For a good portion of my life my grandmother raised me.
I think a lot of Asian kids go through having their grandparents being their surrogate parent while their mother and father were away at work. Both my parent's worked 70 plus hours a week at the family business so me, my brother, and my cousin were left in her care.
For a huge part of my adolescence she baby sat, beat, disciplined, cooked, cleaned, cared, and bought me anything I wanted. She did everything for us like any Grandparent would for their grandchildren. Sadly enough, though she was the center of our world growing up, as we got older she became less and less of a priority in our lives. To be honest, for me, I don't know if I even thought twice about her after my teen years because I was too busy trying to grow up and get away from everyone as soon as possible.
Fast forward to the age of 18, I learned something very important.
I remember the very last time I got to see my grandmother the exact way I remembered her. During my Thanksgiving break from the first year of college, my parent's told me and my brother to go visit our grandparent's. When we got there, we walked in, gave hugs, they offered us food, I denied it and listened to them telling me how big I've gotten despite not growing a single inch in years. As we continued to talk, after the typical greetings, they took us both to their room so we could chat some more.
Like most Asian grandmothers, she started telling me about the old days and what she expected out of me as her grandchild. As she was telling me all these things, she reached over and grabbed my hand and held it in a peculiar way. I don't know why, but however many times she held my hands, this time, it felt different. There was a familiar warmth to it, but there was something somber about the way it was placed on the back of my hand that I still remember till this day. But of course as a teen and a freshman in college, I brushed it off, nodded to her babbling, and let her continue to talk waiting for her to stop so I could go home. You see, it was thanksgiving break, and all I could think about was going home to see my girlfriend. I left that day in a hurry, and returned back to my college life soon after.
When I came back in December for Christmas break, my father told me that we should all visit my grandmother again but to expect that she wasn't going to be the same. He told me that she had been losing her memory slowly and that physically her condition was deteriorating. Not fully being able to comprehend what he was saying, we went to go visit her and I expected the typical greeting, hugs, kisses, and offering of food.
When I stepped into her apartment the first thing my dad did was greet her like any son would, but the way he spoke to her was odd. He spoke to her as if she was a child asking:
"Mom do you know who I am? Do you know who these two kids are?"
My father then pointed at me and my brother. I looked at her smiling waiting for her affirmation. She looked turned to my father with a smile and said:
"I don't know? Who is he?"
My heart. Shattered. Into. A. Million. Pieces.
I almost thought it was a joke. I went over to her and told her my name a few times telling her it was me her grandchild. She smiled and said the same thing:
"Who is he?"
At that very moment, my heart sank into the middle of my stomach and I wanted to die. I could not comprehend what the hell was going on at first but soon I realized what my father was saying. Though physically she was here, mentally she was gone and she would not be the same person. Figuratively, my grandmother had passed.
When we inevitably had to put her in a nursing home, the first two years were so difficult, I bawled my eyes out every time I went to see her.
I'd reach out, touch her hand, say her name, and nothing.
While my parent's were at work I would take my grandfather to see her where she was hooked up to a machine, and every time he would see her he would say:
"I think she's getting better. She looks good."
He would ask her if she could get up out of bed, ask her if she ate, when she would be coming home, and I had to sit there every time and watch him try to wake her up.
I wanted to die. I could not stop crying.
One of the nurses told me during the first few months she was there, they would hear her crying at night calling for her family because her memory would come back for moments at a time. To think that my grandmother would wake up in her few moments of consciousness scared to death, frightened, wondering where she was killed me inside.
I could not stop crying.
After a few years I learned to accept the situation she was in and came to cope with the fact that though she was here physically, she had passed. I had to learn to accept her situation and pray that she would pass soon peacefully.
Towards the last couple years of her life she was in horrible shape. She was not present, and was being fed through a tube through her stomach while hooked up to a respirator. I visited her at least twice a week and was hoping she would pass soon so she wouldn't have to suffer anymore.
When she finally passed, I took a few days after her funeral to reflect back on something I had not thought about in years. I stopped and reflected on that feeling I had when she reached out and held my hand the day before I left a few years back. I looked back to that feeling I chose to ignore because I was so caught up in the present I could not see passed my own two feet. I realized the reason her touch and her words felt so different that day was because she was trying to tell me something.
She was trying to tell me that she was going to pass away.
My grandmother reached out to me and was telling me everything she wanted to say because she knew she wasn't going to be here anymore. That day she reached out to me I denied her and left thinking she would still be here.
To be honest, other than the usual talk, I can't remember a FUCKEN thing she said that day. My priorities were fucked up and I assumed she was just saying the same crap I heard a million times before so I CHOSE to ignore her. I remember sitting in my room for days ripping out my hair trying to remember what she said to me that day but EVERY TIME I tried, I drew a blank. I could not remember.
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