It was just a regular Sunday, you know. I went for an early [solidcore] session, a newfound hobby outside of my usual lifting regimen. Apart from the soreness I could see coming from a mile away, I was proud of myself for not being a total bum, and it was a good day.
That is, until 2:32pm CST, 3:32am Beijing time.
“Wai Po is gone. She left us.” My older cousin texted me on WeChat.
I heard the pieces of my heart tumble and roll on the floor like a bunch of coins.
Wai Po is my grandma, my mother’s mother. The origin of the fluster that runs from my mother to me. A few days short of 80 years old, Wai Po was one of my oldest friends. She never left the town our family hails from. Some might find her world view and perspectives archaic and typical of “small town syndrome,” but even as a kid, I was always interested. Out of the five grandchildren, I was the only one willing to sit with her by the portable radiator for hours on end as she went on about stories from decades ago — when my parents were struggling as a pair of students in Shanghai, how I almost got kidnapped on the train that one time in 2002, how grandpa was acting goofy when grandma and grandpa were still in the “courting phase.” Those mundane stories gave me a glimpse into grandma’s world, where family was bigger than everything else, and every detail was a treasure to behold.
I was born in Shanghai into a family rooted in Northeastern Sichuan, right on the Jialing River. My dad’s side of the family comes from the farmer’s countryside, while my mother’s side is a modest, city household. Less than four years after I was born, my nuclear family uprooted and moved to Shenzhen, neighboring Hong Kong by the coast. So I, paradoxically, am a person with nowhere to appropriately call home. The place where I was born was not the place where I lived, and the place where I lived was not the place where my root was found.
The first time I went back to Sichuan was in 2003, when my paternal grandmother, Po Po, passed away suddenly. I lost her at 6 years old, so my memories of Po Po are now blurry at best, but she was always a calm and caring presence. However, I was overwhelmed with furious fear being trapped in our countryside home, funeral music reverberating throughout the small village. It was a bizarre experience for me: people were crying at one corner, but there were also people running around putting up a feast in the front yard and others drinking and playing cards at the other side of the home. Ye Ye, my paternal grandfather, would silently chain smoke in the room where Po Po’s black-and-white picture was. I wanted to go over there to pat him on the back and sit with him, but dad told me it was a bad idea. My drunken relatives asked me if I wanted to see Po Po one last time behind the black curtain with a gigantic, solemn, white character 奠 smack dab in the middle — to hold a memorial service — I retrieved into a corner before running past everyone toward the rapeseed field. I had a fear of death justifiable for a 6-year-old; I also had a fear of this place I had never visited and been told was my home. I stayed up all night, so did everyone else.
The day after the funeral, mom and dad took me back to the city. The countryside home was the funeral venue, so my maternal grandparents’ humble apartment had been the home base for us. I’m sure they’d met me before I visited Sichuan, but that was the first time in my memory that I had spent substantial time with my maternal grandparents, Wai Po and Wai Ye. Contrary to how most of the 50-something women looked, Wai Po always had jet black hair, because she didn’t like how she looked with grey hair. Wai Ye was a teacher who rocks a mean beret (he still wears a beret daily,) and I never found out what Wai Po did before she retired. They were the dynamic duo: Wai Ye is the legendary home cook in the family, and although Wai Po didn’t cook, she had a keen eye for the best produce. I liked hanging out with them because they did not remind me of death, and my parents let me go back to stay with Wai Po and Wai Ye for the summer of the next year.
In the summer I stayed with Wai Po and Wai Ye, there was a sweet yogurt drink sweeping the 7-year-olds nationwide by storm. I, being one of the said 7-year-olds, was addicted. My parents were very strict in not letting me have too much at home, because those drinks were high in sugar and fat. When I was away from my parents’ grasp and under the care of two extremely genteel grandparents with a penchant to spoil, though, it was a different story. They and I had a tacit understanding: Wai Po would always bring back new 6-carton packs of the sweet yogurt drink from her grocery runs, and Wai Ye would refill the empty rack of said drinks in the fridge when he went on to prepare food for the family that day. As for me, I would grab the cartons out of the fridge and inhale them at a speed that makes me now wince. In those short three months, I gained 30 pounds and made a name for myself amongst my classmates.
