The day of the Spirits

I didn’t know what to expect when we came to the funeral today.  I knew it was a strange coincidence that my grandmother’s funeral falls on Halloween this year, but I only just realized this in the car on the way there.   Like most everyone in Taiwan, people have dabbled in more than one religion in their lives, for a while, my grandmother was a devout Christian.  My mother has chosen a semi-traditional Buddhist ceremony for her mother’s passing, which seems to be the more common thing to do here in Taiwan.  I am thankful that there was a team of funeral helpers to guide us through the process, it keeps things going, as if it was left up to the family alone, the deceased would never quite properly cross over to the other side.

an anonymous, passing monk, en route

I found chanting with the monk to be strangely comforting; unfamiliar, but comforting.  The rhythmic monotony and strange melismas calm my unsettling thoughts and body, part of me observes the ceremony as a cultural experience, until my eyes settle on my grandmother’s picture, and then the image disappears into a blur.  In the photo, my grandmother smiles coyly with sparkles in her eyes, wearing a bright red scarf.  I can’t seem to connect the memories of her to the present moment, not even with the open casket.  I could barely recognize her.  I am grateful to see my grandmother for the last time, but I refuse to replace her in my mind with this body I see before me.

I found great comfort in words like ‘a celebrated life’ and the thought that she’s possibly reunited with my maternal grandfather, but the present moment still grasps me by the throat and my breaths become shallow.  I watch as my mother identifies the body and signs a sheet of paper in the mortuary.  I wait outside as we were told it takes one and a half hour for the cremation to be completed.  What does one do during this time?  There was a whirlwind of movements and sounds and colors everywhere I turned, all moving at an unsettling speed.  It seems like life accelerates once the heart stops beating, or rather, maybe death just surprises us no matter how prepared we think we are but we are never really ready for it. I listen to the incessant bells rung by the monk as each family follows hurriedly behind a casket going every which way.  I see big black limos, trucks load and unload golden statues of Buddha and flowers.  I watch the coroner as he picks out bits of burnt beads from the tray of grandmother’s ashes and asks if she wore a necklace.   I watch my uncle carry an impossibly heavy marble urn as he tries to place it in a ‘final resting place’ that is not much different from a bank vault, except it was adorned in gold, well, maybe even that is not much different from a bank vault in Asia, I imagine.  I try to imagine my grandmother living in these ‘eternal apartments’ (at least for the next 50 years or so), looking out to a dense subtropical mountain in a light rain, wondering if this was what she would have wanted, and if she is really finally at peace.  I watch, I feel, I imagine, but I can’t seem to breathe, it feels as if the weight of the urn is on my chest.

a forgotten and overgrown grave by the funeral home from decades ago

Hours later, here I sit, having a first moment to be with myself and my thoughts.  It feels strangely empty, as if one should walk away from a day like today with a prize or a souvenir, why?  I’m not sure.  I carried a large framed picture of my grandmother in an elevator to our hotel room with a heavy bag of fruit, another bag of fruit.  It seems like nobody knows quite what to do with so much fruit associated with a traditional funeral, it got passed around among everyone present at the funeral.  The day is finally over, as I sit here, waiting for that unbearable lightness to arrive, but all I feel so far is still the weight on my chest, and these heavy bags of fruit.

I salute you, NaiNai, may you rest in peace and be joyous in your next journey.

for my grandmother

My grandmother died last night.  Even reading the words in my mother’s email this morning felt empty.  She was 95 years old, or at least that’s what we’ve figured, and has been quite weak for several years, but still, when the news finally arrived, the words seemed unexpected, unreal, empty.  I have been fluctuating between feeling a profound sadness and being uncomfortable with the sadness and thus busying myself with superficial tasks around the house.  I told myself it may be helpful to just be still and let the sadness come through, but after a few minutes, I would get up and transplant plants, or clean the window sills.  It’s safe to say I am at a loss.

When I called my mother, she had been ‘reading prayers’ for the past seven hours throughout the night for my grandmother.  Her voice would periodically break up and she sounded exhausted.  She said this is something she plans to do for the next 7 weeks, once a week.  She flies from Shanghai to Taiwan to do this.  I told her I wanted to be there for her now, but she said it’s not necessary, but appreciates the thought.

When my grandfather died, the way I found out about his death was when I asked my mother when I could book a flight to see him, she told me that he had been gone for a few months, and she did not want to “worry me”.  I walked around for a few months after that, bursting into sobs at every inappropriate time imaginable.  When I finally got to visit my grandfather’s grave, I looked into the strange photo of him somebody embedded onto a marble and asked for forgiveness.  It didn’t help, I still break into sobs whenever I think about my grandfather.

We had booked 4 tickets for the whole family to go and perhaps see my grandmother for the last time in about two and a half weeks.  We had been doing this for the last five years or so, every time thinking it may be the last time.  My mother had emailed me about my grandmother going into the hospital again, and I did not call right away, thinking this strong woman would pull through again, as she always had.  Not this time.

I grew up with my grandparents until I was 11 years old.  I was very close to my grandfather throughout most of our lives together, although he was not related to me by blood.  My grandmother has always been a difficult woman, she had the typical characteristics of a Chinese woman from another era, and a woman that has survived a war.  She was stubborn, possessed a sharp tongue that could cut through the strongest integrity in a person,  extremely opinionated and very, very charming while being all of the above.  We had a slow falling out since I left home at the age of 18, mainly because I couldn’t stand the way she treated my grandfather.  My grandparents slept in two single beds next to each other with a nightstand in between, and on which she had a photo of her previous husband, my mother’s father, and according to grandma, her only love.  A few years ago, I was visiting her in Chicago, and I wanted to know about her childhood, so I asked her how many siblings she had with her while growing up, to which she answered, ‘ by which mother do you mean? my father had a few wives, so we had quite a few siblings.’  It was comments like these that reminded me how far she has come: growing up in the imperial China, escaping the Communist regime by fleeing alone with two young children to Taiwan, leaving behind an older daughter and losing a husband who stayed and fought the Communists as a high rank leader.

Throughout the day today when I would cut a piece of bread, or wrap up a piece of left over melon, I would remember how she was a passionate cook, and eater, picky in every ingredient she used.  She would eat spicy food even when her blood pressure would rise and the blood vessels in her eyes would burst, but she would hide the spicy sauce in her fridge and add it to everything she ate.  When I visited her in her home, I would raid her fridge and throw it away, and the next time I return, it would be there again.  I remember cutting her hair for her in her home, and laughing over how skilled (or not) I was.  I remember wheeling her to a nice restaurant in her wheelchair for one of the only annual outings she gets to go on, and the faces the other customers would make because of the inconvenience of having to move their chairs in order to access the wheelchair.  I remember the smile she had when I complimented on how beautiful her hair looked when it was thin and white, and I remember how she told me that everyone who is thinner than her was too thin, and those who are heavier are too heavy.  She never apologized and rarely shed a tear.

I recognize my grandmother’s traits in my mother, and my mother in me, and recently, all of us in my daughter.   It isn’t something worth trying to escape, but maybe something to recognize and embrace.  The strength, the determination, and the fragility and need to be loved but are too stubborn to ask for it, the thick wall we built in order to show that we don’t need the very thing that sustains us as a family, the connection between one and another.  Between the four generations, we lived on  3 continents and 5 countries.  It sounds impossible, but it’s true, it’s our life.
We are used to being independent.  I salute you, mom and nai nai (what I called my grandmother): you are my lineage and I cherish the you that have created me and is a big foundation of who I am today.