One Rough Weekend.

This weekend has been one hell of a roller coaster. Two and a half weeks ago, my grandpa died and we weren't able to have the wake/funeral till this weekend. They decided to chose this weekend because it was my aunt's birthday the week before and they were adamant about not having it on her birthday. However, this weekend was my cousin's birthday. She came back to San Francisco from Las Vegas to come to grandpa's funeral. Happy belated birthday, Nikki; sorry you couldn't celebrate it. She had to sit out on the wake and just go to the funeral.

The wake was hard. Basically it consisted of me sitting there crying because there wasn't anything else for me to do. I remembered tearing up already as I walked down the aisle to see him. The place smelled of incense and I could see part of his head over the shoulders of my aunts and uncles. We had to take some incense, bow three times, stand it on this container and then bow three times in front of grandpa. That was hard.

The wake/funeral was open casket and I thought about how old he actually looked. His face has already lost the color that normal humans possessed since he has been dead for 20 days already. There was only a few strands of hair on his head. He didn't look like he was sleeping at all. His eyes had sunken in and nothing about him looked human. I didn't want to believe that it was him. I half expected him to jump out and be like "HA FOOLED YOU." Of course that was silly, too silly for an 18 year old girl to even think about. But that was what I was honestly hoping for.

After bowing, I had to sit on a bench by his side with the rest of the family members. Everyone was crying, but there was no loud sobbing that was memorable of my grandma's wedding. Perhaps everyone already accepted the fact that he was old and it was just his time to go. But I have accepted that yet. I still think that he's immortal. He's still here somewhere going to Chinatown, having a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper. I didn't want to think that that shell of a human being was formally the man who held my hand to cross the street, the man who took me on the MUNI and pointed out the best places to eat, the man who foolishly bought too much buns. Seeing him in that casket was mortality's cruel way of telling me that I've been robbed of everything that my grandpa embodied.

Unfortunately for me, I'm a crybaby. When I am faced with a situation that isn't favorable for me, I start tearing up immediately. I really can't help it. I know that I should get thicker skin, but I just can't help it. How can you voluntarily turn off an involuntary reaction? It gets worse when people tell you to stop crying and that it's gonna be okay... because that just makes me want to cry even harder. To feel that support makes me want to let even more out. I tried to turn my focus away from the situation and look at different things in the chapel. A window, peeling paint, the wornness of the seats that we're in. Anything to keep myself from totally losing it. It was hard; I had a mound of tissues by the end of the ceremony and the day after, I still had to go to the actual funeral.

When we arrived to the funeral home, they put black bands around our right arms (they also did this during the wake) and for the women, they put a pin in our hair. White for the daughters and daughter-in-law (my mom) and green for the grandchildren. They also gave us a red one to hold when we take off our other pin.

The actual funeral was pretty similar to the wake, except family friends can come and pay their respects. But grandpa was stubborn. He had refused to make many friends. In fact, the only people who came were friends of my aunts who came to show their support for their dead dad. Grandpa never really had any friends. He was a lone wolf, too stubborn to socialize, too much of a kid of really understand the adult world.

My cousin was able to go to the funeral. It was the first time she had seen him for about half a year. And their reunion wasn't under favorable circumstances. She cried. I've never seen her cry. She always seems to have this strength to keep going, to resist against all odds. To see her cry was something truly heart breaking. Of course, I was crying harder. By the time the funeral began, I was already becoming numb to the fact that my grandpa has passed on. But that didn't make it hurt any less. However, I had cried buckets the day before and my eyes were already swollen.

I don't even really remember the funeral and it was only two days ago. Maybe I don't want the memory of the funeral. I do remember the staff telling us to keep our heads down while they closed the casket. I started crying then. It was kind of a finalizing event. He's gone. Forever.

We went into the cars and followed the hearse over to grandpa's house to make one final goodbye before heading to the cemetery. My 婆婆 was outside burning something. I don't know what it was, but it's probably some kind of tradition that Chinese people had. The ride to the cemetery was long and kind of boring. There was too much time to think about grandpa so I decided to just sleep. I was already emotionally drained and my head had become light and I was ready to just collapse.

I woke up just as we went through the big gateway into the cemetery. Again, it felt like a threshold between the real world and the afterlife. The cemetery was empty, vastly different from the last time I came to pay my respects to my grandmother. There weren't any picnics, there weren't any people. There were, however, those annoying seagulls looking for scraps of food. We were again told to look away as they lowered my grandpa down the grave. There were some workers who pissed me off a little. They look like they had such smug faces as if this was just another day where some stupid family was mourning over the loss of a loved one. I wanted to slap all of them. But then everyone would think I was crazy.

After they lowered him down to his grave, we were given some incense and paid our last respects before they covered the grave. They also gave us a flower in which we tied our ribbon our and clipped the pin on. We all bowed three times in front of grandpa and threw our flowers on top of his grave. It was... unexplainable. It just kind of felt empty. I didn't know how to feel at that point.