You could imagine my parents’ dismay when they saw me wobbling out of the airport, blown up like a ballon. However, mom and dad let me return to Wai Po and Wai Ye year after year, because they saw how happy I was, and how happy they were. It felt like home.
Every summer, it would be a routine. Luckily, my sweet yogurt drink addiction had subsided. My new favorite activity was going shopping with Wai Po and Wai Ye. I was still a short stub of a child, so to not get lost in the crowded market, I always had to clench a corner of Wai Po’s shawl. There was this dark pink shawl she always wore, because “it made her look young,” she always said. Wai Ye would walk ahead with hands clasped behind his back, and Wai Po would walk slowly to accommodate my always-distracted self while exchanging greetings with the stall owners she’d known for decades. I loved the hustle and bustle, but what I loved more was listening to Wai Po and Wai Ye chatting about 柴米油盐酱醋茶 — firewood, rice, grease, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea. The seven essential items for daily living, the most unexciting but warm components of what happiness was for them and for me.
The routine continued for many years until when I left for the States at 17. I was still hilariously dealing with that 30-pound weight gain from 2004, but with a lot more independence and an eagerness to spread my wings. By that time, my parents had pooled money with all my aunts and uncles to purchase a nice three-story home, the “big house,” to accommodate all the children and grandchildren at once during holidays. Mom and dad also rented the old one-bedroom apartment I would live at every summer with Wai Po and Wai Ye and remodeled it into a modernized, more spacious-looking 2b2b. After a three-week stay at the big house, I left Wai Po and Wai Ye to return to Shenzhen so I could prepare for the flight to Boston. As the car pulled out of the driveway, Wai Po walked behind the car, tears streaming down her face.
“Come back and visit often!” She would cry and wave. Wai Ye held her shoulders.
Throughout college and the first year of my PhD, as long as I had a break at school for more than two weeks, I would ask my parents to buy me tickets back to China. It was expensive, but mom and dad always did it. For that short period of time back home, I would fly to Wai Po and Wai Ye for a few days, with intermittent visits to Ye Ye as well. Wai Po and Wai Ye were then in their 70s, and Ye Ye was just reaching his 90s. Ye Ye lived in a different town nearby, but as he pushed 100, he slowly ceased to recognize me. The short visits with the three of them were always bittersweet, because I knew deep down that every visit with them could very well be the last.
After my last visit home in the first month of 2019, I have not returned to China because of what would go down in 2020. My multi-entry visa expired that summer. With the relations between China and the United States entering a not-so-friendly stage, mom and dad called me when I told them my visa had expired and said, “Don’t think about coming home anymore.” It’s ironic how what was said with the best of intentions delivered a most malicious blow. I had to resort to FaceTime and WeChat calls in substitution for my usual visits to Wai Po, Wai Ye, and Ye Ye.
Ye Ye had completely lost recognition of me, but when mom screamed into the call “SHE’S YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER, THE ONE IN AMERICA,” he would smile like a child, nodding, although we all knew he didn’t know who I was anymore. Maybe deep down he still knew, but like Shakespeare lamented via Jacques, I believed Ye Ye had returned to the second childishness, oblivion looming, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Wai Po started mysteriously coughing and wheezing. She said she was fine, but Wai Ye insisted on a hospital visit, so Wai Po gave in and went for a check-up. The doctors later called my parents and informed them that Wai Po had lung cancer. I wasn’t looped in until about three months into the diagnosis, and that became a secret the entire family was guarding from Wai Ye, and of course, Wai Po. We were all afraid that if Wai Po knew she had cancer, she would just give up. Mom and dad are the only two medical professionals in the whole family, so they took on the coordination of the team that would protect Wai Po from the tug-of-war with death. Mom started writing meal plans to help maintain Wai Po’s ever-worsening health, and dad volunteered to teach at a local medical college so he had an excuse to fly back to Sichuan regularly to keep an eye on Wai Po’s treatments. Wai Ye knew Wai Po was sick of something, but maybe he was too afraid to find out what. To make Wai Po feel better, whatever food mom put Wai Po on, Wai Ye was having it too.
