Father, a widowed man

Photo courtesy Xiao Feng Huang

The leaf are food for silkworms.桑叶，fruit is called 桑椹。

He told Mother, "So you know, you should never leave before me - otherwise I would be so hopeless." 

When I went traveling, he would prepare his own meals.

One Saturday evening, he had cooked up this BBQ for the kids. That night, he had a giddy headache. He called out, Ah Jian was so scared and he called me up. He said Grandfather John said he was going to fall.

By the time, I reached his room, he was sitting up on the bed, wailing to Mother, "Why did you leave me?" repeatedly.

 That must have scared the hell out of the kids. I was also numb. I did not know what to do. We could act upon his instruction - getting water and panadol.

 He cried more, "You would know what to do, Wah Kiew".

 After the effect of the panadol, he slept. In the morning, he asked Ah Jian and me to go the mulberry plot to get the shoots and leaves. I did not know where it was but Ah Jian knew because Father had brought Ah Jian there in one of his walks to give him a lesson of silk-making. So we ran to get them and boiled for his soup.

 Father drank and later explained that mulberry shoots were to "remove the heat". Then we went to the telephone booth to call Sis Rose. Chai and Sis Rose came. She prepared herbs and forced Father to drink the squeezed juice. It worked instantly. So Rose later scolded the kids for making Grandfather John sick because they were so greedy for wanting to eat BBQ.