Dada 68

“You have no reason to justify yourself. I`ve read your Dada`s file. You were able to look after most of his needs but he required a nurse. You earn a very modest living. And to tell the truth, he was happier here with us.” 

The unspoken question of my ma and da hung in the air. The Director did not ask why this was a Chinese funeral, a Catholic funeral like those that take place in the ports of southern China,  or Singapore at the bottom of the peninsula whose name we still include within our country.

I agreed and said: “Yes, Governor.” The Chinese doctor said quietly that the Dada had friends here.

‘You know’; he added, “ The people of his own age loved him. He could share his interests of the past with them. You`re young and he probably was bored when he was living with you.”

It was true, the latter days, when we lived together, Dada increasingly spent all his time in silence. He would finger the lapels of his collar watching people come and go and sometimes hug his arms around him as if he was cold. When I went to live with him he knew  I was conscious of his shame. He shouted down to people but less now, nor got excited in the way he once did. He was becoming tired. The first few days he was at the old people`s home, he often cried. But this was because his routine had changed. The ma and da would never come to see him and I was working.

After a few months, at the place where he came to call his home he would have cried if he`d been taken or moved away for the same reason. That was partly why I had gone to visit him as much as I could during his early time there. I went less and less this past year. It took up my whole Sunday not to mention the time and effort to buy the ticket get the bus and travel for two hours each way. It was worth it at the time when he first went in there but then my own life changed and I needed some space .

The director was talking to me again but I was barely listening.

Then he said: “I assume you would like to see your Dada.”