And because whenever I try to write about anything else, my thoughts always come back to this.
I.
[Monday, October 25, 2010. 5:00 p.m. PST]
“I’m sorry, Bean, but your grandpa just passed away.”
Mike pulled me into a hug but I remained rigid.
“What?” I asked, as if I hadn’t heard him the first time. Or the second time. Or the third.
I thought, Why would you say that?
My grandpa was supposed to be recovering from a massive stroke. He wasn’t anywhere close to being released from sub-acute care but he was hanging on. But when Mike wouldn’t let go, I knew. Grandpa was no longer hanging on. He’d let go.
Then I thought of my mom.
And that’s when I really started to cry.
But I don’t think I really grasped the enormity of the situation yet.
It wasn’t until I watched my mom and her brothers and sisters say goodbye that I knew things would be different. They wept like I’d never seen before—unabashedly brokenhearted, each clutching tightly to memories worn thin from replaying over and over again, their mouths full of words they didn’t say. They clung to his small body, willing him to still be there, knowing he was already gone.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. So I just watched and lingered on the periphery. I didn’t want to intrude on their grief.
I heard my mom say, “You’re getting cold, Dad.” I watched my aunt cradle him gently and say, “I’m so sorry, Dad. Please forgive me.” And while the rest of us cried silently, she wept loudly. She was his youngest daughter.
As they took his body away, I watched my mom run after her dad. Crying.
II.
I didn’t know much about my grandpa. I didn’t know his favorite food, his favorite color or his favorite pastime. What I do remember about him I learned when I was four years old.
My grandpa was a quiet man. He lived with the woman I call my grandma in a small white house and a long concrete driveway in East Long Beach. There was a bean tree outside. My mom has always told me beans don’t grow on trees but I don’t know how else to describe this tree. It had long flat bean pods that turned mahogany brown when they were ripe. Grandpa used to pick them for me and show me how to peel the casing back to reveal the tiny beans inside, shiny and perfect and smelly. I didn’t really like the beans—they tasted the way they smelled—but I ate them because he offered them to me. I wonder if he picked them because I never refused.
I don’t remember much about the hours we spent with my grandparents while my parents were at work. I do know I tried my best to make sure my sister stayed as still and as quiet as possible. This was easy for me. I had perfected the art of being invisible, even at four years old. At church meetings, I could sit by my mom for hours without speaking or stirring. If I were a doll, my sister would be a baby bear—always getting into things. My grandpa didn’t seem to mind. My grandma did.
My grandpa smelled of Jasmine tea and seemed to have an endless supply of butterscotch disks. I can’t remember if I ever saw him eat one. I wonder if he just kept them for me.
I’m not sure which came first—me or the chair—but there was a tiny footstool my grandpa built that was always unquestionably mine. It was simple—just three pieces of wood nailed together to look like the symbol for pi—but in my little girl mind, it was grand. I’ve been told we passed the time sitting next to each other, grandpa in his chair, me on mine.
This is all I remember. This is all I know.
III.
[Thursday, October 28, 2010.]
I cried for my mom and my aunts and uncles on Monday.
I cried for myself on Thursday.
Before Thursday, I was too tired to cry. As is customary in Lao/Cambodian culture, we cooked and cleaned and served everyone—friends and family and strangers—who came to mourn with us while my grandpa remained unburied. “Mourn” can be translated loosely. Women came to help cook. The men mostly came to drink and gamble. While their presence (and wins or losses) didn’t help me wash dishes or create serving-sized portions of sticky rice for meal service, it was strangely comforting.
I didn’t cry until I watched the slide show my sister made for my grandpa’s service. There was a picture of Grandpa, Mike and me on my wedding day. He looked solemn but handsome in a gray suit. I’ve looked at my wedding pictures countless times but for the first time since I got married, I noticed that his paisley-print tie was a beautiful shade of eggplant. He’d picked a tie that matched my wedding colors.
How could I have missed that detail? How could I have grown up and missed seeing/knowing him?
IV.
[Friday, October 29, 2010.]
When they called us to the front of the funeral home, I remember looking at my grandpa in his casket and thinking, That’s not my grandpa. That man looks like George Takei.
We all cried like it was the first time. We all knew it wouldn’t be the last.
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