​Ông Mình
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Do you know the story of one thousand paper cranes? If you don't, or in need of a refresher, here’s a spiel: the crane is a mythical creature in Japan, and is said to live for a thousand years. It’s also been thought to be a symbol of a long life. The myth is that if you can fold a thousand cranes in one year, you can make a wish - usually giving them to someone who is seriously ill to wish for recovery. I was the kind of kid, still kind of am, who believed in that kind of hope.
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My grandpa had a stroke when I was barely in elementary school, and quickly became bedridden. So this was me, showing him how to fold cranes. Demanding, more likely. I looked bossy as hell here, and yet he was following along anyway. Sometimes, I think of moments like these and wonder, What was he thinking here? Was he ever annoyed at me? Was he ever annoyed? How much of him did I take after? How much of me did he love? This picture alone has invoked within me memories of him that I didn’t even think I had. I made a collection of them not too long ago, when I was missing him again profusely, to make sure what little I can still think of would stay there forever.
My mom, however, is a reservoir of family memorabilia that I don’t have, nor did I ever think I needed. I think we all have had the experience in childhood of being physically wrestled into a family portrait with our mom directing everybody, down to the hair strand, behind the camera. My mom is no different. She also doesn’t forget anything, ever. When i asked for photos of grandpa, she, without hesitation or even a question, pulled out her old, crusty hard drive that barely works, containing hundreds of family photos, some even from before she was born (???). It took her 5 days to retrieve all the pictures, and a lot of delegating, but she dug so deep that I even got a glimpse of grandpa when he was young, before colored photos even existed in their world. Looking at the picture, most of the people standing look foreign to me. And it’s even weirder now to think they all contribute to my DNA, to the family I grew up with, and probably to a great extent, to the way I can’t let go of something until I get to the bottom of it, how persistent I am to a fault, like my mom, like grandpa.
Because he was gone too early, even though I know for a fact that there are some of my mom, and thus my grandpa by default, in me, I was always too young to remember much else about grandpa. He was a philosopher - a thinker like me, he liked eating fish (also me), and was a good back scratcher. That’s the spiel I give to people whenever I get the chance to mention him.
This picture was taken at my grandparents’ house before it was sold off, where my mom and her siblings grew up, then where my cousins and sister grew up. I only grew up there on the weekends, but it was my favorite place. The living room where I watched mindless young adult entertainment with my cousins when I was way too young, leading to a flight of stairs and then the dining room, where they keep their cats and a fish pond. Aside from these spare memories about him and his life by default, I didn't know much about him at all.
Sometimes, I wonder what it was like for my sister to be in the house? Did it smell different to her? Does she know more about the little crevices, stains on the walls and chips on the furniture than I do? Does she remember how grandpa smelled, how his back scratches felt, what his voice sounded like? Was she his favorite, or was it me? I was the baby of the family, and I always had the biggest attitude because of it. I hated cooperating for family portraits (photographic evidence above), and somehow equally extremely competitive and loved validation. I loved it when grandpa would make an example out of me when I wiped my bowl clean of food at dinner. But I also remember pulling his hair to wake him up when he would doze off while giving me back scratches. I wonder what he thought of me causing so much trouble, what I was like in his eyes. They seemed so fond all the time.
I don’t think there will ever be a time when I don’t wish my kid brain could hold more of him. I think I will always envy my cousins and my sister for the memories they have of him. I wish I could steal them, but that would never have felt real, or mine. My sister always said if she were to get married, she’d want to marry no one less than a man as good and kind as grandpa. If I had known him better, I think I would be saying the same.
The last trip we had as a family with my grandparents was Nha Trang 2008, before I entered first grade. I recall it well, only because everyone in the family unanimously agreed that it was the best trip we’d ever had, mostly because it was just before grandpa got sick, the timing was just right. Like most of my memories regarding grandpa, I recall it like rote. We stayed at a nice hotel, we took a lot of pictures, my grandparents were super happy, the beach was beautiful, we got tanned. A funny thing about memories is for some of them, you don’t even know they were there, but you make eye contact with something random once and it triggers a floodgate. These pictures were just a few stills of me on my grandpa’s laps, but I could tell l was crawling around restlessly, rubbing my face all over his face, never fully getting situated. Mom was standing behind the camera hollering at my sister to get in the frame, probably half-yelling at me to settle down. What I didn’t expect to see though, was how fully in glee grandpa was.
From my holed memory, he had always been a composed man, the patriarch of our family, proud and caring in his position as the person who gave his kids the education they needed but could barely afford, and equipped them with the emotional strength and compassion that would be carried within their bloodline. I’m entranced though, from these snippets of life that rushed back to me, by the him that is faded for me but surely will never be forgotten by emotions. I wonder about him laughing, cussing, drinking beer, indulging with how bossy I was. I wonder if he was hoping for the same thing with the same fervor and innocence as my kid brain was folding paper cranes, or if he was just letting unsaid things be unsaid.
I soldiered on folding those cranes for him, and I would continue to do so for the loved ones after him. I fold paper cranes with muscle memory and sheer faith at my fingers.
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So maybe there are parts of me that have parts of him. Parts of me that have parts of my mom that come from parts of him. Parts of me that cling on in desperation to versions of him from stories. Parts of me nurtured by our conversations, our times at his desk with me scribbling nonsense, pretending to do important work like he was, our midday naps with the back scratches, my superhero stickers on his bed frames, the craft projects we built together out of old boxes. The shape of my teeth, the frame of my cheekbones, the hint of olive in my skin. The way I talk (or don’t), the ways I think, my preference for thinking, the ways I eat fish, the ways mom loves me. Either way, I don’t care. All I know is that we can never go so far from each other even if we tried. Not that I ever would try, I’m his favorite.
