my grandmother
There are grandmothers who come to visit, carrying heavy purses filled with candies twisted in crinkly plastic wrappers. These are the grandmothers who admire the painting you made with your fingers. They give you folded $5 bills and bake cookies for you and tell you how smart you are. Smarter than them. They gather you into their arms because they love you. They tell you this. It bubbles forth. They can't contain it.
This was not my grandmother. Love was a luxury my grandmother could not afford. In times of war and the change it wreaks upon those who suffer through it, my grandparents trekked back and forth between Hong Kong and China, trying to survive with an ever growing family tailing behind them. In an era when women did not know how to read and write, my grandmother knew and she used this to her advantage in protecting her husband and their children, working as something of a registrar for a village "mayor." Having no farmland, my grandfather left her, my aunt and my father to make a living in a city far away. She raised the children and cared for her father-in-law while concocting plans to reunite with her husband. It is doubtful she did this out of love. The chances of overcoming one hazardous situation after the next would be increased if they worked as a unit. To her, love was a practical mixture of obligation, duty and survival. She did not choose to be born or married off. So, to give her life a purpose she would have to choose to endure it.
The stories my family members retold of this period were always distant recollections of seemingly unfathomable circumstances. Running along dirt roads with a small satchel of rice from which to grab small handfuls but only when you could no longer stand the hunger. Sleeping on dirt floors in makeshift hovels with four people to a bed. With bare hands, dragging the bodies of people killed by the Japanese into communal graves. These were the tales told to me, the only grandchild out of seven who took interest. I am the only grandchild who has returned to their homeland as an adult. I have seen the countryside that was once a battleground. I may be the only one who is moved by her death.
I remember the roughness of her hands. Small and effective. Her fingernails, yellow and thick, were always a tidy length. Her fingertips scraped my arm when she held onto it, usually to make a point about studying hard and being responsible to my parents and sisters. The callouses seemed to insist that she was to be believed. I would appease her in Cantonese with the assurance that I would be an industrious student and a kind daughter. It was the way the grandchildren showed her we loved her. We would repeat our vows, quietly in the beginning when she would lure us into the guest room during humid summer visits and then loudly after years of my grandfather's snoring eroded her hearing. Her hands would give us one last squeeze and pat. The soft, loose flesh of her upper arms would wiggle. We would smile.
They each loved her in their own way; her husband, her children, her grandchildren. Her husband never took a mistress as was tolerated by her generation. Her children never truly disobeyed. Her grandchildren never disrespected her. And she in turn, loved each of us in her unique style that almost seemed unloving. It was coarse and factual. It was advice and admonishments. This was her way. Her mind would never allow her heart to shake off the horrors she had witnessed or the rage she developed in order to persevere. The ability to disregard the trivial would become her strength. The inability to let her guard down would enclose her in the past and alienate her from her family. Because of this, we are able to soldier through bad news via long distance telephone calls, make clear-headed funeral arrangements, purchase airfare online, email our friends about the unexpected and fortuitous chance to meet for an overpriced dinner. We are practical now. Detached. As she was.
This was not my grandmother. Love was a luxury my grandmother could not afford. In times of war and the change it wreaks upon those who suffer through it, my grandparents trekked back and forth between Hong Kong and China, trying to survive with an ever growing family tailing behind them. In an era when women did not know how to read and write, my grandmother knew and she used this to her advantage in protecting her husband and their children, working as something of a registrar for a village "mayor." Having no farmland, my grandfather left her, my aunt and my father to make a living in a city far away. She raised the children and cared for her father-in-law while concocting plans to reunite with her husband. It is doubtful she did this out of love. The chances of overcoming one hazardous situation after the next would be increased if they worked as a unit. To her, love was a practical mixture of obligation, duty and survival. She did not choose to be born or married off. So, to give her life a purpose she would have to choose to endure it.
The stories my family members retold of this period were always distant recollections of seemingly unfathomable circumstances. Running along dirt roads with a small satchel of rice from which to grab small handfuls but only when you could no longer stand the hunger. Sleeping on dirt floors in makeshift hovels with four people to a bed. With bare hands, dragging the bodies of people killed by the Japanese into communal graves. These were the tales told to me, the only grandchild out of seven who took interest. I am the only grandchild who has returned to their homeland as an adult. I have seen the countryside that was once a battleground. I may be the only one who is moved by her death.
I remember the roughness of her hands. Small and effective. Her fingernails, yellow and thick, were always a tidy length. Her fingertips scraped my arm when she held onto it, usually to make a point about studying hard and being responsible to my parents and sisters. The callouses seemed to insist that she was to be believed. I would appease her in Cantonese with the assurance that I would be an industrious student and a kind daughter. It was the way the grandchildren showed her we loved her. We would repeat our vows, quietly in the beginning when she would lure us into the guest room during humid summer visits and then loudly after years of my grandfather's snoring eroded her hearing. Her hands would give us one last squeeze and pat. The soft, loose flesh of her upper arms would wiggle. We would smile.
They each loved her in their own way; her husband, her children, her grandchildren. Her husband never took a mistress as was tolerated by her generation. Her children never truly disobeyed. Her grandchildren never disrespected her. And she in turn, loved each of us in her unique style that almost seemed unloving. It was coarse and factual. It was advice and admonishments. This was her way. Her mind would never allow her heart to shake off the horrors she had witnessed or the rage she developed in order to persevere. The ability to disregard the trivial would become her strength. The inability to let her guard down would enclose her in the past and alienate her from her family. Because of this, we are able to soldier through bad news via long distance telephone calls, make clear-headed funeral arrangements, purchase airfare online, email our friends about the unexpected and fortuitous chance to meet for an overpriced dinner. We are practical now. Detached. As she was.
posted by Katie at 10:42 PM
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