A Day with Grandma

Timothy Lum

10-4-2010

RD2

A Day with Grandma

Loathe, it seems that that is the only word strong enough in the English language to express how I felt at that moment.  The white Batman t-shirt I was wearing mimicked a heat compress as it stuck to my body.  Everything was quiet, and everything was blurry.  At the glorious age of five, naps were never a joyous occasion;  neither was it waking up from one.  Silently, I contemplated whether or not to make another effort to fall asleep.  Oh how deceitful pillows can be at 2pm; on the surface they are delicate hosts to a restful paradise, but deep within its cushy exterior is a molten core.  Deciding to forego the struggle to sleep in the heat, I climbed down my warm bed and navigated to the door.  As I stepped out of the door way and into kitchen, a waft of salty savory goodness greeted me.  Grandma had been cooking lunch as I napped.  A woman barely 5'0 tall, she was the stereotypical size of a Chinese person.  Grandma was a very humble person, and her attire spoke of it loudly.  She must have had it for years, her matching purple top and pants were thin from the many encounters with the washing machine.  She turned to me with a smile and said "look at your hair, it's like you woke up from the sidewalk."  It was true, I did look as though I had spent a night under a bridge somewhere, but all I could think about was how thin Grandmas' hair was.  [Thesis]Diagnosed with lung cancer, and having undergone chemo therapy, my Grandmother was barely a phantom of her former self.[Thesis]

As I sat down to lunch, still trying to mentally awaken, my Grandmother presented me with a steaming hot bowl of rice.  The menu my Grandmother had prepared was very simple, and yet robust with flavor.  Lunch that afternoon consisted of sautéed skirt steak slices on a bed of steamed broccoli.  The first bite of the steak sent me into overdrive; it was as if the beef was marinated with an anti-groggy serum, and the gravy that accompanied it carried the same active ingredients you would find in energy drinks.  My Grandmother must have been amused watching my sudden Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde like transformation.  As with all five year olds with a fully charged battery, I talked...and talked.  My conversations with my Grandmother that day was as sporadic as a movie trailer; I would reveal my disbeliefs at how she was my father's mother, I confessed saying how my sisters were secretly robots, I tried to gain sympathy from the loss of my snack sized pack of Doritos, and how I had miraculously discovered the secret to self propelled flight.  As I went on ranting about the drama that was my life; Grandma just sat there with her legs folded neatly humoring me. 

Sometime between revealing my sisters dual identities and explaining how I distinctly left my chips on the dinner table, my Grandmother decided that it was time I broadened my taste horizons.  She brought out a flat metal pan, not much bigger than saimin bowl, with a very reflective surface and dusted with a healthy portion of pepper.  My Grandma offered it to me to use as a condiment for my beef, needless to say, I declined her offer for fear of the intense prolonging effects spicy things had on my tongue.  After a persistent nudging, I reluctantly took up my fork, sank a piece of my beef into the pepper, and took a bite.  Sure, it sounds like all of that hoopla happened in a matter of seconds, but for me it was as if time slowed down.  I could feel a nervous sweat drip down the back of my neck, my eyes widened and all that could come into focus was the piece of beef careening towards my mouth.  To my surprise, the pepper was not hot at all; in fact, save for a slightly tingly sensation dancing on my taste buds, it was mild.  I'll always remember that day, for it was the events of that day I attribute my love of spicy foods.

During the first few years of consciousness, my Grandmother was my primary caregiver and educator, second only to my parents.  I would often spend entire days in her care, these days that were once routine are now some of my most treasured memories. 

My Grandmother enjoyed many things, one of them was gardening.  It was typical that after lunch, I would accompany my Grandmother into the garden to water the plants.  She always looked so proud and happy in the garden.  Grandma would take the time to manually search her plants for slugs; and when she found them, she would excitedly call for me to watch her execute them with her pair of scissors.  My Grandmother was a hard worker, and her garden showcased it.  My Grandmother grew many things, but if there was anything to be truly proud of, it would be of the squash that she cultivated.  The squash that my Grandmother grew were enormous; they resembled green torpedoes covered in a fine armor of hair like spikes.  When it came time to harvest the squash, she would always request that my dad take a picture of it.  In order to showcase the sheer size of her squash, she would always recruit me to model next to them.

There was only one time in my life in which I can remember not being happy with my Grandmother.  One year my cousins from San Francisco visited, and my Grandmother took them to Ala Moana and bought all my cousins toys while I was at school.  I was obviously jealous and a little resentful because I had never received a toy of any kind from my Grandmother.  But as I look back on it, I received so much more from my Grandmother.  In fact, out of all her grandchildren, I had the privilege of spending the most time with my Grandmother.