Thoughts about my grandmother.

I hated playing the piano. I really did. I had no talent for it, and compounding my lack of talent was my complete lack of interest. Naturally, I did not spend a lot of time practicing. There was a problem though. Every Tuesday we’d have to go for our weekly piano lessons with Mrs. Lin. I was going to be exposed as I had most likely not practiced all week. This also meant that, if we were going home directly after the lesson, my mother was going to be pretty angry.

That is, she would’ve been angry, except that we went to my grandmother’s apartment after lessons. While still annoyed at her piano-hating son, we’d usually have some dinner while I would be politely reminded that I should appreciate the opportunity to learn to play the piano, and that not everyone was so lucky. My grandma would interject from time to time to say something like “don’t be so hard on him.” My mom would eventually relent, and I escaped the scolding.

Thank you for that, Grandma.

She was really proud of that apartment.

She left Taiwan 40 years ago when she was 60; I remember this because there’s a story about her and my father going out for fast food and them having gotten into an argument over French fries, on the day my brother was born, and my brother turns 41 this year. It wasn’t a serious argument, but I found it amusing.

There we were, 40 years ago, and three of her four kids and families lived within 3 hours of each other. She spent a good amount of time living with each family, but would migrate from house to house every few months. This meant she’d have a room in each house and would be surrounded with loved ones. While living with family was nice, when her number was called for the Moody St. apartments for seniors, she jumped at it.

This was her opportunity to live on her own, have her own private space, and be independent. This was also the happiest time in her life. And why not? Living within a few floors of a majority of her friends, playing mahjong whenever she wanted, and for a while, three of her four kids lived within 3 hours of her. Of course, ironically, all three families moved away by 1993, but she was fine with that. Living as an independent woman and operating within that community was freeing (hats off to 惠美阿姨 for helping to support her).

I remember her interest in watching her soap operas, particularly Days of Our Lives. When she did live with us in Sudbury, I would come home after school and watch the show with her. That was one of our things. She said I looked like Jack. That’d be more impressive if you knew how good looking that she thought Jack was.

She was using the show to practice her English. She poured over English text books to learn to read and write, and she was watching Days of Our Lives to reinforce listening. Recall that this was when she was over sixty. Learning a new language isn’t easy in high school; I probably couldn’t do it now.

I guess it worked too because she eventually passed her American Citizenship test. Language aside, there are Americans who probably couldn’t pass that test. And she did. In her 80s.

Other things I remember: She liked a glass of whiskey at night. She laughed with her whole face; if it was particularly funny to her, her laugh included a bit of a wheeze. Even well into her 80s, she was still making Glutinous Rice Cakes that I absolutely devoured.

I once figured out that I could program the TV to turn on automatically at a certain time. Not wanting her to miss her TV show, I set it to turn on when her soap opera was to air, and it scared the bejeezus out of her (Sorry about that, Grandma). One time after a family lunch as I was sitting next her, she told me to read more books. No real context to that one, just that I should read more. Fair enough.

Another time she told me a story about crossing a street when I was younger. Apparently she was standing with my mother, father, brother and I waiting for the light to turn green to cross the street. Almost automatically we all started crossing the street when the light turned green; My grandmother, however, being more advanced in age, was a little slower and by the time I realized that she wasn’t walking in step with us, we had already crossed the halfway mark. She then noted that while the rest of the family kept walking, I went back for her and held her hand as we walked the crosswalk together.

Like viewing a photo album, just kind of flipping from image to image, each one of these memories can make you smile or laugh or cry or just have vague feeling of happiness to have been around her, and the sadness of knowing that she isn’t around anymore.

I’ll miss her. I know we all will.