Say Cheese... Now Smile!

It's 3am and I can't sleep.

My Nanang is gone. She came down with pneumonia Friday and was in and out of the hospital since then. Apparently she was given last rites on Saturday. I didn't know all this. No one tells me these things. What I know is that she died 10 minutes before I got home from school.

Earlier tonight, Carlene and I talked about the *good times* with Nanang. We reminisced about the crazy things she did, the foods she cooked and the stories that she told. Then we went downstairs to watch my newest half.com purchase: A bootleg dvd of THE LITTLE MERMAID while Sonny made some chocolate chip-banana pancakes. I felt better then.

But now, I'm alone in my room. Its dark, I can't sleep, and everytime I close my eyes, I can see her. Now, I realize, thats the only way I'm going to see her from now on. Yes, she had a long life... but still. You never want to see anyone you love go.

I found an old post that I wrote about Nanang...

Thursday, March 13, 2003
We got some fresh flowers today at work which meant I had to get water for them. At the old building, this really isn't much of a task since the water spout is right outside the back, 2 feet away from our backdoor. At this new location though, water isn't as close. The spout is about 8 shops down and the hose we have is about 50 feet too short. Anyways, so while I was fetching my water, I was totally reminded of how my nanang would tell me your typical grandparent stories of how she would have to ride a caribou for 5 miles just to get water.

Then, while having my "Nanang moment" flashback, I remembered this one incident when I was younger that made me almost drop my bucket of water and throw up.

So while growing up, my mom worked during the day and my dad worked the nightshift so that there would be at least one parent taking care of us... but every other week/month/whenver my Nanang would live with us and also take care of us. She'd cook dinner sometimes and everything would be dandy. But this one time, she cooked sutanhon (a noodle soup) and it was the sickest thing ever. Oh, it tasted just fine at first, but during the course of dinner, mom found some weird brown thing in her meal. We all looked at it and just figured.. its probably some weird bit of chicken. But then, while stirring the pot, we found this white clothy thing in the soup. Then we all screamed, gagged, and figured what it was. It was discovered that the brown thing was the sticky part of a bandaid. The white thing... well, that was the gauze. Who's bandaid did it belong to? Nanang just looked at her hand and started laughing... it was hers!! Oh funny ha ha... dinner was over and everyone, with the exception of Nanang, stopped eating and just wanted to throw up. Ewww....

There was also the time when a bee landed on me in the car, and while trying to take it of me (since I was allergic to bees), Nanang pinched it between her index finger and thumb and accidently PUSHED the stinger into my arm. I had to get a shot in my butt because of that.

But I love my nanang. I have so many fun, quirky stories about her in my head that I really want to write them all down so that I when I become old and forgetful, I can give them to my kids so that they'll know about her. Playing bingo (complete with the bingo ball cage), conning her to buy my snoopy paper after dance lessons, going to parties and she'd be the lady on the dance floor... dancing with another old lady, nanang chasing us around the house with a knife threating to kill us... ahhhhh good times I tell ya. :) Good times.

"Nanang... what are you doing?"
"Sitting pretty."

Oh my gosh... I'm going to miss her so much...