Grandma, how are you?

I started to mourn my grandma since I was 7 or 8 years old.

I vividly remember that day in elementary school, in a remote city in North-West China, we were learning ancient Chinese poetry about the poet's dead wife. The sadness hit me like a brick wall and I couldn't breath for the whole class, young and stupid me was suffocated by the heaviness of not being able to see someone, especially a love one, forever.

Forever sounded like a long, long time in my tiny brain, and my mind went straight to my nai nai, my grandma, the women brought me up while both my parents were working, or whatever my dad did that he called work. I started to image how it would feel if I could never eat her cooking again and never heard her call me "Little Peas" from the other side of the garden again.

The sadness resided within me and did left, but not until I was 29, my therapist told me people called that depression. I went through the whole day of class feeling like floating in midair and when I came back to earth, I was sitting in front of the dinner table surrounded by my family.

I didn't know how to describe the well of sorrow that tear open my chest to anyone and lost my appetite. Mama asked me what was wrong and I didn't know how to explain to her, because my grandma was sitting across the table to me enjoying her pork ribs.

I cried to myself in the shower for a long time.

When mama asked me about my redden cheeks and stuffy nose, I said that I might've come down with a cold. But she still sent me to school to the next day.

Back then, seven people plus one baby lived in the government-issued apartment building, my grandma would cook for my family, my uncle's family, my grandpa and herself every single day. I eat her food for 18 years and never realised how much work it was until I was 25 and lived in another country by myself.

Grandma would moved in and out of kitchen, speed walk around the table and yelled at grandpa while putting food onto the table when it was dinner time. We had a big brown table, it looked like wood but was not, it had the edges folded inward and became a proper round dinner table when opened. We only made the table round and moved it to the centre of the tiny living room in New Years and other festivals.

Out of everything from my childhood, that table resinated with me the most and I could feel the everlasting stickiness and smell the residue of food every time I closed my eyes, even today. It had the smell of home, of grandma, of love.

Grandma always moved so fast and I couldn't keep track of how on earth she could do so many things at the same times and still had time to yell at me to finish my food before leave the dinner table.

Grandma was always talkative and charming in her own way. Everyone in the complex knew her and she would stop and talk to anyone, laughed and gossiped and exchanged receipts, even through her receipts of stewed beef was top; she also knew everyone in the market near by, the vendors would put their best sweet potato and rice noodle on the side for her without being asked.

Grandma always tell everyone in the complex how much a good kid I was, I was told to greet everyone politely and I would remember all her friend's family name and greet them properly. Apparently what I consider as bare minimal was a rarity in most kids my age.

Grandma once told me when we were playing outside on a warm summer night, when she passed away she would become the most shinning star in the night sky and watched over me forever. I had laughed, because in my tiny little brain, grandma was never gonna leave me and forever sounds like a very, very long time.

I was 28 when Grandma passed away.

It was winter in Sydney, I was having lunch in front of my desk in the office and reviewing some work for a client that was coming in for an appointment that afternoon when mama called.

It was grandma, she said and I collapsed to the ground, weeping.

When I saw her the last time, grandma was not the grandma in my memory.

She was in a wheel chair - age and illness took away her ability to do anything independently. She was not the charming and witty woman that I remembered, she sat in the chair and looked at the TV blankly. The TV was not even on.

"Nai nai, I'm home," I said when I entered her room, she didn't react as if she didn't hear me.

I leaned over and grabbed her winkled and shanking hand. She slowly turn around, her eyes were almost foggy. She looked at me for a moment and her eyes cleared.

"Little pea, you are back," she said and started to tear up. I cried myself to sleep many nights after that.

We had Chinese New Year dinner together with my dad's side of family and his new wife. When we about to leave, I was standing few steps away from my family and watching people coming in and out while waiting for my uncle to pull the car around. Grandma was in the chair and starring at nothing, but out of sudden, she stood up and started to walk towards me.

Dad grabbed her arm and lead her back to the wheel chair, she was in no condition to walk by herself. Her lips moved but did not say anything, she just looked at me with profound sadness and I knew because I shared that feelings from many many years ago.

Somehow I knew it might be the last time I would see her, in this life, anyway.

The very last moment I ever saw my grandma was the day before I left to come back home in Sydney. She somehow found the strength to walk me to the apartment door, like the thousands of time she did when I was in school.

The 12 years I was in school, grandma would walk to me to the door and said "be safe on the way and come home right after school" and I would say loudly "grandma, I'm gonna go!"

She did not say "be safe", she just stood by the door and cried and watched me walking away.

I flew back home for the funeral that afternoon and slept in my childhood bed the night before funeral.

That night, I dreamed that grandma came to my door, smiled like her younger self, like the grandma I remembered, when she would happily cook for me and my whole family, when she would talk and laugh with people who's been long passed away, when she was not suffered from sickness and pain.

She said, "hey little pea, grandma gonna go now".

Hey grandma, I am 30 this year and I am really happy with who I am.

Hey grandma, I still watch the star every night to see you.

Hey grandma, how are you?