i said bye bye 婆婆 every night at around 6 pm when mom would pick me up. That hasn’t been said in a while as these past few years would be me waving goodbye from the distance as we left you to your friends and conversation at dinner time.
but i said that to you Friday and i was jolted into how familiar those words felt, hearing me at 7 years old, in the same tone and cadence as i had once left your house with, parents telling me to say bye bye, say bye bye to 婆婆 and i would see you the next day again where you spoon fed me, taught me how to hold chopsticks, showed me the way the your plants grew, rub my sore belly, drew bamboo for me, laughed at my drawings, sang to me, bathed me, tripped over my toys, hog your washroom, phone, TV, radio as I became a teen, and how you laughed when I put on Jerry Springer and how the fat people would fight LOL, and the times i would walk with you around the neighbourhood on your grocery runs
and you were a walking recipe book, and whenever i had a canker sore you made a fish soup that i would fake having just to have another taste
and now at 30 years old, i stood at the doorway saying bye bye 婆婆 once again as i left you in that dark room
you always took my hand and told me i had my mother’s beautiful hands, or lectured me on my nail polish that they sucked blood from your nails and told me how ugly your hands were, where a potato machine once warped your pinky
but grandma oh your hands raised so many lives, and all life loved you, all 5 children, grandchildren, friend’s children, the plants loved you, children loved you, dogs and cats that you fed back in HK, everything you touched thrived
all i remember at the end was all the strong grip you had when i held your hands
I’m sorry i cried in front of you, i really didn’t want to show that i thought this might be it and i think you saw me because you reached in your literal deathbed and held my face and my heart breaks on this memory so much because i felt so ashamed that i could be the one in despair as you lay there dying
but my friend told me that in this moment i helped you forget your pain with my love so i really hope it did, i really do
mom made it sound like your life was miserable, that your father and husband and best friend who abandoned and betrayed you was the bane of your existence and that coming to a country where people would bully and sneer and spit at a non english speaking older immigrant - and i don’t deny this happening
but i don’t think this solely defines you and i hate that my mom defines you again and again that your life was full of suffering
at least when i came along it was moments of peaceful evenings spent next to you playing with my toys and you hummed along knitting or hitting your back like all old asian grannies
you were and always a kind soul, and spoke gently, and your kindness made you powerful not vulnerable or weak. just look at the family you grew, from a working single mother who gave her 5 children 3 meals a day (with courses) and every single one of them thriving with successful grandchildren
my grandmother even as she got into her late 90′s did not forget her manners, saying thank you to all the caretakers and children -- who she felt a massive humiliation to be a burden as she slowly lost the abilities that made her an independent person
i hope someday to find you too, wherever you are now, happily reuniting with those that came before
and i hope to share the undeserved love you gave me to everyone else around so that that they may know you too
