hi grandpa!

爷爷 你还好吗

Dear Grandpa,

here’s everything i wanted to tell you.

I don’t even know if I should use English or Chinese. My own language doesn’t feel authentic anymore because it’s been sucked up by this foreign place for too long. But using English doesn’t feel authentic either. Nothing feels authentic anymore, because my head speaks in a language you don’t understand. 

i miss you telling stories of what we were like as children, what lizzy and evelyn were like as toddlers. it was like discovering the childish side of my older sisters that i never knew. you used to spend time with us and take us everywhere, on small errands like taking us to the supermarket or getting ice cream. we’ve picked kerria flowers in gardens and parks together since i first started remembering things.

Until that became just a story. I watched your legs give way to age, and your presence became a raven perched over us in the distance, in the house on the red rocking chair.

It didn’t matter if you told me the same stories over and over - I’d be glad to reminisce about the moments you cherished, several times over.

I never told you how I felt so incredibly loved by you, and I was too timid, hesitant, or whatever. I didn’t learn how to verbally express love until now.

As I grew up, I didn’t have as much time to spend time with you. I didn’t know how to tell you that I really wished I had more chances and reasons to play with you like how you’d entertain a toddler. It was almost like I didn’t know how to anymore, as my life didn’t involve you as much as it did when I was a toddler.

Like when you and grandma would go on walls picking kerria flowers from bushes in the neighborhood. How you taught me to make a wish after blowing dandelion seeds away.

Do you ever miss me being a kid again?

I don’t know how everyone else handled the fact that you’ll never come out of that hospital again. I don’t know how you handle that yourself.

I watched you, as it wasn’t just your legs that gave way to age, and then it was the other muscle on your body that you lost control of, and then your ability to swallow, and now your lips and eyes.

vegetative.

then, a coma.

critical condition.

And I couldn’t even look at you when I was trying to say goodbye before I left for America.

It’s because I can’t bear the thought that I won’t see you again. And the thought that one day I never will.

Why do you tear up every single time a family member visits you, even if grandma comes almost every day? Why do you still tear up after you lost the ability of speech, and the loss of control over your own limbs and body? You struggled to stop uncontrollably clenching your fists together, but when I told you it hurt to hold your hand, you still let go. 

That’s when I realized I lost the chance to listen to you talk about your stories, about your life, about everything that makes you come out of your paralysis, if only for a while.

I miss you. I miss you ever since we first started growing apart. I miss you even when life gets so overwhelming to me.

Please, give me some time so I get another chance to talk to you. Please, wait for me until I go home.

Best,

嘎嘎

update: he peacefully passed the next morning after I called. I went home a month later. 

I wish I could’ve said goodbye.

Emily Wu