Dear Mak Tok and Pak Tok

6 Write a letter to somebody - it could be anybody you want, even someone you haven’t met yet.

Dear Mak Tok and Pak Tok,

To the best grandparents a girl could ask for, thank you for everything you two have done for the whole family.

It is evident that when it comes to us grandkids, you two spoil us to no end and I love that. Ever since I was a small girl, I was just always happy around you two and I still am even if I don't show it as much as I used to.

For all the food and for all the gifts and for all the smiles and for everything, I can't put my gratitude into words. Pak Tok, I still remember the times where we would sit on your lap and you'd take our hands and rub it against your shaven chin and it feels all tingly and geli. And ! When you'd always ALWAYS tickle our foot and you'd say this

"Tell your brain 'Tak geli, tak geli, tak geli' then lama lama dah tak geli". It never worked and we'd all be laughing away, making you smile and laugh as well.

And Mak Tok, only about the best cook I've met and it is true that all grandmothers can cook but mine is basically a pro. I still remember all the bed time stories you'd read us and all the nursery rhymes you would sing with us.

How we'd get treated like kings and queens when we go to Penang. Ahh. Really, I cannot imagine any other grandparents who would do such things and who would treat us to anything and everything our little heart desires. How sitting down with Pak Tok and have conversations with him that go on and on have been nothing but precious to much. I've taken in so much from the advice I've gotten and I plan to use it in the future because besides Mama and Papa, Mak Tok and Pak Tok are my motivation to do well in my studies and to go to England and study there and be a great person in the near future, insya Allah.

I highly respect my grandparents and I've always looked up to them and I've always admired their stories from back then. How my grandmother was exactly just like me with her collection of dresses and her fashion magazines and her love for dressing up is surreal. I've had the immense pleasure in wearing her baju kebaya's now and then and to know that she was just as small as me comforts me in knowing that I'm not the only one so kecik amongst my family members.

I love my grandfather. Ever since we were kids, we would look forward to go to Penang because Pak Tok was there. And my grandpa owns a gas station in Penang and my god, we would beg him to let us follow him to work because we would get to play computer games and go behind the cashier and play with the cash register and we would ambik any keropok and sweets we want and we would "Put it on Pak Tok's bill k!" and he'd pay at the end of the day. He'd always encourage us to try and to never give up. This is so cliché but it's all truth.

My cousins and siblings would go to Penang every year and we would have the house in shambles playing house with the sofa cushions and my grandparents would just look on and laugh and go along with it. Their house is perfect. In every sense of the term. Yet, we'd play around and have the house upside down and they won't mind.

My grandfather has a photo of me as a 3 year old in his arms on his office table and the fact he does not go a day without seeing that photo is just everything to me. Whenever I would go up to his friends and salam, he'd often introduce me as "My number one" because I'm his first grandchild.

He still calls me his number one.

That man is made of all kinds of wonderful.

Being the more kecoh one out of the two, my mak tok is quite.. handful. But oh, what is a family without kecohness. She is this small lady, always in her collared blouse and skirt and curlers in her hair. She is the reason why I bother dressing up before going out. She never has a hair out of place and she's this proper lady with pearls and I see so much of myself in her. Especially the complain-y and whiny part lol. She's, first and foremost, very understanding. She understands me. I'll talk to her and she just gets it. And I can always talk to her about anything. I love her and I don't know what I'd do with her. For everything she has done, I can not thank her enough. My mother is an incredibly lucky woman to have Mak Tok as a mum.

Pak Tok and Mak Tok were probably the one of the main reasons my childhood was just everything I could ask for as a kid.

They didn't have to say it but we knew they loved us and would do anything in the world for the family.
I hope they know that the family loves them endlessly and would do anything in return for them.