3 minute read
GRANDMA'S STRING
by Meiting Chen
Grandma used to dance the waltz in the park every morning. Her floral pleated skirt swirling and swirling
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Like strings of unending ripples. She had a whole closet of beautiful clothes: Leather vest, corduroy jacket, long, delicious gowns of silk and velvet, Coats with crazy patterns that even mother didn’t dare to wear in public, But grandma would, after dancing, like a queen.
Strolling in the wet market with her little grocery cart, I could still count what was inside:
Smoked fish and sausage, snow peas, lotus roots, sweet potato veins, freshlyfried meatballs
She would teach me how to bargain, how to be sharp-eyed, how to make the vendor add a bundle of scallions for free.
Grandmas and grandpas mushroomed the streets with toddlers in their arms,
? Which one of your grandchildren is she?” They would ask
America.
What a foreign name. A land of opportunities?
But you have no one to take care of you over there.
Grandma cried one afternoon before I left for college.
We can never stretch our arms far enough to help you
When you are in trouble.
When you need help.
When you feel lonely.
When you are stressed
When you miss home.
When you miss us.
She took my hand with both hands.
How much I wish time would never move forward.
So you will never grow up, and we will never grow old.
How wonderful it would be that we forever stay this way.
A little girl sitting on a little stool in the backyard waiting for her breakfast
Cicadas singing summer in sycamore trees
I believe that each time one travels far from home
A layer of callous grows around the heart
A slight nod of the head before disappearing from the security checkpoint
A smile of reassurance that I would eat well and sleep well
Eye masks, neck pillow, slippers, a few snacks,
An international student is a seasoned traveler, proficient at bidding farewells
An apprentice of long-distance relationships.
You coach yourself to be tough-looking, to sharpen your accent
To say “small de-caf iced latte with almond milk” and “a chicken bowl to go”
To pretend you have watched that childhood TV show someone mentioned;
To cook for Chinese New Year while finishing up a paper
To decide everything for yourself
You start to call your parents less and less often because they no longer understand your thoughts
To experience reverse cultural shock when going back home
To slowly realize that there are fewer and fewer friends in your hometown
To anxiously debate if you should get a job in the U.S or in China.
And you stay for one more year. Then another year. Then another year after that. Years would pass with a blink of an eye from the moment you first landed.
At some point, you start to wonder what difference does it make
To say that I grew up in China
Vs. I am from China
To say that I have studied in the U.S when I was 15
Vs. I have come to the U.S when I was 15
Is an international student also part of the diaspora?
The line between two homes, between being a student and an immigrant has become so thin
That you can simply cross if you will it.
But somehow that line has also always been a long, long string Grandma knitted it every time before I left for the airport
As I laid my hands on my suitcase, She gently tied it around my wrist
And as the cab moved away from her, she tossed and yanked it
Telling me that she would hold its other end as tightly as she could for as long as she could
And I flew like a kite, 7477 miles away.
Last month Grandma let go of the string.
Was I supposed to feel grief?
I only knew that actually I was falling
Spiraling down like a broken kite
How do you mourn when you are 7477 miles away?
When mother told me that she cleared out most of grandma’s closet, I cried for the first time since her death.
Inside my family we never say “I love you”
But I know grandma meant exactly that
And perhaps so much more
The way she looked at me
When she laid out piles of skirts she had bought and saved just for me
The way she watched me trying them on in front of the mirror
One by one
Before dinner was ready. ■
