In memoriam

I spent the last 30 minutes or so skimming through my Tumblr archive from 2011-2012 trying to find a post I know I wrote about my paternal grandparents’ love story, but I couldn’t find it. I probably moved it to another blog at some point and deleted it here. Along the way though I found all these other memories from my early 20s, such as my coming out/confession letter to a best friend from high school, many reblogs of sappy quotes/graphics/book snippets/lyrics, reblogs of photos of places I wanted to visit (many of which I’ve now been to), songs I liked, tech news from the era (like the death of Steve Jobs), political news from the era (like marriage equality, and Barack Obama’s reelection), many reblogs about Glee, my own photos from my early days of living in San Francisco (and interning at Twitter)… All of which is to say, it captured this whole era of my life from ~10 years ago that, in retrospect, was quite pivotal.

The reason I went looking for that post is because I found out yesterday that my grandpa passed away. My dad texted me and tried to call when I was in the middle of a work meeting. I registered the text but didn’t respond, and then called back after. It was the middle of the night in China at the time (around 2am), and he learned the news earlier when my aunt had called him, and she’d been notified by the staff at the seniors home where my grandpa had been living.

As I processed the news and decided on my plans, I told people the context that he had suffered a series of strokes and had been on the decline since last summer, so this news didn’t come as a shock. This is in contrast to my paternal grandma’s passing in January 2022 (also January) from a heart attack which was sudden, quick, and utterly shocking. As the matriarch of our family, her death had hit everyone really hard then.

At his passing, my grandpa was in his late 80s, possibly 87 or 88. Which is objectively quite a remarkable achievement for someone born into the chaos of 1930s war torn China to a poor rural/farming family. He joined the communist army as an accountant/admin, and then the local police after the war, and then worked at the state hemp/cotton company until retirement. He and my grandma met in their 20s, fell in love and got married despite oppositions (this is the story I had posted about that I was looking for), had 2 kids and 2 grandkids (one of which is me), traveled, had health issues and took care of each other, and grew old together.

I realized yesterday that I wasn’t reacting as emotionally as I did to my grandma’s passing — one because he’d been on the decline, and my dad/aunt thought he almost wasn’t going to make it after his last severe stroke in July. I think I had emotionally prepared for this back then, and so expected this to happen at some point. The other reason is that his quality of life in this last year, after these strokes, had become quite poor. He couldn’t eat or talk or walk, and had become reduced to almost just skin and bones. It had become painful to see him in this state, and I’m glad he’s not suffering anymore.

However, at the same time I still feel sad and regretful because I was hoping to see him at least one more time. Even though he hasn’t been able to speak since July, and he didn’t really recognize anyone anymore… even so, I was hoping he'd hang on until I visited again.

When my grandma passed in 2022, the pandemic, travel restrictions, and lack of flight options had made it virtually impossible to travel back. The last time I visited China was October 2019. Since then, in the last few years when we called, they’d almost always ask when I can go back again. My grandpa did this all the way up until his last stroke in July when he couldn’t speak anymore. When the pandemic largely ended in 2022, I’d always say “soon”, even knowing it was impractical with the Chinese government's onerous visa policies. When they finally reinstated the pre-pandemic visitor visa policies in March 2023, I started to say that I'll go back during the summer, then the fall, then the winter, then the spring. One reason is that the flight options were both expensive and inconvenient, but the larger reason is that I prioritized other plans in my life. I'm not sure where I could've squeezed it in, but I do regret that I didn’t try harder to visit sooner.

Circling back on the whole “eras of my life” thread — I always felt like as long as my grandparents were around, I still feel like a kid in some way. They treated me like one, still babied me whenever I visited or called, and would remind me of funny anecdotes from my childhood. I know I’m pretty lucky to have gotten 30+ years with almost all 4 grandparents in my life. I also know I’m lucky that they loved me as much as they did — because not all of my friends had the kind of close relationships I did/do with their grandparents.

Growing up, I was always pretty close to my grandparents, more so to my grandma who I genuinely enjoyed talking to and would call regularly, but I have many fond memories with my grandpa too.

I recall when my family first immigrated to Canada, I would cry about missing them. Later when I went back to visit as a teenager, I would cry on the flight back to Canada.

My grandpa liked to write simple rhyming poems after he retired, liked to drink and smoke and only quit in his 60s, and liked to sing Chinese opera. One year for my birthday, he wrote a “hidden message” poem where the first word of each verse added together would say “happy birthday <my Chinese name>”.

One really special memory of him I have is when I was in kindergarten, and during afternoon nap time (which I hated) he showed up unexpectedly and took me out of school. We didn’t live in the same city but he was in my city for a work trip, and he’d decided to take me out of kindergarten early that day so we could spend time together. I remember it feeling so unexpectedly awesome — one because I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to (skip school) but also because of the surprise visit itself.

The only time I felt emotional yesterday was when my mom told me how, even though I won’t be able to attend the funeral, I could pay my respects at both of my grandparents’ gravesites when I visit. The thought made me emotional because… they can finally be reunited again, or at least not be separated by death.

Didn’t really know what I was going to write when I started this, and the words kept pouring out, but I’m glad I did.