For my grandpa

I have always wanted to write something about my grandpa, the most important person of my childhood, but I always started writing something and felt like it was not enough, and then gave up. The thoughts had been strong since we last visited China, and I felt the need to write something to remember and honor him. When we were there this past April, my grandpa could hardly hear us, had to move around with the help of a cane, a lot of times, he still remembered us but seemed really distant… It’s so sad to see the person you used to know and love so dearly aged away…

My grandpa taught me to be active and to love running. He often told me the story of us walking and jogging. He said that before I could run, I would be wobbling after him every morning. When I started kindergarten, we would go running before school. It lasted for years, I couldn’t remember exactly when we stopped running together, but I kept on running by myself all the years of my youth. I still remember all the first couple years of elementary school, I would try out for short distance running every season but was always the last one to finish. And then one year, my coach decided to let me try out long distance running, and that was when he and I realized where my strength was lying. So I was a long distance runner ever since. I ran a marathon in middle school, all sorts of other long distances throughout my years in school, even in college, I ran and ran. I never felt tired running, I would wake up early and run and run; I thought I was obsessed with running. Only when I was running I felt everything was going to be ok, and I would be able to face everything in life as long as I didn’t stop running. Whenever I was stressed or mad at my life, I would go for a long run, and it always helped me to get my good mood back. It was like my secret stress reliever. It’s a shame though, that my knees started hurting when I ran, and I have basically quit running a few years ago when I was pregnant. I hardly ever run any more, I often think that maybe I did too much when I was little and now I sort of hate it. This is one reason that I wanted to write it out because I feel a great guilt that I stopped running, and I owe so much to running, to my grandpa who taught me to love running.

My grandpa was a huge influence in my years of schooling. He was a teacher for many years and a principle at some point. He valued education more than anybody back then. When I was in kindergarten, I was a year younger than most of my classmates. Elementary school would not accept me and 4 others into their first grade because we were too young. It would be fine, except that I was devastated. All my friends who I played every day with in kindergarten, were going to first grade without me… If being a so called “worthless girl” didn’t ruin my hope for future, then that “age limit” may have defeated me. My grandpa hated to use his influence but stepped up for me and bargained a “test” for me and 4 others who were the same age as me, the deal was that if we tested at good scores then we get to go to elementary school. And of course, I didn’t disappoint my grandpa. In fact, trying not to disappoint my grandpa had been my goal for a long time until the “trying to be better than my brother so my parents will notice me” took over later. When it was time for high school, I was lucky to be one of the few that got picked from the village middle school to go to high school in the city. I had to live in the dorm in the city. Funny thing was that I cried the first few days of school, mostly missing my grandpa. And then of course, the tomboy me had a hard time getting along with girly girls and they ganged up on me and isolated me as a weirdo. At the same time, they were probably jealous that boys loved to hang out with me and called me “Big Brother”, my high school nick name. I was quite the influence among boys, but the outsider among girls. Eventually, I got into a big argument with a girl who was the leader of my roommates and she made sure my life was like hell in the dorm. So I decided that I either quit living in the dorm or I quit high school. My grandpa stepped up again for me to live with me in my aunt’s empty apartment in the city so that I could have permission to live off campus. I was humiliated and felt guilty all the time. I wondered but couldn’t figure out why girls would give me so much trouble, why they just didn’t like me and I had to bother my grandpa to move to the city for me. But I was also grateful that he was there for me, I could have slipped and fell and never got up again, but my grandpa saved me. He gave me strength to go forward, he showed me that there was still hope in me, even though I was so confused. In college, I was not the most likeable one in the dorm, but I kept my relationship acceptable, and nobody hated me so that was good. I survived living in a dorm full of girls and I called that a success. It’s funny though, my life’s biggest challenge as ever as now, has always been maintaining a good relationship with female, I still struggle till this day. I wonder if not having a mom figure in my life has contributed to that or that my grandpa was the only person that taught me most of the things I know.

Because of my grandpa, I love all fatty food, chicken skin, pig fat, pig feet, chicken feet… I know it sounds disgusting to most people. But my grandpa loved eating them and I was always the one that ate all that with him. Now days whenever I ate something fatty, it always reminded me my grandpa, the years of being an innocent child who got all excited over a bowl of chicken skins that the whole family “saved” for me. It’s not that I eat super unhealthy or something, I think the concept of enjoying food was the main point that I got from it. I may even enjoy food a little too much, but I make peace with food and not make a battle out of it and for that, I am grateful for my grandpa.

My grandpa and I were a pack of two loners, we stuck together. When I was growing up, I thought that there were two people that my grandma disliked: My grandpa and me. It’s easy to understand why she disliked me; it’s simple: I was a “useless girl”. Why she disliked my grandpa was a little complicated and took me years to figure out, or not. She blames my grandpa for not having any sons; She was humiliated in front of the whole town because my grandpa was a teacher during the “Cultural Revolution”; And of course, my grandpa’s teacher salary was never much (and then he quit teaching to make more money, but it was never a lot), not enough to support the family of 6; All the years of open humiliation of having no sons by the mean village people; maybe there were more things that I would never know or understand and more. My grandma criticized me and my grandpa all the time and they fought all the time. My grandpa and I would always retreat to the “south room” to hide after such encounters and my grandpa had been living in the “south room” separately from my grandma’s “north rooms” for years now. I asked my mom why my grandma wouldn’t treat my grandpa better, my mom used to say that my grandparents fought their whole life and it’s like their ritual now. I don’t know if I’ll ever understand that, but one thing I know is that I love my grandpa dearly.

I think it’s safe to say that I owe a lot to my grandpa for what kind of person I am today. Despite all the discriminations for being a girl, I am grateful that my grandpa was always there in my life to be the one person that showed me love, showed me that I am worth fighting for. I am also lucky to have found the love of my life, who reminds me so much of my grandpa, who loves me for who I am and believes in me in a great deal, for that, I am grateful for the great qualities my grandpa inspired me to look for when looking for my husband. Thank you and I love you grandpa!