Tress and I couldn’t decide what to do for dinner on Friday so we ended up buying some food from Safeway (cooked chicken and some cheese!) and going home. It was a very relaxing (and cheap) Friday night thing. It was however, the last serene session for the weekend for me, and for the next week for Tress.
Early Sat morning we went to Tullamarine (Auntie Hooi came along) and waited a little bit for the group to arrive. They eventually came out, nearly 2 hours later. Tress’ parents, 2 aunts and an uncle are all here to spend some time with Uncle Jin. We picked them up in 2 cars (Tress drove one and I, the other) and went to Uncle Jin’s home in Point Cook, out in the west.
Uncle Jin is still in the Royal Melbourne, and Auntie Pin is in the city with Sherry and Yin Wei, where she’d be closer to the hospital. The house in Point Cook is left wholly to the Malaysian visitors. When we got to the house, Adam was there waiting and the rooms have been gorgeously prepped. We unloaded the luggage, and made them morning tea. Every time I see Tress’ father, he appears to have aged even more but he looked well and other than being cold, was in good health. They saw Uncle Jin later in the arvo. Tress and I drove back to Blackburn late in the evening, and I walked the little fellow, we fed him and packed some more stuff (mainly warm clothing) for them and then drove back into the city to meet with them for dinner at Adam’s restaurant.
We got home late that night and I managed to catch United’s penultimate home game. Sunderland has been in good form and Giggsy’s second game in charge didn’t end well, with United losing 0-1 and any hope of European football effectively gone. Somehow, a loss like that is no longer too hard to take and I went to bed (around 2am) relatively unscathed.
We left home around 9am the next morning to head towards Point Cook, picked up the precious cargo and headed to the hospital again. It was Uncle Jin’s birthday (4-5-54) and it was the reason the Malaysian folks came. The dinner the previous night was meant to be the birthday dinner party, before he fell a week or so before.
We celebrated anyway, in the visitors’ lounge at the 4th Floor South Wing of the Royal Melbourne. There was a cake and other foods, cards, gifts, etc. We sang him a birthday song, took pictures and listened to his touching speeches. He looked better each time we saw him so in spite of the setback, he is making good progress.
The biggest progress was his salvation. Soon after coming out of his sedation early last week, Auntie Hooi spoke to him and he had made the decision to respond to God’s saving grace. He acknowledged that in his speech and it brought a lot of joy to many, if not all of us, He went back to his bed to rest soon after the celebrations, and we returned to the house in Point Cook. Adam and his wife Fay bought some takeaway lunches, so we ate, some folks played mah-jong and the other just talked. We then went to the Point Cook town centre for some grocery shopping and 4-ee, (Dr Mak’s wife) cooked a delicious pumpkin rice, which I packed for lunch to work today. Tress and I made some veg soup, and helped with the cutting and washing.
I left to go back alone, around 6pm. Tress has taken the week off and would spend most of the week with them. I had wanted to walk the little fellow but it was bucketing down when I reached our part of town. It was then just me and that furry ball, with a few glasses of red. It was a busy but really good weekend.
Ante 