My Gramma is Dying
2007 has proved to already be a year of big changes and events for me. I’ve ended my job at SAP, I’m moving back to LA, my girlfriend has won a beauty pageant, and…my gramma is dying.
It’s tough to write about a someone whom you look up to and love…to watch her slowly weaken and lose semblance of the person you once knew…except for the very core, small things that you notice about her. For the most part, my gramma’s failing health condition has been a surprise to no one. She’s 90 years old, and has lived longer than most of her peers. 90 years old (born in 1917!)…that’s surprising for a woman who spent most of her life – growing up, raising a family, working – all in a third world country. Vietnam. You have to admire her; most of the family recognizes my gramma as a sort of matriarch. She has bound the extended family together, especially after my grandfather passed away, and now that she may be passing soon we’re unsure of who will be able to knit the family ties together.
But watching my gramma go has actually showed me some really important lessons that I couldn’t have learned anywhere else. They’re the lessons of humanity, kinship, honesty, and simplicity – it’s really surreal to think that people even need to learn about these themes. One would think that people would be born with innate understanding of these core virtues. But to tell you the truth, it’s really interesting to watch the events – especially people’s reactions – that surround a predictable death. Some long-lost relatives arrive at the death bed with concerted plans to win more inheritance. Some just sit and watch. Some pray…and pray like it’s the end of the world. Some people investigate my gramma’s health condition, talk to all the doctors and nurses, gather all her health figures…and then finally decide that the end is near (or the alternative that the end is a long ways a way). Some bring very thoughtful gifts to fulfill my gramma’s immediate necessities: a spoonful of water, little bits of “chao” (rice congee), or some other easy-to-eat favorite of my gramma’s.
But in the end, one of my biggest realizations is that my gramma was profoundly simple, and watching her own wants at this end-period of her life is a big-enough lesson for me. At this point, my gramma didn’t care about the complex things – the outlook on world politics, the latest trends in ethanol-driven cars, Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitism, or the latest sale or Macy’s. What she really wanted was to to just be around the people she loved. She had enough of the hospice, and the nursing home. She wanted to go home, adjust that shelf of books and VHS tapes of hers, and walk around the house doing things. When I arrived at the hospice these last few times, my gramma actually opened her eyes to look at me. Her eyes followed me around as I moved around the bed or as I got up to take a quick walk outside.
Some close relatives say that gramma really “remembers” me. In English this direct translation doesn’t really mean the same thing – in Vietnamese it’s that “Ba ngoai nho con”…meaning that my gramma wants to see me and stuff. I can’t say whether I get this special treatment because I was my gramma’s self-raised grandchild (my gramma didn’t really take care of any other grand-babies, maybe with my twin cousins are an exception), but I sorta felt it in the hospice when my gramma’s eyes followed me around. In these last final days visiting my gramma, old relatives and family friends, whom I don’t even recognize now, would come up to me and ask “aren’t you the special grandchild that ol’ gramma would take care of?”. Asked that question many-a-time, and I guess I’m pretty convinced that my gramma had some kinda pedestal that she put me on….OK, OK. I KNOW that she had some kind of pedestal that she put me on – for god sakes she has a naked-baby picture of me on the cover of one of her old photo-albums. Jeez. Haha. At this point I suppose I can only laugh…
But anyway, now I can safely say – Gramma, your naked little baby has finally grown into a man. I’m mature now, educated, and pretty much everything you wanted me to be…(except maybe a doctor = \). You lived long, raised a large family, and they’re good now. Thank you for taking care of me when I was a baby, I really thank you for that. If you need to go…just go, you don’t need to wait for us any longer. I love you -
My gramma passed away on Sunday, Feb 4, 2007…and those were actually the last words that I said to my gramma. Since then, her funeral has come and gone, and I got my chance to see all the relatives…probably for the last time all in the same place. Now, it feels like my family is on a hunt to re-gather and document the family history and the stories from last remaining seniors. But in my mind…what I remember most about my gramma are probably the most silly childhood memories but they’re most tender – the nasty summers at her house, the awesome daily diet of steaks and ice cream that she fed us, taking the blame for my brother’s breaking gramma’s sacred teapot, pulling on my gramma’s hair when I was a lil’ kid, shaking her awake at midnight for some late night milk…all good memories. I can’t recall one bad memory about my gramma. And I guess that’s the strength with which she will leave us with. It’s like she never left. It’s those moments which make up the mnemonic glue…the stuff that binds our insides together, those moments that we can never forget and never give away. But we’re free to make new ones. And I suppose that’s one of the lessons that my gramma taught me…