A Granddaughter’s Hope

My grandmothers were kick-ass women at a time when being ballsy wasn’t seen as a feminine quality. For instance, when divorce was considered a dirty word and murmured behind closed doors, my divorced Canadian grandmother was making it on her own with three kids. On the other side of my family, my Japanese-American grandmother was the matriarch who held everyone together through adult sibling rivalries and bitter fights. After her death, our extended family fell apart without her.

While they both had very long lives, my Canadian grandmother passed away just before I was supposed to visit her in Alberta. After recovering from a fall, she fell asleep one night and never woke up. It was a faraway and unexpected death, and seemed unreal because of the distance and surprise of it. Even today, I almost think that if I dial her 780 number, she will pick up with her slightly whimsical tone and say cheerfully, “Hello, dear.”

Her memorial was an extravaganza. The whole family gathered together — a multitude of brothers and cousins and aunts and uncles and sons and daughters and grandkids. Tears, whiskey, tea, and laughter filled up her small house for a final time, where she’d lived across the street from the school where she’d taught for decades. It was a celebration overflowing with stories of her life, and her death was dismissed as the unfortunate and inevitable aftereffect.

As for my other grandmother, she lived a couple blocks away from where I grew up in California. All of our holidays and celebrations and memorials took place at her home, surrounded by relatives cooking and arguing and talking and eating. Food was the center of our life; rice served at every meal, sushi across the table from the turkey at Thanksgiving. The first words out of her mouth whenever anyone came over was, “Are you hungry?” Perhaps it was the uncertainty of WWII Japanese internment camps or living through the Depression, but food was proof of love and family to her.

I spent the last few months of her life with her. Her organs were failing; as she put it to me, she was “just too old.” But one of the most heartbreaking parts of watching death tiptoe closer every day was not just the biological effects of her being unable to walk on her own two feet or take care of her own bodily functions, and not even the shaky whisper of her voice if she had the strength to form words. One of the worst parts of her decline was her rejection of food.

And you bet we tried to feed her; we brought her favorite See’s Candy mint Scotchmallows, Jack in the Box burgers, manju and mochi, and even served plain rice porridge when she said the more complex flavors were too much. The meals made her sick because of the morphine she was receiving to combat the pain. She had taught us that food was family, and while her love didn’t wane, the food did. Her rejection of it might have been necessary as she made her final journey, but it was also a heartbreaking aspect to those of us left behind.

It comes back to me sometime — the celebration of my Canadian grandmother’s life after her sudden passing, and the slow reversal of my Japanese-American grandmother’s strength until she had none left to survive. I will carry the memory of both of their lives — and their deaths — with me moving forward.

I only have one regret. My grandmothers died before my first book was published. I had always wanted to honor them in some way, and still feel guilty that I waited so long to write a book that I was able to dedicate to them. A way for me to give back to them all the love and nurturing they gave me growing up.

And it makes me think of how I will be remembered after I'm gone. Will I be looking back on a life well-lived, surrounded by family but unable to truly be a part of it any longer? Will I go to sleep and not know when the end comes? Will my family and friends toast me at my wake?

Perhaps — and I hope this comes to pass — perhaps my future granddaughter will see what was important to me based on how I die. Perhaps she will raise a glass of whiskey to a ballsy woman who lived a good life, even if she has some regrets. Or perhaps she will see a woman who made the choice to embrace family and love at any cost, like my own grandmothers did — no matter how, and no matter when, the end will come.