My video calls with the three grandparents got progressively shorter, but life went on. In September of 2021, Ye Ye had a big scare when he had severe averse reactions to something he ate. He was unable to breathe well, but his caretakers were nonchalant about it. They insisted he was fine, when Ye Ye was literally laying there, turning purple. Luckily, my parents were both back in Sichuan celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival, and they dragged Ye Ye to the hospital. Mom carried the six-foot-one Ye Ye with her thin frame into the emergency room while dad spent hours called one contact after the other looking for expert help. They saved Ye Ye’s life. When Ye Ye woke up, he insisted on calling mom over and would not let go of her hand.
But that one scare was still too much, Ye Ye never recovered fully from that. He never left the hospital, and I was the only grandchild to not make the funeral.
I always thought when that moment would finally come, I would break down in the middle of the room and drown myself in the grief that would ensue. When I actually found out the news, though, my first instinct was to call Wai Po and Wai Ye. I wanted to ask them to please, please, please take care of themselves, stay healthy, be happy, stop worrying. It was both a radical realization of everyone I love IS actually going to die eventually and a selfish hope that they can spare me the heartbreak at least right now, when the first close death of my adult years still hit too raw.
Wai Po and Wai Ye actually called me first while I was paralyzed by the pain of losing Ye Ye. Our conversation was terse before I started finding an excuse to hang up, but Wai Po kept talking. Her voice was breaking because of the lung problems, but she kept talking.
When are you coming home? We miss you. Why do you have to be so far away all the time? I miss chatting with you. Now I can’t talk well anymore, but I miss you. I miss you a lot. When are you coming home?
I don’t know, Wai Po. I said. I hung up crying more than I ever had.
The end of March, 2022.
I was gearing up for my first national conference presentation, and my work was crashing down like the end of the world. I was, and possibly still am, at a crossroad between a hero pushing through hard times with tenacity, and a fugitive running away from the crumbling ivory tower. I never recouped from losing Ye Ye, because the guilt was too much.
I called Wai Po. She had been admitted to the hospital due to a sudden deterioration of her breathing and overall strength. She was in good spirit though, still cracking jokes even if her attempts at speaking turned into only whispers. But I still understood her. The tacit understanding starting from the summer of 2004 was still there. I didn’t need to hear her voice to understand her, but part of me was devastated that her voice may be forever lost. Before we hung up, she asked again when I would be going home to visit her.
I froze.
I don’t know, I said. Disappointment in her eyes cut like blades, but she nodded and whispered, “take care of yourself, I’ll see you when you’re back.”
Later that week, I was flying to Philadelphia for the conference. I texted her saying I was busy but would call her in a few days. I told her to please take care of herself and be strong, if not for her, for all of us. We were all counting on her to recover swiftly and go back to her usual, chatty self. We knew it likely may not happen, but we hoped. She texted me back, “I’ll be okay, don’t worry about me. I hope you have a good life.”
“I hope you have a good life.”
As if she knew and was saying goodbye. I put away the phone trying not to cry.
Just a few days later, she had a tracheotomy and lost her whispers too.
Mom tried to keep me from seeing Wai Po, although I didn’t need it — I consciously chose not to call to see Wai Po because I was afraid of seeing her. I was afraid of the hurt that would come from seeing her suffer. She was bedridden and could only exercise through a biking contraption at the foot of the bed. Mom did send me pictures, one of Wai Ye visiting Wai Po. Wai Ye now knew Wai Po’s terminal illness, and instructed dad to do everything we could, so there would be no regret. Wai Ye still wore his beret like it was just a normal day. He took Wai Po’s hand and wiped perspiration from Wai Po’s forehead. It was just a still photo, but I could hear him telling Wai Po that it would be okay, that she needed to keep fighting. It was one of the only photos where I saw Wai Po, tubes all over her, eyes barely open, but she was holding Wai Ye’s hand.
