids and their great grandpa.

This picture is worth a million bucks to me. The happy face of grandpa. the smiles of him all day and the kids standing close by. When we left, Jerry even gave great grandpa a big hug and Jerome sent a flying kiss his way. Lovely memories like these made me feel rich. Definitely worth the day spent and the amount of time I spent driving on the roads. I was super tired that day, spent a big part of the day driving non stop, surviving on 2 hours sleep from the night before and having to work the next day despite arriving back in SG quite late at night. Hopefully I can make another trip soon.

Have you visited your loved ones lately? Have you been putting off the visit again and again? Don’t. Make some time for the people that matters. You’ll never regret it.

Hi there! Thanks for popping by. I'm Cherie, a ftwm (full-time working mum) to 3 lovely kids (2 boys & a princess) and my motto in life is to BE HAPPY. Sure, life isn't all that smooth but it's the mentality that counts, no? This blog documents my life. Or rather, snippets of my life that has passed me by. I love capturing life memories in the blog and being able to read back and laugh at myself (or anyone). I love to eat (A LOT), travel and paint my own nails so the blog is mostly about that. Is that considered lifestyle? Of cos, the family is also very much an integral part of me so there would be loads of memories about the husband and my kids - Jerry (9yo), Jerome (7yo) and Leia (2.5yo) and everyone else that's close to me. I like documenting the kids' milestones, their growing up years, their achievements (and sometimes, mine), and my struggles and battles with motherhood. It sure ain't easy. I love seeking out good food and travelling, is trigger-happy, love new gadgets, love exploring new places and strives to live life to the fullest. I aspire to travel the world as much as I can, to soak in the different sights across the various continents and visit all the Disneylands in the world (almost there!). Have fun reading and do drop me a comment to say hi! Love, Cherie Lim Find me on Instagram.

3 Comments

    • Cherie

      Hi Elly,

      Thank you for dropping a note! My grandpa watched me grow up and taught me many valuable lessons in life.. I know it isn’t going to be possible to keep him with me forever, so I hope I can try and spend as much time with him as possible. I don’t know anyone that is as old as he is, and as much as I hope not.. I’m sure he is very close to leaving us soon. I just want to note down all these beautiful memories so that I would be rich with experiences to remember him by. 🙂

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