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05/01/2009: "Of cars and childhood memories"
music: Midnight Shuffle (?) by Question?mood: Nostalgic
Had a poignant moment today when I sent my grandfather home by car by myself. Normally my mom sends him home, but she was feeling kind of tired after hosting lunch with some friends today (that's the reason why my grandfather had come over), and so asked me to send him home. (The ungrammatical Singaporean in me keeps wanting me to type "fetch him home". >_>)
It took some convincing since he was worried about me driving by myself, and he kept insisting he could take a taxi home instead. (Now I see where my mom's over-protectiveness comes from; it definitely runs in the family!) But after lots of "I'm a big girl now" and "No worries, I've driven there lots of times" etc., he finally relented and I was allowed to drive him back by myself.
Whilst in the car, my grandfather was quiet for a moment, then he let out a chuckle and said to me in Mandarin, "This is so funny. When you were young I used to fetch you from school to send you home every day. Now you're the one who's driving me home."
When he said that, I was immediately flooded with memories of all those literally hundreds of car trips with him. It was such an integral part of my life, those times in the car with my grandfather.
He used to be a terror on wheels, zooming and careening here and there and weaving in and out of traffic at breakneck speeds that simultaneously thrilled and scared the heck out of me. And because my grandfather's tiny little Honda didn't really have a functioning air-conditioner, I used to love rolling down the windows of the car and letting the buffeting wind whip ferociously through my hair, stirring
up the strands in a frenzied dance that flayed my ice-cold cheeks mercilessly. By the time my grandfather pulled smoothly into the driveway of my house, I would be crowned with a gloriously horrific head of Medusa hair. What amused me most was the contrast between own my frazzled appearance and my grandfather's perfectly immaculate one, for he always had his hair gelled neatly into place, which nonetheless never stopped him from whipping out a comb from his back pocket and combing down any errant strands that might have had the audacity to escape during the dustdevil of a ride.
Sadly, there came a time when the rides had to stop since it became harder for my grandfather to drive with his ailing eyesight. That was around the end of my primary school days, I think. But these rides were such an important part of my life that the memories stayed carved in my mind. In fact, I once wrote a poem on my grandfather and his grand prix driving skills for an English assignment in Secondary One. I can even remember the last stanza quite clearly even to this day.
He whips out a comb, and hair neatly in place,
Turns around with a smile on his face.
"Thank you, Grandfather, for sending me home."
"No problem my dear girl, no problem at all."
(... I never claimed to be a good poet. ^_^;; Memories of my past poems, such as this one, make me cringe - most particularly my first poem ever, which was written when I was 9 after a trip to China and which was inspired by the numerous weeping willows I saw lining the river banks there. I really should see if I can dig all these poems up and have a good laugh at my lack of literary talent.)