I'm flying to San Diego in two hours, and everything from arriving at home (from San Diego) on Tuesday up until now has been busy enough that I haven't yet had time to start hyperventilating about the flight.
Yesterday, on the way from the bank to my friend's house to help cook, I stopped by my grandmother's. I didn't think she'd be home, I thought she'd be with my grandpa in the convalescent home, but both cars were there so I went in to say hi. The house smells the same as it has my whole life, despite everything that's happened in it, and my grandmother's hug was the same, despite the twenty-five pounds she's lost in the last few months. She told me about the horrible weekend they had had - my aunt, who's now living with them, had to get a massive cyst removed, and after my grandmother took her to surgery, my aunt developed, seriatim, two kidney stones. They spent all weekend in the emergency room, and when they weren't there my grandmother was taking care of my grandfather at the hospital, or on the phone with the VA trying to get him a wheelchair and a hospital bed. Life goes on, she said. When I told her about Jesse, and the receptionist who has been consisently rude to him, she sat up straighter and straighter and her eyes narrowed and then when I was mid-sentence, she - eighty-two and heavily wrinkled, growing frailer with age, a Catholic - cut me off to snap with more venom than I've yet been able to muster, "They need to fire that bitch."
Today we went to San Mateo to see my other grandmother; we went to the mall and she tried on a pair of jeans at a store to get a free movie ticket - some promotion they were having - and we laughed as she complained how low they were. Later, as we drove to lunch, she pointed to a pair of teenage girls crossing the street: you know the type. Heavily makeuped, deliberately laughing, too young for the clothing they're wearing. "Look, I coulda looked like them!" she said, then laughed at her own joke. She asked about Jesse and corrected my Cantonese, and shoved money into my hands. She told us to come back next week for lunch. When we ate today, she took five or six bites and declared she was full, dumping all her food on my plate. "Take it to Jesse," she said. I protested that I was going on an airplane, and that it wouldn't keep, and she gave me a little travel cooler and ice packs, saying, "He'll be hungry when you get there."
My dad bought me my plane ticket to San Diego - round-trip last minute, it was several hundred dollars. Today, in between Brett's piano lesson and going to San Mateo, my mom insisted we go to Trader Joe's so we could buy food for Jesse as he's recovering from surgery. I kept saying we didn't have to, it was okay, but we went anyway.
I wanted to see my grandmothers, and my family these few days I was home, because I wanted to remember what I come from. And I think I did.
Yesterday, on the way from the bank to my friend's house to help cook, I stopped by my grandmother's. I didn't think she'd be home, I thought she'd be with my grandpa in the convalescent home, but both cars were there so I went in to say hi. The house smells the same as it has my whole life, despite everything that's happened in it, and my grandmother's hug was the same, despite the twenty-five pounds she's lost in the last few months. She told me about the horrible weekend they had had - my aunt, who's now living with them, had to get a massive cyst removed, and after my grandmother took her to surgery, my aunt developed, seriatim, two kidney stones. They spent all weekend in the emergency room, and when they weren't there my grandmother was taking care of my grandfather at the hospital, or on the phone with the VA trying to get him a wheelchair and a hospital bed. Life goes on, she said. When I told her about Jesse, and the receptionist who has been consisently rude to him, she sat up straighter and straighter and her eyes narrowed and then when I was mid-sentence, she - eighty-two and heavily wrinkled, growing frailer with age, a Catholic - cut me off to snap with more venom than I've yet been able to muster, "They need to fire that bitch."
Today we went to San Mateo to see my other grandmother; we went to the mall and she tried on a pair of jeans at a store to get a free movie ticket - some promotion they were having - and we laughed as she complained how low they were. Later, as we drove to lunch, she pointed to a pair of teenage girls crossing the street: you know the type. Heavily makeuped, deliberately laughing, too young for the clothing they're wearing. "Look, I coulda looked like them!" she said, then laughed at her own joke. She asked about Jesse and corrected my Cantonese, and shoved money into my hands. She told us to come back next week for lunch. When we ate today, she took five or six bites and declared she was full, dumping all her food on my plate. "Take it to Jesse," she said. I protested that I was going on an airplane, and that it wouldn't keep, and she gave me a little travel cooler and ice packs, saying, "He'll be hungry when you get there."
My dad bought me my plane ticket to San Diego - round-trip last minute, it was several hundred dollars. Today, in between Brett's piano lesson and going to San Mateo, my mom insisted we go to Trader Joe's so we could buy food for Jesse as he's recovering from surgery. I kept saying we didn't have to, it was okay, but we went anyway.
I wanted to see my grandmothers, and my family these few days I was home, because I wanted to remember what I come from. And I think I did.
posted by Kelly at
3:19 PM
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