the threads in her head

\starts monologue
rosy rosy, a rosy glow!

=) hello! *waves hand*

the simple language of actions and smiles. *smiles. nods. waves hand*

I like you =)

There's no need to care about accuracy here. Whether I captured it right. Whether you can see it in your mind's eye. Not really. This one's for me. The sun's streaming in, it's so bright and cheery, your curtains are flung back, and light fills the room! I think sunlight is perfectly lovely.

I'm starting to fall in love with the colour yellow. Not that I never liked it before. But just more than ever.

I don't understand Hokkien. But it's ok. We'll communicate using smiles and actions. Love and joy. Colours and sound. Chinese =)

yes, I'll sing karaoke with you if you want to too.
/ends monologue

That look in her eyes captured me. Like those of a child. So trusting. She looks on and listens, as the adult gently tells her, and advice her. I can't help but gaze on. This woman, this woman who must have seen much of life to live to such an age, where her hair is pure white, how is it that there seems to be still such a.. vulnerability. Yet the general frailness was still.. lightened up, with the magical spark of something. I don't know what it is, but it felt like.. life. Life.

Her gaze flickers from me, back to the adult, as she lies so gently on the bed. She nods, quietly. The adult urges her, "it's not always good to lie down. see, she fell, and you fell too, but she's up and around. you can too! you be guai lar, join in. you be guai then we will bring you out".

I just look on. Her gaze flickers back to me and I do what instinct asks me to: smile. I smile and nod, I listen to the conversation, I add in, I join in. What else could I do? Keep silent? When the atmosphere is so open, where there's life, and the sunlight streaming in through the window only brightens me up? I don't think so.

Yet I can't help, I can't help but compare it with the nursing home when my kim-po stays at. And I'm left amazed. This place is so cheery and bright, full of light and well.. warmth. A kind of laid-back home setting. I can feel festivals and celebrations going on here. I can imagine people carrying lanterns, and it does not matter whether they're in wheelchairs, cuz in the dim light all one can see is the bright warm glow of lanterns, the twinkling friendly flames chuckling happily among themselves. How sweet, how lovely.

Compared to the.. the other nursing home. I remember asking my dad why she had to stay there... and my dad's answer had left me with a kind of muted horror. I remember stepping in into the old builing with my family on Chinese New Year, cracked tiles, isolated desks, old steps. The colours of grey and dirty white being the predominant colours. No sign of green, the colour of life. Or yellow, or pink, or blue, or even a reassuring solid brown.

I remember it being dark. The general sense of distaste of nursing homes. Dim corners. I remember being hushed, and us standing silently at one corner. Hearing a language my brain could not translate. Oh, what a great relief it was to see my cousins! The friendly, inquisitive, light-hearted chatter of my cousins with kim-po, and though I still didn't understand the dialect, it was so bright, so lovely. I smiled, I rested my hand on my cousin's shoulder and jumped up, pushing myself higher by his shoulders. Perhaps in the end it's just the atmosphere. But how.. no, why, why is there such a difference in two nursing homes?

We continue talking, and finally she says, "xie xie". Almost hesistant, but earnest. She looks at the adult, and then looks at me. In the eye, sincerely. Unflinchingly. There seemed to be only one thing left for me to do.

I gave her a smile.