After eating with my parents today, my dad coaxed me to go visit nai nai with him once before school. My mom offered to take home the leftovers from lunch, but I gave her a confused look, so we all went. I never knew what the deal is with the two sides of my family.
We ran into her on her afternoon walk, outside the Selfhelp building she lives in. She smiled such a big smile, the kind that consumes your face from the eyes outward. I don't get moved the look; I think about how I'm going to inherit her protruding eyelids. She said it's so nice to see us. And that I never seem happy seeing her. I feign a smile and say hi.
She's so happy. She lives alone, but is not lonely. I don't think she's seen her spouse in years, maybe at least decade even. I don't think they talk to one another. For most of my life, she's been around my neighborhood, visiting us and our cousins, being warm and saying nice things. She brought me and my sister to church every Sunday for a several years when we were young. She bought me my first Bible when I had to memorize the names of all the books for Sunday school. I think she's not lonely because God is with her all the time. She brings Him to her when she chants the (Chinese) name of Christ almost every minute.
She used to babysit me. We would go around Flushing, and she'd put quarters in the rocking Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck because my parents thought those games were too pedestrian. When I grew up, she'd remind me of those adventures literally every time she saw me. Recently, she does it less because I made a note of it to her, but she still brings it up self-referentially. I don't think it comes from senility, we just don't have that much to talk about. She told my dad to visit ye ye when he's in China, but ye ye passed away a few months ago. Never really knew him.
She asked me if American schools teach me how to treat one's family, beyond worldly matters like history and politics. She warned me about high maintenance girlfriends. She reminded me about my dad's temper, and how he's gotten better. She said my mom was very frugal. When she chanted Jesus Christ, my dad brought her a chair to sit on. She said that God was giving her a chair because she loved Him, but my mom just laughed, derisively.
I know more intimately what my other family members mean to me. Not her.
