what the Grand Old Man had said...

... i get to know after 18+ years...

The man in question is my paternal grandpa who was a doctor, had nine children through his two wives (my father being the eldest of his children and I am his first born)... this man was the only man whom i have seen my father love and love unconditionally. he was the man whom my father told everything; even things my Mom did not know, this man knew... so when my wedding with B was fixed, my Dad told B, "I have one request to make and that is, you will need to meet my parents."

i had never heard my Dad refer to his step-mother so. He always called her endearingly, "Ma-go" (which literally means nothing, but means 'My Mom', and meant a lot to LM, my step-grandmother).

now, i was not particularly fond of Dr M because he was extremely patriarchal, a quality i detest and detested from birth. another reason i did not quite like was the fact that despite having three sons (my father and his two younger brothers), he remarried when my grandmother, SM, died of child-birth of placenta previa, something i had after R was born and i had never seen two men, B and Dad, as worried...

al these are not the point of this post, but what the Grand Old Man told B when he went meeting them is. and how did i get to know this and when is what this post is about...

i was cooking a while back... and B comes to the kitchen and says, "Minus SM -- your grandmother's -- attitude, you are quite a good wife." This is not B, i thought... Has chicken pox infected his brain?

I turned back at him and asked, a little stunned, "Have you met SM?" He was in no mood to answer but i would not buy his silence. after much cajoling, he said, "your grandfather had told me when i met him before our wedding, 'You are marrying someone who is the apple of my eye. My eldest grandchild, she is a lady of strong likes and dislikes, very much like her Grandmother, my first wife, the lady who shared my life for six short years, sired three sons but who taught me what value honesty holds in life. She was a lady of attitude and this lady you are marrying, has inherited this trait in full measure. Take good care of her...'"

i was stunned since in 18+ years, B has never told me what went on behind the closed door meeting that he had with Dr M...

many thought have passed my mind since then...

1. have i correctly juged my own Grandfather? or was i harsh on him in my mind?

2. does B know SM better than i do? I had never heard anything about her from Dad who never mentioned her. whenever he talked, he talked about his Ma-go, never about his Ma... though the three brothers were wholly reared by my Dad's maternal grandparents, SM's parents. and the closest i got to seeing her was in the lone photo of hers in Dr M's bedroom, a photo which still hangs there in loneliness...

3. what more did Dr M tell B? I did not want to ask any more questions... my heart was already heavy with what i heard...

4. why did B keep this to himself? had he promised so?

one comment... but so very heavy...