I came across this whilst browsing on FB recently.
I immediately thought of my beloved grandmother from my dad's side.
She's been staying with us ever since my younger sister was born, that would be more than 25 years.
She practically raised all 5 of us as both our parents worked.
She'd cook for the entire family (8 of us), do the laundry, hang the clothes and fold them every single day.
She cooked only until recently, at the age of 98, I think.
She stopped cooking as both her legs were extremely weak and she can't stand without support.
She'd get my brothers ready for school, bathe them and get them dressed.
At one point, she even helped to wash their school shoes until they could do it on their own.
On school nights, my brothers and younger sister would sleep downstairs in the living hall so that it was easier for my grandmother to wake them up for school.
Her legs aren't strong enough to climb the stairs so she has her own room downstairs.
In the event my brothers decided to sleep upstairs, she'll have a tough time making sure that they get dressed in time before the school bus comes to fetch them.
She'll make sure breakfast was ready too, every single day, no matter how simple it was.
Whenever my younger sister has homework to do and needs to burn the midnight oil, my grandmother will sit next to her, accompanying her.
On Saturdays, my grandmother will prepare fried chicken and cook extra as we like to munch fried chicken on its own. She knows how much we love our friend chicken :)
We can't eat in front of the TV when our mom is around but on Saturdays, our grandmother lets us eat our fried chicken while we watch TV.
She's always the mediator whenever there are fights amongst us siblings.
She's often generous with her advise pertaining to religious matters.
She can't read but she memorizes by heart.
The surah during prayers and the Yasin too.
She prays 5 times daily and wakes up at 2am every single day to perform her sunnah prayers in addition to all the selawat and zikir. She will sleep at 4am only to wake up at 6am for Subuh.
Whenever people visit her, all she requests from them is to make a supplication to Lord the Almighty to bless her with sanity and die peacefully. She wants to perform her ibadah until the day she dies.
Her eyesight has deteriorated and her hearing is slightly deteriorating too, but her memory is so strong that she could even remember details of her life when she was a child. SubhanAllah.
I love her soooo much.
I'm glad that we still have her, that the Lord is still allowing us to have her so that we can spend time with her and tell her how much we love her.
After reading the FB post which I stumbled across, I don't remember our grandmother ever being snappy or rude or even complaining about her workload.
The only thing she would mention is that her knee or leg hurts and she can't stand for long so we'll help out as much as we can.
We're definitely blessed to have such a wonderful role model in our lives, the woman who had showered us with so much love, until today.
For all the things that she has done for us, I don't think we would ever be able to repay her.
The only thing is for us to pray that the Lord grants her good health for as long as she lives.
