20:
“I am flying back to Taiwan tomorrow afternoon. Uncle told me that Grandpa is not doing good and the doctor now gives him around 1-2 weeks to live. Although we had known it coming for two years, it is still hard to take it. I am sad.”
…
I open up my email searching for something else when I find the message from my mother. I read it once quickly, then close the window.
I feel suddenly that my understanding of the world has greatly shifted. All that I have gingerly and painstakingly procured is flaking apart, with no solid base underneath.
Last August:
|
I called Taiwan last night to speak to my grandfather.
“Everything’s great!” he says. “Tell me if you need money! I will give it to you!” I feel like his laugh is a little too loud. “You are welcome here, anytime you want to visit!” he nearly shouts into the receiver.
When my mom gets on the phone, I ask how he’s doing. I say he sounds pretty good.
“Of course he sounds good over the phone. He always does that.”
“At least he has the energy to pretend.”
The prognosis is end of November. I tell my mom I will be back in October.
“Yes,” she agrees. “It’s a good idea to come back while he can still enjoy your company.”
When I was living in Taiwan, I would visit him on the weekends. He liked having his grandchildren around, and would hand over his favorite recliner and the TV remote for the days I stayed. For my 24th birthday, I traveled to Szechuan and forgot to tell him. He was in a panic trying to find me to wish me a happy birthday. I had to apologize when I got back; he wasn’t very happy with me. |
Last week:
“I know it sounds ridiculous,” I say as I book my ticket, “but I feel like he’ll be really mad if I don’t fly back for his funeral.”
This week:
A large and intermittent sadness sits heavily on top of my chest. I rub my sternum miserably. I miss him.
24:
“Ma’am, you’re ticket doesn’t have your first name printed. Do you see that? It’s just your first initial. I’m going to need you to step to the side.”
The way the security officer speaks sounds like baby talk to me. I think about whether or not I find this condescending, but the woman with the bad ticket has bigger things on her mind. And in truth, I find his tone kind of soothing.
Going through airport security is so stressful for me. The worry that I’ll have something confiscated lurks in the back of my mind. And after reading this story about arbitrary detainment at Heathrow airport, I hold my breath going through every metal detector.
In any other circumstance, I would find his slowed and gentle speech insulting. But today, I like it. He sounds nice.
“Thank you,” he says to me after he takes my ticket and he writes something on the back of it. He points me toward the x-ray conveyor belt. I exhale.
The last time I flew to Taiwan, it was because we had just learned of my grandfather’s terminal diagnosis.
My mom rushed to purchase our tickets the week after her brother called.
“Yours cost me $700,” she told me, letting the silence hang for a while before moving on.
In the garage on the day of departure, she grabbed a tree stump my dad had dug out the backyard and beat the hell out of the stubborn, plastic handle of her suitcase, her hair and tears flying off in crazy directions like the pieces of plastic. I watched in silence.
“Shit shit shit shit shit,” she hissed wildly. My dad went into the hallway closet to bring out another suitcase. We transferred all her things over in less than a minute.
Two months later she kicked me out of the house. We didn’t speak for almost a year.
This time, my mom and I end up staggering our visits. Your grandfather is deteriorating, she tells me before I leave. He has lived almost a year beyond what doctors first projected. My mom left to see him six weeks before.
“Call me if there’s a problem,” she says before she drives off. I push my luggage to the check-in counter. She calls me an hour later.
At the boarding gate, I watch an interracial couple share a bottle of water. Her stage-like make-up is the first thing I notice. Her giant, shiny ring, the second. Our eyes meet when she sees me watching; I don’t look away.
“All women want to feel secure and safe,” I say to you on the phone while waiting to board. I can’t hear you nod or roll your eyes.
“What is wrong with you?” I ask, not completely serious.
“What is wrong with you?” you counter.
On the plane, the couple sits in the aisle in front of me. The girl notices as soon as I do and occasionally turns around to look at me. After the plane takes off, I watch her weep at a sad movie and help serve the ahma sitting in the window seat beside her. She seems nice.
I tell everyone before I leave that I am excited for this trip. “It’ll be good to see family,” I repeat. But there’s nothing I can do to help him. There’s nothing I can do to make it better. Or make it less bad. Or change anything. The space behind my sternum feels thick and weighty when I think about this.
It starts raining the day after I arrive.
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