Speeeeeeech

I wrote a speech for my Grandparents on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Wrote in an hour, so it turned out a bit long because I didn't have time to time it. :/

Having only known Grandpa and Grandma for a very small portion of their married life, there isn’t much that I could really say. Though I must say that this small portion spans my entire life, and that at every step of the way, from diapers to boots and camouflage, they have always been present and never held back their love, encouragement and advice. All of us grandchildren have much to thank them for, after all we wouldn’t be the upstanding young citizens that we are today or have achieved our educational level without their help. We owe them a great deal, so I would like to thank them for a few things.

Firstly, Grandpa, Grandma, thank you so much for teaching us. All of will forever remember the huge effort and time that you put in to make sure that we pass our examinations and tests reasonably well. In fact, the four older ones would agree with me, that we owe it all to you for getting all of us in to good secondary schools.

Grandma, we all remember the hours that we spent sitting at the table, piled with Chinese textbooks and assessment books, inside your room, as Grandma attempted to teach us Chinese. Xuo yi, wo men ke yi jiang hua yi yi tian tian. That was a very trying period for all us, with Grandma desperately trying to keep our attention and drill in the ting xie for the week and, of course, us, desperately trying to get away, that was until she locked the latched in the upper right hand corner of the door, preventing any opportunities to escape. When we didn’t behave, we would meet the feather duster. Think Ip Man with the feather duster. Though, Grandma could probably beat him one on one. We were all lucky of course, that Grandma wasn’t as strict with us as she when Mummy, Aunty Cc and Aunty Ba were children. Despite her strictness, as Aunty Alice always says, “Your grandmother has a heart of gold”, when we behaved ourselves, we would be rewarded with trips to NTUC for a treat, chocolates and with money.. I’m pretty sure that the whole thing probably took a few years from Grandma, but she still did it. Thank you very much Grandma, the four of us passed our PSLE Chinese sufficiently well because you. Though, we would like to say sorry for ultimately failing and dropping the subject for CLB before the end of secondary school.

While Grandma toiled to teach us Chinese, Grandpa had a bit more success with our English. Without him, I don’t think any of us would have been able to master the language with competency that we have. He took the time to patiently sit down and teach us everything about grammar, from past tense, to future continuous perfect. We know our adverbs from our verbs and nouns from our pronouns. Grandpa is probably also responsible for our interest in literature. Whether we realize it our not, the four older ones are all avid readers, two of us actually took literature at A levels. I remember he would always animatedly read us stories and sometimes changed the plots a little to tease us, this usually occurred him coming into the story and stealing the limelight from the protagonist, much to our naïve horror.

So there is no doubt, that they are the contractors who hammered in the pillars of our academic foundation. This isn’t the only thing they did. They also taught us many things about generousity, love and devotion through their excellent example. Grandma prayed the rosary everyday, and everytime we stayed over at their house because our parents were overseas, she never allowed us once to forget to say our morning and night prayers. In the afternoons, Grandpa would always make us cups of milo and garlic bread from homemade garlic butter that grandma had painstakingly prepared. They also made sure we had enough money, giving us vitamin M when they came over for dinners or what not. We couldn’t do anything but reluctantly accept.

This generosity extended beyond the family as well. Any lucky chap who happened to have the opportunity to enter that small cosy apartment was always greeted with great hospitality. When there were guests, they would always be seated at the sofa with a glass of orange squash or beer and be happily contented with good conversation. It’s no surprise that despite the painful memories of studying, we still love to go to visit our grandparents when the opportunity arises.

Most importantly, they gave us their time. They never failed to ferry us to and fro from school, to dental appointments, ballet classes, bowling practice, rugby practice or send us home. When we got older, they were and still are always willing to provide us with transportation whenever we called, without any questions asked, and never reluctantly provided. Grandpa and Grandma also never failed to give us advice, provide a listening ear and encouragement as well interesting stories from their childhood and opinions about the current state of politics.

They continue to teach us about love. In this day and age where the news is fraught with stories of increasing divorce rates and you hear of marriages not lasting for more than five years, Grandpa and Grandma have managed to do ten times better, they have been married for 50 years. Not only that, they have been through a war, raised three daughters and four rowdy raucous grandchildren and are still raising another four more! Such a feat would not be possible without love. It mustn’t have been easy either, mixed marriages were frowned upon in those days, yet you managed to pull through. We can only hope that when our time comes, we will be blessed with such longevity too. Grandma, Grandpa, you truly have followed Christ’s example throughout your lives, and continue to lead us to his light in your example.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the love and care that you gave to us, and for making us who we are today. I pray that you continue to have many years to come and outlive us all!