After Wai Ye’s visit, Wai Po’s conditions fluctuated. Her bloodwork was all over the place, but her vitals were surprisingly okay. We all thought she was going to give up, but she fought. Mom, too. She took a month from work to participate in the care full-time. She was always the one to panic first, but throughout Wai Po’s stay at the hospital, she was surprisingly calm and steady. The only difference was that when we would call, she sighed and rubbed her eyes a lot more.
The mother and the daughter both showed up extraordinary fighters in front of death.
I remembered those days of Wai Po at the hospital well. I was not physically there, but I didn’t spend a single second not thinking about her, mom, dad, and everyone back home. I eventually got over my fear of seeing her suffer and stayed up late into the night so I could record videos for her. So I could encourage her across the ocean and tell her that I was always with her. I told Wai Po I needed her to get better so we could chat by the radiator about nothing for hours like the good old days.
At 8am on the Sunday she passed, I got a text from dad. It was just before [solidcore], and 9pm back home. He rarely texts me, so I was nervous and left the message for after class.
It was a screenshot of his conversation with the lead physician on Wai Po’s ward. She told dad that Wai Po may not make it through the night and we should all prepare. I held on to Wai Po’s fighter persona and told him, “I’m sure she’ll make it past the night. Just watch her.”
But a fighter doesn’t fight forever. A few hours later, at just past midnight in China, Wai Po left. My cousin told me later that when she left, she had a drop of tear by her eye. I was again the only grandchild to miss her funeral.
Almost two weeks later, I still don’t have the courage to call Wai Ye. But maybe I will do it tonight, just to tell him that we’ll all be alright.
I’m always skeptical of the woo woo stuff. As a scientist, I found psychics, tarots and the sorts to be questionable. But I went to see a psychic. The psychic had no idea who I was, and I showed up expecting her to con $100 out of me.
As soon as I walked in, the psychic gave me a small stone with “hope” engraved on it. She said, “A relative of yours showed up. She is around my height, thin, wearing this bright reddish pink shawl. She has black hair, but she looks quite old, so it’s almost like she doesn’t want her grey hair to show. But anyway… she wanted me to give you this and tell you to not feel guilty and keep doing what you’re doing, because she’s always been proud of you. I’m not sure where you’re from, but she says she knows you’re likely never going to return home forever, however she hopes you can go back to visit her and honor her, so she can give you her blessings, and you can give her the permission to protect you.”
I looked up at the psychic, looked down at the stone, and began to sob.
A message to Wai Po and Ye Ye:
Life goes on even if it seems impossible. Your departure has left holes in my heart that I would never be able to fill, but I should and will carry on. I am grateful to have the privilege of growing up under your care. We are no longer separated by the ocean, or the distance, or the time difference. Now, we will never be apart. You are forever a part of me, just like I’m forever a part of you. I’m grateful you gave me the courage to do better and make you proud.
I’m excited to sit by your sides again in my dreams, you laughing at my awkward Sichuanese and babbling about when you were young. I’m excited to catch you up on the earthly life after you and reminisce that corner of the shawl I refused to let go of, or imagine what would happen if that night of Po Po’s funeral, I go over and sit in the smoke.
Life goes on, I’ll tread on, and the pain will eventually fade. The pain of you leaving will be replaced by the gratitude that you have been and will always be with me every step of the way, thousands of miles from home. Maybe closure is not what I seek, but a renewed recognition. You will be the soft stars that guide me out of the darkness, the tether to home that connects me as I drift, and the protectors who watch over all of us. I don’t typically believe in after-life, but I hope you’re out there living your best lives.
Until we meet again, I will miss you, always.