We went to a restaurant afterwards and had lunch. I think that was a big step to becoming normal again. I had to leave early because I had to go to a doctor. Over the weekend, what I thought was a pimple turned out to be a bacterial infection and I needed to get it checked out. I was prescribed an antibiotic and they told me to come back the day after to check if I needed to get it drained. Turns out, I really did need to get it drained and it was probably a certain bacterial skin infection. They sent a sample down to the lab and I was given another prescription. Walking back to the car, I started crying. I was just so tired of everything. I felt like ever aspect of my life was going downhill. Even my health was fucking with me.

Now, I'm just trying to cope. I know that no one would want me to be miserable, especially not my grandparents. I bet my grandma would slap me silly for being so stupid. She was always the one who wore the pants. Always sharp, always stern. Grandpa was more of the kid that gave you buns to eat. Heh. I think I just need time now...

In memory of my 爺爺

My grandpa died today... it was a sudden death, apparently. He was hospitalized last week because of heart pains, and everyone thought he would be fine; he was stabilized, he was eating. Apparently, the doctors don't understand why he passed away because he seemingly recovered. Last week, when I found out that he was hospitalized, my mom asked me if I wanted to go with my dad to the hospital to pay him a visit. I asked her what was wrong with him, and she just said that he was experiencing some pains and was fine now. Since I thought he was going to be just fine, I declined to have some more sleep. Now I really regret not going. Because now, I don't remember the last time I saw him. The last time I called him 爺爺 and make small talk. He was a funny old man, racked with senility. His hearing had gone bad; I had to shout for him to listen because sometimes he would be too stubborn to pay attention. His eyesight was poor; he had to get lasik eye surgery just to see again. Everyone made fun of him because of his stubbornness.

It was probably his stubbornness that finally did him in. He would insist of going to Chinatown even though he lived in Sunset. Perhaps it's because that's where we made our first home, and grandpa just never left it. I remember all the little cafes that we would eat at. He would buy me a long rice roll with pork or a bowl of congee with pork and aged eggs. I would always give him the eggs because I didn't like the black color and thought they were poisonous. He would take me to Chinese school, shop a little, and then come right back to pick me up. Sometimes he picked me up from the bus stop from elementary school. Wherever I went, he was there.

We used to go to the park all the time. He would always push me on the swings; I loved that feeling of flying through the sky. (of course, when you're small, the ground seems like it's miles away.) He would push me until I finally learned how to swing on my own. I was really proud of that. I always thought I was an excellent swinger. I didn't need him anymore. He would just stand back and watch.

Grandpa also did taichi. I thought it was silly; it looked like a bunch of old people just dancing slowly. It was graceful, but as a child I didn't hold any interest. I tried doing it on my own, but it was boring and I went back to the playground. Now that I recall, it was a beautiful form of exercise. The control, the concentration that a young me would not have understood.

And then everyone moved. We left that house on Greenwich and moved to different places in the city. He moved with my second aunt over to Sunset and I saw him less. I didn't live with him anymore. It was the same with Grandma. I thought it was a shame, but, maybe I was naive in my thinking. Maybe they were immortal and I could always have the same relationship as the one I had when I was a child.

Over the years, I saw his health deteriorate. But my grandpa was never a weak man. He was standing tall, with a big build and nothing ever seemed to stop him. I remember how he used to carry bags of groceries as if it were nothing. But, I also remember when he got his hearing aids. It was a shock to me. Here he was, this man, whom I've always seen strength in, was succumbing to mortality. Then his eyes got bad. Granted, he always needed reading glasses to read those newspapers that he loved. (We would always purchase a copy of 星岛日报 on the way back from school) Only when he had to carry a cane was when I realized, this is an old man. During a visit to grandma's grave, I had to walk slowly with him back to the car. I then realized, this was the man who I had to walk quickly to keep up to as a child, and now, it felt odd that we were moving no quicker than a snail. It hurt to see the work of nature acting on a human being...

I mentioned before, my grandpa was really stubborn. He would always wear like five sweaters, a hat and a jacket. It was ridiculous to see and my family always made fun of him. The most brutal (after probably grandma) was the oldest aunt. She is really annoying and naggy. Always telling grandpa what a fool he was for wearing so many clothes, what a senile old man he was for going to Chinatown, and how he couldn't do anything right. I'm glad I'm not that kind of person; otherwise, my guilt would never leave me. But through the family's insults and constant nagging, he never lost that innocent smile of his. Perhaps it was just a senile old smile, but his smile always seemed to say, "It's okay. I know they all love me. I'll just humor them into thinking that I was senile." And he would laugh it off.

I'm crying now... but I have to get all this stuff off my chest. I'm so afraid that I'll forget who he was, what he felt like, his face. Everything. When my grandma died, I realized that I can't see her anymore and when that feeling washed over me, I couldn't picture her face anymore. I couldn't smell her anymore. I couldn't hear her voice. And, it feels the same way. I don't remember that smile he would give me, I can't hear his laugh. His face seems fuzzy in comparison to the world. I'm scared that I'll forget all the memories of him. And that's why I have to write this down. It's kind of funny because I never really thought about my grandpa till now. I mean, don't get my wrong, I love him and will always cherish these memories that I have of him.. but I'm scared that one day, I'll stop in my tracks and realize that I don't remember what kind of person he was. I'm scared.

爺爺，對不起。我真怕我可以忘記你。我真的沒有用。