Yearly Archives: 2009

Being Strong For My Grandmother

The can­cer has spread to her bones and sev­er­al major organs now. We asked the doc­tor not to tell her, but we can’t do any­thing against his moral oblig­a­tion to inform the patient. Either way, she does­n’t know how seri­ous it is, whether it’s from shock and denial, or mem­o­ry loss.

But she’s awake, and aware, and feel­ing no pain, which is good enough for me. The most we can do now is to try to make the rest of her life as enjoy­able as pos­si­ble.

She thinks she’s going to be fine. Keeps telling me that she’ll take me to a near­by park when she’s bet­ter. As much as it hurts me to know this won’t be pos­si­ble any­more, it’s reliev­ing to know she’s so obliv­i­ous. We don’t let our­selves cry around her, for fear that she may real­ize how bad it is.

Her face is more sal­low, her fin­gers and legs ema­ci­at­ed, but she still has her thick, black hair1. Aside from a dis­tend­ed stom­ach, it’s hard to tell that she has such a grim prog­no­sis.

But by far the hard­est part is hav­ing to cod­dle her like a child to take her med­ica­tion. Telling her she’s a good girl if she swal­lows her pills and reward­ing her with ice-cream. That we’re only strict because we care about her. It tears me in half when she gives such a painful look of dis­taste with every pill we hand her, 18 a day.

She used to be so strong. Now we have to be strong for her.

  1. “I used to have even more”, she tells me. [↩]

Relationship Advice From Chinese People

My fam­i­ly always ask me if I’m dat­ing any­one right now. They assume I pre­fer Caucasian girls. I tell them I don’t mind either way (the oth­er side of “either” being Chinese girls). That’s when they warn me about main­land girls. Chinese main­lan­ders are com­mon­ly viewed by Hong Kong peo­ple as being low-class, crude, and provin­cial. It’s said that even if a girl from there is pret­ty, they lose all attrac­tive­ness as soon as she opens her mouth. On top of that, they’re gold-dig­gers, just look­ing for a way to get mon­ey or a green card.

They tell me I’ll be fine as long as I don’t mar­ry a main­land girl.

My grand­ma used to tell me to find a Chinese girl, because Chinese girls treat their men bet­ter, or to find some­one who loves me more than I love them. She’s filled with all sorts of fun­ny apho­risms, like “Women are to be loved, not hit.”

Walks With Grandma

walks down the street

Thumbnail: School alley
Thumbnail: Building roads
Thumbnail: Convenience store
Thumbnail: Foliage
Thumbnail: Neon sign
Thumbnail: Store parrots
Thumbnail: Parrots
Thumbnail: Schoolgirls
Thumbnail: Villas sign
Thumbnail: Holding hands
 

In the last few weeks, she’s been too weak to leave the house, but we can take her for walks in the after­noon now. Going around the block takes half an hour and leaves her legs shak­ing, but she’s hap­py to be out. Before we go, she gets dressed and puts on her make­up and does her hair. Even now, she retains the class and dig­ni­ty I’ve always admired in her.

The Worth Of A Good Night's Sleep

My aunt — the youngest child of my grand­moth­er — has been here for weeks. She stopped tak­ing her clients at work, and has been over­see­ing my grand­moth­er’s treat­ments, as well as mak­ing deci­sions on her behalf.

They sleep in the same bed now, which I think is adorable, like regress­ing to some child­hood time, except the roles have been reversed. Yesterday, she told me my grand­moth­er had the best the night of sleep in a long time. She attrib­ut­es it to my grand­moth­er’s hap­pi­ness that my dad and I are here.

This has already made the entire trip worth it.

Accepting My Baggage

Sometimes, I won­der what my life would be like if I did­n’t have so much bag­gage. How my rela­tion­ships would be dif­fer­ent. Which ones would have worked, and which ones would­n’t have changed at all.

Love, in all it’s mul­ti-faceted won­der, lev­els, and types, is nev­er a sure thing for me. I may feel it, but feel that it’s fleet­ing and con­di­tion­al at the same time. Other peo­ple have the lux­u­ry of tak­ing love for grant­ed. They assume they’re loved. How com­fort­ing it must be. For me, it’s always been a strug­gle for sta­bil­i­ty. “We won’t love you if you don’t do well on this test. We won’t love you if you don’t prac­tice piano. We won’t love you if you don’t fin­ish your din­ner. No one’s going to love you if you always stay this skin­ny.”

It feels like I haven’t sur­vived my child­hood yet. And I arrive at this fact so many times when try­ing to fig­ure out the source of my issues that it’s start­ing to sound like an excuse. Therapy has helped iden­ti­fy my issues, but it’s still tak­ing work on my part to resolve them, along with patience on the parts of oth­ers. I’m begin­ning to ques­tion why peo­ple would accept and love me. I guess it’s worth it to some, but things would be so much eas­i­er if they did­n’t have to deal with my inse­cu­ri­ties.