Goodbye Grandma

There were people everywhere and I could not find my family. I tried to get to my grandma, but I couldn’t make my way through the sea of people lying on top of one another. I ducked my head and went down to the lower deck, still looking for my family, but the stench of sweat, faeces, vomit and whatever else made me want to throw up right there and then. So I returned to my little spot on the upper deck, near the prow of the boat. No-one wanted to sit there because it was completely unsheltered, and my face, neck, arms and feet got more and more burned as our journey progressed.

By the third day I felt dreadfully hot and sweated profusely. At first I thought it was an exceptionally hot day, but in the evening, when the temperature dropped, I still felt hot and my clothes were soaked in sweat. Then I noticed some blood on my jeans. I touched my bottom and it felt a bit painful. It was dark by now, so I just tried to sleep.

In the morning I got up early to go to the toilet while everybody was still asleep, so no-one could see the blood stain on my pants. I took off my jeans and saw a patch the size of my fist on my underpants. I pulled out from my bottom the roll of crisp US dollars notes wrapped in plastic that my Dad had given me to take care of before we left home. I could clearly see that the edges of the notes had cut through the plastic, and it seemed pretty clear that they’d gone on to cut into my flesh and cause the bleeding. Not sure what to do, I inserted the roll of money back inside me and put the jeans back on. I figured that the cut had caused an infection, which had brought on the fever. I decided that if anyone noticed and cared to ask why I was bleeding I would tell them it was haemorrhoids.

I looked for my family again, but once more failed to find them. So I decided to lie down and minimise my movements to avoid further cuts. I couldn’t take the money out of its hiding place because eleven people in my family were relying on it to survive – that is, if we managed to arrive somewhere. My fever continued, and I drifted in and out of sleep. On the fifth day I managed to go to the toilet and re-check the money roll. I was pleased to see I wasn’t bleeding as much.

Eventually we reached Kuku, an uninhabited Indonesian island that served as a temporary refugee camp. I found my grandma still sitting in the same spot, and she looked like a ghost. When I scooped her up and put her on my back she felt much lighter. I got off the boat and sat her down under a shady tree, then found the rest of the family and gathered everyone around. Then I rushed off to find a bush and took the money out. What a relief it was to my body – and my soul – when I handed that money over to Dad.

Poor Grandma, she’d made the boat journey but could not survive once she got to the island. I carried her once more, this time to the jungle to bury her. She’d known that she might not make it, but she did not want to die without her children and grandchildren around.

We could not give her a proper burial, but at least we were all with her when she died. To Grandma, home was where her family was, not the country. Her family had fled from China to Hong Kong when Japan invaded China during World War II. Then they fled to Cambodia when Japan invaded Hong Kong. Later she followed my dad to Vietnam. Although her resting-place is in Indonesia, I am certain that Grandma’s spirit is with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Australia.