I'm heading home to Vancouver tomorrow night -- not for American Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving is in October), but because my grandfather passed away Friday morning. He had a good life, from what I could tell. He was 94, was still doing his daily walk up until the day he died, and basically ate all kinds of unholy and unhealthy food up until last year. It's not a big shock.
But there's still a lot of things I'm sorry for. I'm sorry we -- my sibs and I -- never got the full story of how my businessman grandfather and peasant grandmother fled Shanghai with their 4 kids months before the Communists sacked the city. I'm sorry we don't know how they settled in Hong Kong and made an extraordinarily successful lives for themselves. And I'm sorry that I'll never know how that tight-knit family descended into estrangement, squabbles over money, and awkward displays of one-upmanship.
So I'm going home. And I guess my grandpa is too.
But there's still a lot of things I'm sorry for. I'm sorry we -- my sibs and I -- never got the full story of how my businessman grandfather and peasant grandmother fled Shanghai with their 4 kids months before the Communists sacked the city. I'm sorry we don't know how they settled in Hong Kong and made an extraordinarily successful lives for themselves. And I'm sorry that I'll never know how that tight-knit family descended into estrangement, squabbles over money, and awkward displays of one-upmanship.
So I'm going home. And I guess my grandpa is too.
How to deal with these guilty feelings of apathy towards one's heritage? The neglect of coming to know a life so rich, and then being remorseful, but not enough to get to know our elders who are still alive.
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Anonymous |
12:36 AM