My grandmother hated cooking. But every day, without fail, for over a decade, I’d come home from school to find my favorite foods waiting hot on the table: steamed egg and cornbread. It was a weird, wonderful duet that she painstakingly made fresh each afternoon, just because she knew I loved them.
My parents worked long hours, often logging ten hour workdays, so I didn’t grow up spending very much time with them. The neighborhood I grew up in was also predominantly Hispanic and Latinx, and until I was 12, I hadn’t had another Asian person in my class. As a result, my grandmother was the most important connection to a Chinese heritage that, truth be told, I wasn’t always comfortable with. Children are desperate to fit in, and growing up as the only Asian person in the entire school didn’t help much. And yet, spending time with relatives in China or even those who lived in the states didn’t feel very different; in fact, it might have been worse. I was the American-born child - the one who spoke English better than Chinese and couldn’t read the subtitles on the shows my cousins liked to watch, the one who could never really manage a sentence without throwing in the occasional English word. And yet, for all that, my grandmother was still proud of me for the small things, like remembering chopstick etiquette or reading another chapter for school.
She taught me to speak Chinese, to use chopsticks in the proper way, to find laughter wherever I could, and how to take care of myself in the far-off future when I’d be an adult. She made sure that my grades were up to par, and that I was making friends with all the other kids in the neighborhood. She told me stories of her childhood growing up in rural China, stories of when she was a librarian, stories of when my mother was a child, stories of when my parents met, stories of when my sister was born, and stories of the grandfather I had been born too late to meet. And she made sure that I told her stories of my school day, stories of the new friends I made, about the new American foods I had as a kid, and all the recipes I had found online for us to make together.
There were two entire worlds that I couldn’t belong to, but she encouraged me to live in the tiny, tiny intersection of these two cultures.
She passed on April 3rd, 2020, only nine days before her 78th birthday. I’d like to be able to say something nice - she passed peacefully in her sleep or without pain, but that wouldn’t be true; heart attacks are ugly and sudden and cruel.
Most of us are familiar with the flashing red, blue lights and loud wail of a siren as emergency services zip past on the road. But it’s the moment when the distant sirens grow louder and louder, and the flashing lights turn the corner, and everything stops because all of a sudden they’re there in front of you parked in the driveway, and EMTs come rushing into the house with their heavy boots on the wood and the stretcher brought into the living room and there’s nothing you can do in all the chaos, that I guarantee none of us would like to be familiar with.
And when they leave, and the house is just empty, what happens?
There was a fresh batch of cornbread on the dining table that she’d made that morning, and it was the best cornbread I’ve ever had and will ever have. I’m sure of it.
The following few days weren’t on the calendar - it was a blurry time consisting of sleeping, waking, and crying in no particular order. I knew she would have laughed at me, saying “Sit up and stop crying - you look ugly with swollen eyes.”
Before I knew it, it was May and the funeral had rolled around. Because of the pandemic, only five people were allowed in the hall. My parents, me, and two of my grandmother’s nieces came to say goodbye.
I remember walking up to the funeral coffin and feeling awkward, unsure. I didn’t know what to say, or what to think.
“Hi grandma,” I whispered. A huge silence filled the space between me and the casket. It was deafening, it was blinding, it was too much and too little at the same time.
“I hope you’re doing okay. I haven’t cried today yet.” Another pause. A thundering, stifling silence.
“I think I’m eating again now too. Please don’t worry about me.”
“I’ll take care of the garden for you, and I’ll look after that apricot tree you were worried about. School is hard, but I think I’m doing alright.” I stopped again, still unsure and shaky.
And suddenly, I was so sick of that overwhelming silence, interrupting my conversation and threatening my last words with the woman who raised me; words and speech and ideas bubbled up and spilled over and out in retaliation. “Thank you. Thank you for telling me to sleep earlier and teaching me to cook and teaching me to take care of plants. I don’t sleep any earlier now and I haven’t cooked in a while but thank you for teaching me. Thank you for scolding me when I didn’t hold chopsticks right and for teaching me to bake cornbread and how to make steamed egg, and for teaching me that health comes first. And thank you for teaching me to be able to laugh despite anything and how to take care of myself and I’ll do my best in school and I don’t know what I’ll do after but I’ll do my best there too and...”
I don’t remember all of what I told her, but that silence had disappeared. I whispered in that nearly empty hall all that I needed to, all those rampaging thoughts that had been in my head, weighing on my shoulders, and sitting on my chest.
Sometimes, when I go back home and I see the empty dining table, I think about that odd pairing of Chinese steamed egg and American cornbread that’s become so familiar; they’ve become foods that remind me of home. More importantly, they remind me of my grandmother and the many lessons she’s taught me - how to thank someone for pouring tea at a restaurant by tapping my fingers, or how you should always find time in your week to read a book. But most importantly, I’m reminded that I don’t have to feel pressured to fit in the mold of a Chinese identity or an American identity. It’s perfectly okay to be a little bit of both, to exist in that indeterminate in-between, to stake a claim in that liminal space. Yes, sometimes it does feel like
balancing on a tightrope, where the wind blows you left and right and left again, and you’re a dizzying height up off of the ground; but it’s also an amazing chance to take in the sights and realize that the views on either side make a wholly beautiful experience.
She’s not here anymore, but I’m glad she left so much with me.
Description
a very brief reflection on remembering my grandmother and the lessons she taught me