テイク 5

My grandmother was the strongest person I’ve ever known. She endured several major moves, including one that took her family across the ocean to the US. And she did this all with a lot of grit. While she didn’t have a technical education, she was so full of knowledge. She would lead ancestral rites and traditions. She was very much the key to understanding my cultural heritage.

More than that, she raised me. After my parents divorced, I became an extremely anxious kid. I was afraid of people leaving me and being alone and had extreme insomnia where I would lie awake for hours unable to sleep, afraid, and paralyzed until morning came. The only time I could close my eyes and feel any sort of ease was being around my grandparents. I remember taking some blankets and just sleeping at the floor of her and my grandpa’s bed for years.

I remember one day seeing grandma cry. She said she pitied my siblings and me because we didn’t have someone who would teach us, cook, clean, or support us like she saw with our aunts and their kids. At the bottom of it, I think she didn’t feel like she was enough for us.

And it’s weird but I can’t stop thinking about this memory. And it’s stranger because she’s the strongest person I’ve ever known. She’s someone who personally took a butcher knife and single-handedly chopped down twenty foot tress in the backyard of our house in San Gabriel. She was someone who at the age of eighty moved out and lived on her own, someone whose eyes didn’t work the best anymore, someone who lived through collapsed lungs and still worried for my siblings and me when we had our own share of illnesses and injuries. She was someone who grew her own ten foot tall sugarcane which she cut and forced me to help her sell in front of 99 Ranch Market so that when the cops came I could get her excused from any trouble.

She was someone who didn’t have patience for doing things slowly yet could endure monotonous days alone. She prided herself in her kau yak. I don’t know if anyone ever got her recipe. I told her one year that I wanted to learn. She forced me to buy to at least a hundred dollars worth of ingredients (and other random groceries). Then, she told me to come back early the next morning and she would teach me. I arrive at 8am and you know what happened? She woke up at 2am and cooked it already. She still made sure I was fed but that would come to be one of the last times she would make it.

To her, her family was her world and no matter if she was right or wrong, she defended us against anyone who didn’t have our best interests at heart. She was definitely a fighter -- and sometimes literally! One time, she and grandpa were arguing and eventually things got physical; grandpa wielded a flyswatter and my grandma a broom on opposite sides of the living room. That’s just how it was with her. If you’re stubborn, you got it from our grandma. She held firm to her beliefs and damned if you didn’t agree with her.

Yet, she was always someone who really treasured having people around her. And it’s painful to look back at it now because when she was living alone, she was the one asking me to stay the night on her couch because she couldn’t sleep and needed someone there so she would feel ease of mind.

To grandma, family was her world and she flaunted it. She valued being able to show off how wonderful we’ve all grown to be. So to the numerous family members, in-laws, and friends that knew her, I hope you can live to make her memory proud.

Barring some unnecessarily fetish moments, Made in Abyss is nearly a flawless first season of anime. It builds a fantastic world and leads the viewer down the titular abyss -- seemingly validating why so many of the world’s characters find themselves pursuing the daunting feat of traversing to the depths of the hole. 

While I should be focusing on other things, i find my mind racing through all the possibilities of this world and the many themes that are touched upon in just a mere thirteen episodes so far. There’s so much depth (no pun intended) to this series. It starts off with some intriguing characters that have some mystery and secrets to them and evolves into a gripping human story where we see the best and worst of people. Keep in mind, this story revolves around 12 year olds (MERE CHILDREN!), but the things they experience as they move through each layer propels them further into adulthood and the fringes of what people are capable of. 

You can’t help but cheer for them and empathize, and those are the moments that make Made in Abyss a standout piece of work in 2017. It’s something we definitely needed this year, and I’m so glad I watched it.