When I'm Old And Grey

THE rain has taken a toll on Nek Yong. It makes her extremely lazy and writing is the last thing on her mind. For the past weeks, Nek Yong has been lazing around the house sipping tea in the evenings and watching the skies take different shapes and forms at every turn of a second.

When I look at the skies I am reminded of days when my girls were very young. We had a huge single storey bungalow house spread on almost ¼ acre of land, similar to what you see in this picture. The garden was huge that every time the gardener came around he would only finish his gardening as the sun set. At times, he would return the next day to finish up.

Images: House In Cloudy Day-WINBLOWS/Loving You-GiniMiniGi/Happy Cloud-ba1969

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My girls and I love watching the skies. We would sit in the garden and watched the clouds. Every time the clouds made new formations we would shout out what we thought we “saw”.

Sometimes the clouds had eyes, at other times smiling faces. The girls didn’t like it whenever the clouds formed and appeared as monsters or huge unfamiliar beasts. So I often told them about the grizzly beasts I “saw”. There’s nothing like watching the disbelief in their eyes :)

Yes, perhaps all the formations we thought we saw were just our over-imaginative minds at work. But perhaps there are actually living forms in the skies, trapped within the clouds. Whatever it is, sitting in the garden watching the clouds turned into many unimaginable “characters” was probably the most wonderful part of watching the girls grow. Their faces, wide-eyed and grinning from ear to ear showed how the simplest things in life can make a child happy.

Today, Nek Yong’s girls are young adults with a career of their own. Their hours are filled with work, work and more work. They have friends they occasionally hang out with but they will always remain as Nek Yong’s “girls”.

Whenever we have our “compulsory” family-time, we still look at the clouds to see if the faces are still up there, way, way up amidst the skies. And yes, many times we still see the faces and Nek Yong will always cherish these moments.

Maybe one day when Nek Yong is "home" with God, my girls will spend some time watching the clouds with their children, my grandchildren. Maybe my girls will tell their children about the grizzly beasts Nek Yong "saw" in the skies and the naughty winks my girls give each other as they take over my role in fascinating their children with God’s wonders.

               With loving care - Nek Yong