f.r.e.d

I’ve always felt a special affinity for grandma.

It isn’t so much because i used to spend my school hols over at her place, nor that i’d inherited from her bunions (bones jutting out beside the big toes) through my mother.

I finally found out why on the third day of grandma’s wake.

It was 1942, during the World War II Japanese occupation.

The family had sought asylum in a bomb shelter, but a headcount check soon revealed that her fifth daughter, a newborn, had been left in the open. Grandpa being the practical man he was tried to dissuade her from heading out to dangerous ground, saying that they already had four children and that she shouldn’t risk her life. But grandma refused to heed his warning, and dashed out to bring her daughter to safety. (The exact spot where her daughter had been left was later one of the spots bombed.)

That gift of life was repaid some near-60 years later, when daughter #5 brought grandma to Christ and helped her receive the gift of eternal life.

And just how do i fit into the picture?

Daughter #5 is my mother.