I may not be a lady;
but I'm all woman.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Jade in the home
Gong hei fatt choy everybody!
A day of firsts for me- The first time in my whole life I've had friends over on the first day of Chinese New Year. For us, the first day has always been strictly for visiting relatives, most of whom I regretfully only have a decent conversation and a good laugh with just once a year.
My beauty queen Chiayin and my ever-faithful neighbour Zhimin popped by today. I hope Zhimin was happy with the nice angbao my mom gave him, because I made him run with me yesterday after our respective reunion dinners. I threatened to throw a hissy fit if he didn't because he's been neglecting me :(
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I realized today that if you want to look for all the love in the world you should look into the eyes of your grandparents. Yesterday night at the reunion dinner with my paternal extended family, I saw the spark in my yeye's eyes when he recounted story after story to me. Stories about the war, about his difficult childhood, about working for the British government, about my dad and his siblings while they were growing up, and about my late great-granny. The spark in his eyes spoke of a beautiful pride, that he was passing on his life lessons to me, because he loves me and he wants a part of him to always stay with me.
Mama tells me the bed I slept on as a child is always kept for me to come back to, whenever I feel tired and need a rest badly. She cooks for me, asks me if she can make herbal drinks and soups when she notices I've lost weight or look paler than usual. And most of all, she sits with me at the marble dining table and talks the afternoon away with me. She's always been the first one to know about every single one of my boyfriends because I tell her everything.
Popo is impossible to not love. Today an Indian couple we all have never met greeted her while she was walking to my house with a "Popo! Happy New Year!", to which she flashed a toothy dentured grin and hollered "Gong Hei Fatt Choy!". She doesn't speak anything besides Cantonese. And it doesn't stop anyone from loving her and from feeling her love. She's had such a tough life filled with so much tribulation and hardship, but I think that's what made her the way she is today. She's fatalistic about a lot of things, but she's so proud of each and every single one of her grandchildren, just about as proud as we are of her. I draw inspiration from her simple faith, her simple attitude to life, the simple things she takes pleasure in, and the simple love she has for me and all her other grandchildren. I hope that more than makes up for the pain she went through before.
I'm glad Chiayin got to experience that love when she came over today and met popo. If there's one thing I have that I'm proud of, it's the love of my grandparents, and I'm more than happy to share that with people I in turn love. The most precious smile in the world:
Laid bare
at 11:44 pm
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