by Sandra Hong
NARR
I grew up wondering a lot about my grandmother. She was not like my
friends' grandmothers, who knitted or baked pies and lived with
their husbands in a house in the suburbs.
My grandmother left her husband in Korea to live with us in
Michigan. She smoked, drank rice wine and wasn't afraid to raise
her voice. She took long walks with her hands held behind her back.
My little sister and I often would go with her. Our suburban
walking tours were adventures. Sometimes, we'd walk as far as the
grocery store -- my sister and I skipping along deserted sidewalks,
my grandmother not far behind. Then we'd finally arrive at the
grocery store, weaving through station wagons and minivans parked
in a vast Midwestern-sized parking lot. She kept us safe, while
letting us explore and play like little girls.
I knew very little about her. I knew she raised nine children in
Korea, on her own for the most part. Two other children died as
infants. My mother is one of her six daughters.
She lived with us until we moved out of our apartment and into a
house. My grandmother moved to Philadelphia to be a nanny for a
Korean family we did not know. I was nine. I remember even at that
age thinking, "That's grandma" - fearless, independent and not
wanting to burden anyone.
For the next 10 years, I saw my grandmother only a handful of
times. I wondered about her a lot. She never stayed in one place
for too long, her nanny jobs taking her from east coast to west
coast. I imagined her life as a big secret adventure. It wasn't
until she became sick with stomach cancer that she moved back in
with us. I came home from college that weekend. It was the first
time I'd seen her in years. Aunts and uncles came to see her, too.
She looked so thin, so delicate. The angles in her face were
softened, her hair fluffy white.
We talked a lot that weekend. Or as much as we could. My Korean had
gotten rusty. Her English was never good. She told me I should
marry a Korean; I told her I was moving to England. And when I
asked her how she was feeling, she told me to stop acting like my
mother.
That afternoon, she and my 5-year-old cousin Hana escaped from the
din of relatives into the basement. Hana and grandma settled into
an old brown velour couch, Hana resting her cheek on grandma's left
shoulder. The sun was shining through a window behind them. I took
a photograph but neither seemed to notice. They were both looking
away, in opposite directions. Each completely fixed in her own
thoughts.
A week later, my grandmother died. She was 74.
I look at the photo of the two of them now, sitting together on the
worn couch in my parents' basement. I love this photo. My
grandmother looking so delicate and girlish … like she just might
be ready to tell me something, maybe about her life in Philadelpia,
her adventure in California. What she'd tell me, I'll probably
never know. But I feel like this photo gives me something to start
with.