Though my maternal grandmother's story is a recent one, it's still a tale to share.

Back in the early 1950s when my grandmother recently gave birth to my eldest uncle, her mother would always drop by to coo at the baby. My grandfather's "sam ma"(third mother, yes, great grandfather had 5 wives) was living together with my grandmother and the rest of the family and she didn't like having my grandmother's mother around so much. 

So, third greatgrandmother being the feisty woman that she was, scolded my grandma's mother: "Why don't you go and have your own child if you like babies so much?"

Insulted and deprived of her own grandson, my grandma's mother who was a midwife at a hospital in Malacca, adopted a chindian baby who was the product of a rape case. My grandmother was the only child so this chindian baby boy was her adopted sibling. Young enough to be her son.

This boy grew up together with the rest of my uncles and would go to school together with my uncles. Despite the bright future that was promised to him, he dropped out of school at form5.

He was doing drugs.

He has been in and out of rehab ever since and when my grandmother's mother sold off her house, my grandmother decided to give him all the money but by monthly installments. She knew that if she were to give the entire sum, it'd be gone in a matter of months.

He would usually ask for more than the monthly installments and my grandmother's heart would turn soft and give him a couple of hundred ringgit more whenever he comes around.

My grandfather was actually prepared to pay for him to further his education, but just because of drugs, he has been shunned from the family and at the age of nearly 50, he is still renting a room somewhere in Malacca. Why, I've never even seen him before in my entire life.

Apparently he has curbed his habit and is now selling ice-cream outside the Stadhuys building in Malacca. Well, good for him. But as they say, old habits die hard. Pity.