Making Peace with Changes
Reflections on My Grandmother Passing
Story and photo by Thuy Ngo

I'm sitting at my cousin's kitchen table. There are children running around, women chatting about the latest gossip about their children and husbands, men comparing their latest electronic purchases and payment plans, and here I am sitting here in the midst of this all soaking it all up like a sponge to these events. Today has been one of the few times these past few months where things have been good within our family. So many serious transitions and changes have been happening these past few months, I am still trying to accept it all. I am just trying to savor this moment while it all lasts. I am just hoping no more bad news comes along for a long while.

My brother, Steve had recently been shipped off to Indiana for three months only to be shipped off for another fifteen months in Kuwait. The stories my friends and family come up with just from talking makes my mind fly with the worst assumptions of what's going to happen. I wonder how much he will change as a person, the horrors he will see, or if he'll remember us when we think of him. I still regret that I could'nt come up with anything useful to tell him before he left. I realize though, that no matter what I could have told him would'nt be anything he did not already consider. All that I could have said or did would have been a useless reiteration of his worries. All I could come up with the night before he left was, “I love you, Bro. Take care of yourself. Come back in one piece.” That was all I felt that was appropriate. That was all that I could manage to say. It's only been a few days since he left. I wonder how he is doing.

The afternoon before we left for Steve's farewell dinner, we went to see grandma in the hospital. Sometimes it seems like the things we have to do in life for our loved ones are the hardest to even do. Even, if it's as simple as just seeing them okay.   I had been avoiding this visit for the longest time because I knew it would be hard to see her the way she is now. I had heard from my mother's bits and pieces of new updates how she was doing. I miss my grandma very much, the good times when she was healthy and we all got along. My grandmother is in the hospital now because she can no longer function on her own. She didn't go through an accident or anything like that. My mom says it's just because she's getting old, she is losing her bodily functions and the ability to take care of herself on her own. The hospital had her hooked up to all sorts of wires, machines, and bags. Human plumbing. Last I saw her, she could not swallow or poop on her own. What becomes of a person when the basic privacy and function of pooping and peeing is no longer a solitary action?

There has been talk about what should be done about her living arrangements. My mom was talking about sending her to a nursing home because it seems like she needs special attention and care that she would not be able to get at home. My uncles and aunts are thinking that she is too old to get any better. If she was a younger person who was

healthier than maybe there would be hope that the body would heal itself, but in this case, how could she? She is defenseless to ailments. Parkinson's and Alzheimer's are degenerative diseases. They choose not to visit her and only to get news from us when they tell us to go visit her. I suppose seeing her is too much, so hearing about her is easier to do. Then again, I should be one to talk since I do not visit her nearly as much as the uncle who does not know how to take care of her. If I was to take care of her then I would actually have the right to complain. At this point, no one feels they have the right to complain unless they are directly taking care of her. I am consumed with feelings of guilt and numbness whenever I see her. I feel even guiltier for not wanting to see her like the others do. She is faced with neglect and loneliness because of this.

I remember only a few years ago, my grandma was healthy enough to walk on her own and cook on her own. She loved to cook and invite the family over to eat at her house. Everyone secretly avoided her cooking because to them, it tasted awful but they came to eat with her regardless. Her favorite thing to cook was tofu and soy milk. Making tofu and soy milk made the whole house smell like it. The process seemed labor intensive and time consuming, but it was pretty simple if   you knew the steps. She showed me how to make the soy milk several times when I was in middle school and high school. My mom uses her same recipe to make the soy milk when she has the time. My mom said back in Vietnam that was the family's business: making tofu and soy milk to sell at the market. It was one of the few things that my grandma knew how to make and made very well. She had a lot of pride in her soy milk and tofu.

I miss a lot about how things used to be when she was healthy. I miss going on those long walks to no where with her. We would just walk around the neighborhood for no particular reason and get lost only to find ourselves again. Sometimes she would buy me an ice cream or we would go to the Vietnamese fast food shops for sticky rice treats. She used to love to walk. She would walk and take the bus everywhere. Doing so made her feel independent.   Walking with her independence and carefree nature was infectious. I felt we could go anywhere and do anything. It was just the two of us, two Vietnamese out there looking for adventure in an American neighborhood. It felt like we were rebels even though all we did was walk. We walked where we wanted and did not have to go anywhere people told us. We could go anywhere we wanted. We were free.

When I was about ten years old, Grandma would look after my brother and I while my mom was away at work. Walking over to her house after school was a long way but it beat being home alone with nothing to do. Her house had cable and ours didn't. Even though there was cable, we didn't watch television over there as much as you would think. We mostly played and pretended that we were on a voyage with magical kung fu powers. I read, colored, and drew a lot at my grandma's house. At those times I left myself in some place like the living room, or the garden. Steve would watch television constantly. Sometimes, watching him watch television was weird. He watched and had absolutely no reaction to the crazy car chases or even the supposed funny parts to the shows. It seemed like he was a zombie addicted to the moving pictures even though they had no effect on him. My grandma would just look at us and smile lovingly. While my brother was entranced at the television, I would listen to Grandma's stories about Vietnamese husbands, growing up as a girl in Vietnam, the war, running away, and the abuse and hurt that she faced. She spoke with little remorse, but brutal honesty. When I asked her why she would tell me such horror stories for fun. She said it was so that I would understand our history better and not to trust men. She said she wanted me to realize how lucky we are to be in America because they have laws to protect women from being hurt by the men.

I am twenty three years old now and remembering all of this hurts me because I know that we will never be able to share our moments with each other in the same way. She will never walk with me the same way she once did, nor will we have those visits to get sticky rice anymore. When I visit her now and help her to walk around, Grandma holds on to me tightly as if for dear life because she is afraid to fall. She seems afraid of letting go of old memories and repeats the same phrases over and over again so that others would think that she is okay. She repeats the same phrase so that she could show her humbleness to her off springs whom she no longer remembers the names of when they see her. She repeats this phrase to show that she is ready to go and that she finally wants to make peace and appreciate what is left. She repeats the phrase, “Thank you.”  

  My brother however, is on a constant pace, always trying to leave the family in some way. He becomes more distant to us, his family, day by day and is closer to his friends than us. Now his distance is physical and even farther still because he is leaving for another country. This distance becomes another separation between us, but this time it is not just a silence or a feeling, it's an ocean that separates us. However, in spirit, they will both be close to me. I refuse to let go of them because they are so dear to me. Blood is thicker than water. I hope that will mean something someday. I am no longer at my cousin Chi's house, but I am back home and about to do my homework. Once again, I am sick with something I might have caught from someone at school. I hope it is not serious. I try to find something to eat that is easy to swallow because my throat hurts. I have chills, a low fever, body aches, and I'm slightly nauseous. I do not think it was a very good idea that I was at my cousin's house because I probably spread something, but I went because I did not want to be all alone a home.

I am about to turn on the computer and start to write. I think to myself how useless I am towards my grandma because I can not do anything for her or my brother other than do my homework and pray. I cannot help but cry after thinking about them. I cry for what seems a long time, with my congested nose and aching with each sob from the flu that I might have.

My mom comes by, trying to tell me that everything will be okay and that if I keep on crying my symptoms will get worse. She starts lecturing me on how unhealthy it is to cry. She tells me, “its better if you just accept things as they come. You can't change it, so accept it.” I keep on crying. I finally stop after she leaves the room for a while.   Blood is thicker than water. When will that matter to her? I accept that much more that my blood is thicker than water.