Grandmother

I always wanted to write something about my grandmother, but always started with one paragraph, and then ran out of things to say, which is an indication that we were not close. That is true, and for many years I tried to avoid her as much as I could. Maybe in my mind I think I’m supposed to hate her.

But Frankly speaking, life must have been hard for her in her generation. My grandfather was one of those Taiwanese who fought for Japan in World War II, and died in Manila, leaving her and two sons behind. She must have left somehow, so my dad and uncle had to be with their grandmom. It was probably the worst time of my dad’s life, having to rely on the grandmom and work for the uncles just for shelter and food. She remarried and had another 2 daughters. I guess her second husband also died, and she then re-married another man, who fled from China with Chiang Kai-shek, who is the grandpa that I know.

The first impression of her was the dark grocery store that she and the grandpa owned. It was on Tung-feng Road. We used to walk over. I was still little when the railroad system went under a major upgrade with electricity. There were lots of high voltage poles set up along the street, buzzing when we walked by. My mother warned me not to touch those poles. If I did, the pole would set me on fire, and I would never see her again. That did the trick, and I have always been so scare of them.

There are 2 floors in that store. They used the first floor as the store. The only memory of me going upstairs was when I was 8. That is vivid memory. I was in my summer vacation, ready to become a third grader in that upcoming September. My first aunt (grandmom first daughter) was getting married. I was sitting on the second floor watching her get ready. Second aunt came over and asked me how I was doing. She taught in the same school I went to, and told me she would teach fourth grader, and I was so happy that she would not have a chance to teach me. Not sure why, but that was exactly how I felt. At grandmom’s funeral, I saw first aunt’s kids. They are already grown-ups, and I did not even know their names. They are relatives from my dad’s family. Are we not supposed to be close relatives?

Second memory was always the jars of candies. I was so attracted to the red big candies, but never asked for any unless she would volunteer to treat me one or two. Then at some point, not sure when already, grandmom moved in with us, with those jars of candies. She gave us all, and I still remember the joy the candies brought me. But then because she owned a room, all of us 3 kids had to cram in that little room together, with beds, desks, and all that. It must have been hard for my sister, who was already a teenager. I was still too little to feel anything bad.

Kids really do not know too much about the conflicts among adults. Few years later, she moved out, and stayed with aunts, and then she moved out to live along. I do now know who took care of her. Dad visited her once in a while, and for all those 10+ years, or even 20 years, I visited her once twice or three times.

So she passed away one year ago. I went back for the funeral. My uncle’s family were there too. And it was amazing to realize that I had not met some of the cousins for 20+ years. My impression of the little one was always the little girl, who liked to add salt in the soda to see to bubbles come up, and ended up adding too much salt for the fun of it. She was probably 5, but she is now an office lady. Are we not supposed to be close?

We read something from the Buddha. I guess that was meant to be something good for the dead, and we are willing to believe so, just to make ourselves feel better because we are doing it. Her body was cremated, and with my brother’s absence, I had to presume to be the oldest grandson to push to button for the cremation, and pick up the ashes. In fact, for all those years I’ve lived on the planet, this was the first time when I was so close to death.

No pain though. I just started to realize I am getting older, and the older generation will leave. This morning when I was getting ready to go to work, I noticed a lot of grey hair. It seemed to take forever to grow from kids to 18. Oh those difficult years. But from 18 to 37, it seemed to be just a snap.