7/28/08
She passed away on a weekday morning. I woke up hearing my aunts' voices. Not long after the noise, I went down stairs seeing all my sisters back from school. “Something abnormal must happen,” thought I. After a few moments, I was informed that my grandma, my father's mother, who had been living with us, died.
I did not cry. What the hell a preschool age kid would know about death. Everything was chaotic. I remember that people came to our place and set up some sort of memorial service and some Taoists started to read some kind of text monotonicly. That was my first experience about death. I could not remember if my dad cry badly, but for sure my aunts were really sad. I actually remember not much about details of the memorial service. The only thing clearly imprinted on my mind was noises, a lot of noises, including crying.
We were all covered with white linen. In my little brain, I understood nothing, but that grandma would no longer live with us. Accidentally, one night, still during the period of the memorial service, I saw my oldest sister, Anne, crying badly, really badly, in their (my sisters') study room. I approached her and tried to comfort her. Instead, her tears were apparently contagious. In patting her shoulders, her sobs reached my throat, and I started to cry. For the very first time, since my grandma died, I dropped tears. In my defense, I was too little to store many memory about my grandma. My limited comprehension could not distinguish the difference between her existence and absence. For some reason, Anne's crying activated something inside of me. I still cannot figure out what on earth exactly I was crying for at that point. Was I sympathetically sad with Anne? Was I sorry for my dad's loss? Was I upset for any other reason? I still have no answer.
My grandma's name is Chung Chen. Yes, her first name was only one character. The character means “onion” in English. She raised six children on her own. According to what I heard, my grandpa was not close to his kids. My dad did not remember for once his dad holding him. My grandpa was sent to south Pacific ocean during World War II. He was among the last group sent overseas by Japanese government. During that time, Taiwan was still occupied by Japanese. Technically, my parents actually had to some degree Japanese teaching in their elementary school years. As a result, my mom still remembers some Japanese. So is my dad. My uncle, my grandpa's younger brother was among the same group. He was single. He never came back, just like my grandpa. Therefore, through my childhood, I had no impression about my grandpa. I was not sure, for I never had a chance to ask, my grandma if she hated the government or Japanese or any entity. I could imagine though she hated those people to death.
My memory about my grandma was her strictness and oldness. Though she died from cancer (carcinoma of the rectum), I in fact had no memory about her illness. When my parents went to work, my grandma naturally became our babysitters. Sometimes, she would buy the cheapest gum for us when we would not calm down. Since we did not have allowance (I really knew nothing about the term “allowance” before elementary school. Of course, even during our elementary school years, none of us got such thing), we regarded theose gums very precious. At least I thought so. There were three flavors of that type of gum symbolized by three colors: green, yellow, and white. We usually got the green one. Why? Probably just out of habit, and it was pepper mint which was nice. The yellow ones were sweeter, and the white ones were somewhere in between. I could not recall what specifical flavors yellow and white were. These were seemingly unimportant details scattered in the ocean of my memory.
In the fifties and sixties, I imagine it was extremely hard for a single woman, technically a widow, to raise six children on her own. She seemed to be tough. Maybe we all at some level inherited her toughness. Sometimes I wonder, maybe due to that fact, she had to be strong and tough, so my dad became less tough. Why? He loves my grandma. In the eye of a little boy who was less than five years old, he must worship my grandma. In other words, he might submit to her totally. Whatever she said was right, for him. This part of him turned out to be a difficult task for us.
You see, we looked up our father as the sky, the god, the rock, and everything magnificent. The truth, which we only grew to learn several years later, was that he has been just a man, both now and then. We read too many fairy tales and hoped that our dad would become Hector and secure us forever. Cruelly, he made mistakes every now and then. He could not guarantee our safety all the time. There were unpleasant things occurred to any of us once a while that he could not handle it well. We learned to blame no one. He had no role model in his whole life. What kind of father he wanted to be at the first place? There is probably still no answer. One thing we are sure is that he have been trying his best and work his ass off to provide us whatever he can.
From my mother, I learned to know that my grandma was no piece of cake. She was pretty demanding when it came to the relationship between her and her daughter-in-law, my mom. Due to the traditional value, only sons can continue the root of a family, my grandma apparently wanted a grandson, though the result showed that her hope was failed. I always wonder, did she enjoy our company during her life time? I recalled one story told by my second sister, Ruby. Once, my third aunt and her son came visit us. There was a piece of bread in the house. Both my second sister and my cousin wanted. Yet, my grandma's judgment was to sentence my sister's disappointment and handed the bread to my cousin. I believe, all these events had piled up reasons we, six girls, worked hard to prove that we were no worse than boys. Unfortunately, such anger and stubbornness prevented us from realizing and exploring our roles as individuals and the values of such positions.
I could not say that if I knew more about my grandma I would like her more or less. She was definitely a figure. And the fact is that, she is dead now. What is the purpose to make my judgment? More importantly, who am I to judge any one but myself? One thing for sure is that, she was something.
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