To be honest, growing up I never thought of my dad’s mother as a sweet old grandma… because she wasn’t. She was strict, frugal, and young—only sixteen years old when she had my dad—and later on she wore pink Chanel glasses.
During summer holidays, while all the white kids went to camp or cottages, my family and I would journey the 24 hours of flying from Pearson to O’Hare, O’Hare to Narita, Narita to Kai Tak. It was our yearly pilgrimage to the motherland to see our extended family. And I guess it was worth it for my mom to wrangle her three kids—alone—across oceans because as soon as we’d arrive we’d get dumped at grandma’s for two months (and once, I stayed for nine).
Grandma’s flat was enormous. I didn’t know it at the time, but my grandparents lived in a mansion on the mountainside. Back when I was like, eight, the steep hills were the worst. It was always hot and sticky because Grandma never turned on AC except for at night to sleep. We’d have to climb dozens of flights of stone-lined stairs just to get to the closest convenience store (sidenote: I distinctly remember that the Park N Shop only sold milk in tins or boxes. Grandma hated dairy anyway. She loathed cheese). The only fun about living on a big hill was taking the bus (again, no AC, but not because buses didn’t have AC, but because grandma preferred the AC-less buses because they were cheaper). My cousins and I would sit at the very front seats on the upper deck of a double-decker bus, roll open the sliding windows, and hold on for our lives as the psychotic bus driver would speed downhill, blasting hot, steamy Hong Kong air against our faces. It would be hard to breathe.
Grandma’s place was always spotless (thanks in part to the maid, Marjorie, whom my grandma called a broken version of “margarine” for years), despite it being crammed with people: me, my sister, my two cousins and sometimes a third or fourth, my suk suk and sum sum, and my grandparents. All the kids slept on the hard wood floor. I slept at the foot of my grandparents’ bed. Grandpa snored horrendously. Grandma put up with a lot. She was born during the great depression. She’d fled the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. She and her older sister were orphaned before they were in their teens. She’d had four kids by the time she was in her early twenties with my grandfather, with whom her marriage was arranged. I had never had long talks with my grandma. Being frigid Asians, we were never really that close. But I always liked that she was tenacious as fuck and I was proud of her. She never complained about hardships. Even when she broke her hip during a fall three months before my wedding, she was back on her feet again and made it all the way to Toronto to see me and Dave get married. She was even in good spirits when we went to visit her last Christmas after the doctor diagnosed her with inoperable cancer in October. My grandma was a tough old lady, and she even had a hell of a grip on me when I tried to pay for dim sum one of the last days we were there.
Which is why I was a little surprised when my mom told me grandma had passed away last Friday. We knew it was coming: the cancer had spread months ago. The original prognosis had been two months but she was still around almost a year later. Then she got admitted to the hospital last week and was there for several days and the doctors said there was nothing left to do, but still part of me was hoping she’d get better. I told her we’d come visit again soon but we didn’t make it back in time. I’m glad we got to see her and say goodbye, but it’s still difficult. She was my last grandparent alive, and I miss them all.
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