Just a few nights ago, another phone call. But this time, the questions were different. What time did it happen? When do we need to be back for the funeral?
As I sat on my favorite spot on the kitchen stairs, the memories came back one by one. My grandmother, the petite, energetic optimist whose entrance into any room made the air molecules shake. The one who was so creative she could put together any craft and paint any form of Chinese art that came into her head. The one whose life prior to the stroke had been filled with such activity, from teaching an elderly women's choir to shopping for random little trinkets to going to museums to attending art exhibits to acting in Chinese plays.
Suddenly I was a small child again. I was digging through my grandmother's shopping bag, pulling out the little pink alarm clock she bought for me. I was sitting on a blanket on the floor of my room with the door shut, and she was teaching me how to tell who was coming up the stairs just by listening to the footfalls. I was talking on the phone with her - meowing on the phone with her, actually, since that was our secret language. I was in her small workroom, holding a brush, painting tulips, watching closely as she taught me how to use the color to demonstrate the depth of a petal, smiling in satisfaction when I finally got it.
My mind jumped ahead. To the last time I saw her, in May of last year. I was visiting her one afternoon, and I was about to head back via public transportation to my other grandma's home. She insisted on seeing me off to the front door, which required the hired caregiver to push her wheelchair into the elevator and out to the entrance ramp. I looked back and waved as I left, but I had to turn quickly into the alley as the tears were starting to stream down my face. I already knew this would be the last time I would see her alive.
Then, my final phone conversation with her, two months ago. She was in very poor health, and her speech was now incoherent. But she insisted on telling me something. Something about how things did not look good. Something about being happy with what was left. And I laid in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, knowing very well that the end was near.
My grandmother. The rebel who despised the oppressive culture that put her down and who constantly fought against being the same as everyone else. She allowed my mother to be left-handed during a time when left-handed children were corrected, stoutly declaring that her daughter would "use her left hand to do everything and be better than any other right-handed person." She was the one who would say most outrageous things to stodgy, aristocratic, stuck-up people, just to see their mouths drop to the floor. It was a game to her. She loved to laugh and try new things and often tired us out because she had so much energy. And she was incredibly photogenic. She would never say she was old, and she hated talking about death. She was not a typical grandmother - and she was like no other person I knew.
To be honest, there will not be any closure for me until I attend her funeral in another month (it is Chinese tradition to wait for several weeks and even months in some cases to hold funeral services). I am sure many more memories will continue to come back to me during this time. Perhaps I can even share more. For now, I am numb. And although I am moving on with life on the outside, in my heart I am still in that alley on a humid May afternoon, tears running down my face as I face the reality that this is goodbye.
The society and culture that kept her from doing anything that she wanted to are now behind her. The illness that bound her physically is now gone. She is finally free, free from the pain, free from the rules.
I hope you like your freedom, Wai-po...
