When there's a death in the family, life changes somehow. Nothing sudden or big, but a subtle shift of what life was and what life is now. My grandma's death, still so fresh in my mind, is a testament to how fragile life really is, and how in the span of a couple of minutes, the heart stops pumping, and the body goes cold. The last time I heard her speak, she was in a state of half sleep half wake, and she opened one eye to look at me. Just one eye. Her eye was a soft gray, muted and softened with age and bleary from too much time. Too much time on the bed, and from not remembering.
What I remember of her from my childhood is opening my mouth to be fed, like a baby bird waiting for the silver spoon--a shallow bowl of Grandma's dumplings and yams and meat buns. Her words came out in a slow sweet way, happy. Once when I was five or so, I was crying, most likely over something inconsequential, when my grandpa took out the camera. He had a strange amusement with documenting us while we were crying. It was the same when my mother was little. When the camera came out I cried even harder, as I lay across Grandma's lap and she traced circles on my back. I could see her other hand shooing my grandpa away, her head tilted towards him to give him her fiercest look, which was never very fierce. Looking at the pictures now make me laugh instead of cry. I remember pulling on her wrinkled skin, a soft and never ending topography of lines. I rubbed a red dot on her arm, wondering why it wouldn't go away. I think it was a birthmark. She called me her treasure, xiao bao bei.
I was in my advertising class when I found out. My phone was on silent, and 6 missed calls from my mom, and 5 missed calls from my cousin later, I received a text from my cousin: "Grandma passed away :(" I thought I could sit through the last 15 minutes of class, but. instead I left and I drove home, gave my mom a hug. She asked if I wanted to pray with her for Grandma, who is now with Jesus. For a while, I had felt a little numb in my faith, and of all prayers I didn't want this one to be an insincere one, so I said no. The disappointment on her face though, made me wish I hadn't said that word, so I took her hand and said, "Okay lets pray." So we prayed--her first, me second. I don't know what I said but I know that I meant every word, that it was honest, and that's what matters. God felt more present than He had in a while. I'd like to think that that was Grandma's gift to me, to shake me awake a little and remind me that I should be sad, but not too sad, because she's in a better place--that she is God's beloved, and that I am too.
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