爷爷好! hello, grandpa!
a reflection on grief and a grandfather's unspoken love. in memory of my grandfather, whom i would do anything to hug one more time
I’ve always been told I look more like my grandfather than my dad. And it’s true. We have the exact same eyebrows (thick, bushy and more triangular than I would have liked), the exact same eyes (hooded), and a very similarly structured nose. The one thing I wish I got from him was his height (he was at least 6’0), which sadly my dad did not inherit either.
It was no secret that I was much closer to my mom’s parents than my dads. When I was a child, they would fly from Taiwan to Connecticut to stay with us almost every summer. I cannot recall when my dad’s dad visited us in the States, but there is one photograph lying somewhere that proved it was at least once. I can count on one hand the amount of times I remember seeing him in person.
It always felt somewhat awkward when I did see him in person, because unlike my mom’s dad, I had no clue what to talk about with him. But I knew he adored me like no other. The way he hugged me and held my hand after my mom and I greeted him at the Banqiao Train Station. He did not let go of my hand for the entire 10 minute walk back to his home. While I didn’t feel entirely comfortable holding hands with a man I honestly barely knew, I noticed his hands felt exactly like my dads. Thick, slightly rough, and warm. I was 12 or 13 at the time, and little did I know that that would be the last time I would see him alive.
As I got older it was harder for me to visit Taiwan for an extended amount of time because of school, so I didn’t. After I went off to college, my parents would take turns going to Taiwan for months at a time to take care of their parents. When it was my dad’s turn to go to Taiwan, he would FaceTime me weekly. As he turned the camera to my grandpa, I would wave and say 爷爷好 (a formal way to say hello grandpa in Chinese). He was a man with little words (as with most elderly folks), and usually words from his end took the form of “心怡这么漂亮” (Tiffany is so pretty!), or “心怡有没有男朋友” (does Tiffany have a boyfriend?), or “心怡设么时候来台湾玩” (when will Tiffany visit Taiwan?). When I moved to Seattle, my dad would coincidentally FaceTime me every time I was in the middle of cooking, and I felt bad that I couldn’t give my full attention to 爷爷. I always thought that maybe I should have tried to converse with him more, but I realize 爷爷 was perfectly content with just being able to see me. No words required. So I showed him my apartment. I showed him the food I made. I sat down to eat, staring at him as he stared at me. That awkwardness I had felt years prior sometimes creeped back, but I imagine he was just trying to soak up every pixel of me on his screen.
It was the start of summer in 2023 when we decided we would visit Taiwan in February, partly for fun but also to visit my dad’s parents. It would be my first time going back in nearly a decade. So when 爷爷 asked “你们设么时候来台湾玩” (when are you guys going to visit Taiwan?), I was happy that I could finally give him a response that he would be happy to hear. “二月间, 爷爷再见!”. (I’ll see you in February, bye grandpa!). That would be the last thing I would ever say to him.
Late summer of 2023, I heard the news that 爷爷 was in the hospital. This wasn’t the first time this happened, and he seemed to make a full recovery (he always did) and would be on his way back home. And he did make it home.
So when I was woken up at 3 AM from a call from my mom, wondering why on earth she would call me at this hour, and heard hysterical crying when I did answer, I knew what was happening. “Grandpa is dying”, she screamed into the phone. I immediately FaceTime my dad, where I learn that 爷爷 was hospitalized shortly after being discharged, and this time he wasn’t going to make it. I watch my dad, whom I’ve never seen cry in my life, struggle to hold back tears as he comforts his dad with words that we will never know if he ever actually heard.
The thing about Asian immigrants is that they will never, ever, cry in front of their children. So in the rare case that they do, it is never talked about, or mentioned ever again. So naturally, I did the same. We cried behind separate doors and then came together like nothing ever happened.
For the next few days (and admittedly many months after), guilt towered over me. I felt guilty for not prioritizing visiting him. I felt guilty for hating my eyebrows, always plucking the triangular part off because it looked manly. I felt guilty when my mom asked me why I wanted to come to his funeral. She wasn’t trying to be rude, but because she thought I wasn’t very close to him. 爷爷 just wanted me to be in his presence, so going to his funeral was the very least I could do.
So here I was on a flight to Taiwan, in September instead of February, for all the wrong reasons. When I finally see him again, he is dead, not alive. I hold his hand one more time, and it was just how I remembered it feeling years prior. Thick, slightly rough, but this time, cold. Very, very, cold.
At his funeral, 爷爷’s best friend walks in wailing. Everyone falls silent as his cries echoed throughout the room. I still think about that moment as the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. When he sees me, he holds my hand and tells me how much 爷爷 cared about me. “He thought about you all the time”. “I know”, I say squeezing his hand. And when I walked into 爷爷’s home shortly after the funeral, I did know. I saw pictures of me everywhere. Every high school yearbook photo of mine was placed under his glass top desk.
I hug my parents goodbye as they head toward their gate to fly back to NYC, while I head towards my gate to fly back to Seattle. My mom texts me a picture of my dad waving to the camera when they board the plane. I immediately burst into tears. I sit quietly in the car as my (ex) boyfriend drives me back to my apartment. He knows he can’t say anything to comfort me, so when I start uncontrollably sobbing, he hugs me, until I decide to let go.
My dad always chuckles when he tells people 爷爷 was snoring minutes before his heart gave out. So I take solace in the fact that 爷爷 truly passed peacefully in his sleep.
The things I would do to be able to say 爷爷好! to him just one more time, to hold his warm, thick, slightly rough hands just one more time. But I guess that’s what grief is. You never really get over it, you just learn to live with it; the regret, the emptiness, the sadness, all of it.
thank you for sharing this beautifully haunting piece on grief