I was halfway through my New Year Text Messages (which are A Thing if a good number of your friends are overseas) when my mum shouted.

“Hong Kong Yeye is dead!”

The entire car burst into chatter and tears. My brother, normally the type that refuses to deviate from a plan, especially one that involves McDonalds, immediately insists that we head to wherever Yeye is; my dad instructs my mum to call and check if the message was accurate; and my grandmother looks like she aged ten years.

We rush over to the hospital where we discover that, no, mum didn’t misread the message and yes, Yeye is gone. It’s a huge shock, made worse by the fact that we just had dinner with him and Hong Kong Mama a few hours ago and him lying on the hospital bed just seems like an improbability.

The last few days have been a whirlwind of grief and as you can expect, I haven’t had the motivation to come to this blog and choose what to post. Grief robbed me of the will to do anything and it messed up my ability to do even the most basic things such as communicate – I have said “blink once for twice and yes for no”, a mixup that I normally would never do. I have opened and closed my computer so many times, eager to do something to take my mind off reality but unable to convince myself to move.

One unexpected challenge in this time would be grieving in the age of social media. In the early hours, I yearned to get support but held myself back because I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s new year, didn’t want to appear like a grief vulture, and most importantly, didn’t want any family or friend to find out before we were ready to spread the word. I don’t think there’s any right way to break the news, but I ended up keeping the news from 90% of my friends (and somehow managing to reply their New Year Messages without going ‘my Yeye’s dead’) and slowly letting groups of people know. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in the past few months.

Though these few days have been hard, I’ve also experienced small mercies that I’ve been grateful for. They are:

• Friends – Those who found out were endlessly supportive, even coming down to sit with me at the wake. Thank you for your presence.
• Church – My Mama is a Christian but my Yeye wasn’t, which means that technically, the Church doesn’t need to do anything. But our pastors went above and beyond to give my Mama all the emotional and spiritual support she needs and I could see how much comfort they brought her. It’s easy for me to get cynical about the Church, even my own, and this was a grateful reminder of the very tangible ways we can show Christ-love to one another
• Tea – I had to stay up till 5 am to watch over Yeye. If it weren’t for the endless bottles of cold brew tea that I made, I probably wouldn’t have made it.
• Books – Like I mentioned, I didn’t have the motivation to do anything. But one thing I could do was read: I reread favourites like Silence, Soul Survivor, and Bird by Bird. They aren’t related to grief, but they still bring comfort.

Today, I am back at work and back to ‘normal life’. But though the scars of grief will take time to fade, I know that I will hold these small mercies close to my heart.