My grandma, Popo, saved my life when I was a baby. My skin was gray when she woke up in the middle of the night. I wasn't breathing. She ran to wake up my parents, and they called 911. On the way to the hospital, thanks to vigorous back pats from my dad, I returned to consciousness. The doctors were in awe. After not breathing for so long, I miraculously had zero sign of brain damage. It was a second chance at life. I had been about to pass for good when someone changed their mind.
Since that moment, Popo fiercely watched over me. She couldn't bear losing me again. She would be there for every bath I took, making sure I scrubbed my entire body. She created every bite of dinner like a miniature sculpture, placing the perfect ratios of soup, rice, meat, and veggie onto a spoon, which she handed me like a delicate prize jewel. At night, she made me drink extra glasses of milk, even after my parents had brushed my teeth, to fortify my bones. I ended up developing tooth staining from bacteria from all this late-night milk. Popo was stubborn. No amount of asking could get her to stop. She took complete control of my care, often overruling my parents.
These frictions led my parents to ask her to move out right before my brother was born. She moved into a nearby condo, so she could still visit often.
My little brother Jacob and I tolerated her obstinance.
When we got fed up with it, we poked fun at her, splashing her with our bath water until she swore "WANG BA DAN" (son of a bitch in Mandarin) and stormed away.
We tasked her with pet-sitting our fish on family vacations, but without fail, each fish had "died" when we returned home. Maybe it was her revenge for us not inviting her along. After the third or fourth fish disappearance, we stopped getting more pet fish and started bringing her on every trip.
Sometimes, she created embarrassing moments. I remember one family vacation in Minnesota. We drove to an alpine coaster, a roller coaster where the sled runs on rails and can’t leave the track. You ride alone, and you get to control how fast or slow you go. One by one, we shot through the exhilarating course, gliding through the gorgeous mountain backdrop. My family reconvened at the end, but we couldn't find Popo. She had gone last in our group. It felt like forever went by before she emerged, shaken. She had spent the entire course speeding up slightly, then hitting the brakes, constantly starting and stopping, as a line of angry riders built up behind her. The ticket booth had to give refunds to everyone who went after Popo.
What made Popo so stubborn? Here's my interpretation. Popo came from a well-off and happy family with lots of siblings in a large house in China. When China's Communist Cultural Revolution began, the government took almost everything away from them. They lost their most prized possessions and financial means. Her father was imprisoned over trumped-up charges and her younger siblings were not allowed to go to college. They did not even have enough food to eat.
That period stripped away any semblance of control in her life. She needed to maintain what remained. Her way of doing things became the only way. Her family’s decades-long hardship cast a long shadow over her life even after she became an OBGYN and had her own family. Over time, she lost a lot of close relationships with her siblings and other family members, later with her two older sons, often over minor financial conflicts. She must have only reinforced these patterns when she uprooted her whole life again to move to the United States without knowing the language well or knowing any people besides our family.
We shared just as many sweet memories as frustrating ones.
Whenever I got sick, I looked forward to my sleepovers with Popo. She would spend the night in bed with me, shuttling back and forth a bottomless mug of hot water, rubbing my belly for what felt like hours, and softly singing to me in Mandarin until I fell asleep. Some nights, she shared her secret fears and insecurities, holding me close to her and whispering into my ear.
Once she discovered my passion for banana bread, she learned how to make it. She dropped off a new loaf for me to try every week, waiting for my feedback—fewer nuts, mushier bananas. If not banana bread, it was always something: sweets from the Chinese bakery on Olive Boulevard, whatever she'd bought from the sales rack at Marshalls or Ross Dress for Less that didn't fit her, even a belly dancing instructional DVD.
My view of Popo took a turn for the worse in college, around my first trip to China with my mom and younger brother.
When I read Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother back in middle school, I begged my mom to parent me like that, to punish me for not practicing the piano or dutifully filling out rows of characters in my Chinese workbooks. She told me she preferred her parenting style. My mom was hands-off, which I now appreciate. It allowed me to discover and pursue my hobbies and fashion my own life.
Mom revealed more about why she couldn't be a tiger mom during our first trip to China. Popo was critical and physically abusive toward her in her youth: slapping her, throwing chairs at her, hitting her, leaving lasting marks. Small things could prompt a beating, like missing a few points on a test where she had still performed better than every other classmate. Popo never apologized to my mom for her actions.
This shocked me. How could Popo have done that to her daughter? The patience that I had for her evaporated.
On subsequent visits home, I ignored her, spending most of my time in my room when she came over. I took her presence for granted and raised my voice at the tiniest frustration. This continued for years. When I saw her, I thought of what she had done to my mom, and I felt empty.
At the time, I didn’t notice the positive changes that were happening in her life. Popo had turned yoga into a hobby, taking me to a few classes. One of them was Buti, a dynamic style that combines traditional poses with primal movement and dance. She attended class with unique animal-print leggings, ready for the challenge. She was the oldest person in the class and made friends with fellow yogis who were impressed by her agility. She had also started traveling abroad with her church choir, jetting to Jordan, Israel, Cuba, and Europe. Her community of friends was blossoming.
In February of 2021, my mom called with bad news. Popo had been diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer after suffering from stomach problems for months. Her doctors chalked it up to constipation until Mom asked her to get a CT-scan. Popo was sad and angry with this devastating news. She argued with the doctors and nurses over her care.
We were still in the thick of the pandemic, and I didn't feel safe flying home to visit Popo yet, so my mom told me to call Popo weekly to check in. I found the calls exhausting. Popo was often in a bad mood, telling me about her endless pain, incompetent doctors, and how little time she had left to live. Every call went the same, no matter what I said. I felt like my presence wasn't helping, so I started calling less and less, mainly prompted by reminders from my mom. It was difficult to relate to her struggle from so far away, especially amidst the worldwide tragedy.
In May, a month after getting my first COVID vaccine, I finally went home for the first time in 1.5 years. When I returned, I was surprised at how normal Popo still seemed. The same hours spent sitting at our dining room table on her computer, the same bites of dishes that she carefully portioned out, the same random and oddly specific questions about our lives. Maybe because she looked so normal, my brother and I felt we could treat her the same as before, quickly losing patience and seeking frequent retreats in our bedrooms.
Popo dreamed of traveling outside the country again before she passed away. With COVID restrictions, we had to settle for domestic trips. My mom told me that Popo’s good days were numbered, so we could only take her to a few places.
I planned a long weekend in Columbus, Indiana. I'd recently watched the movie Columbus and fallen in love with the town's architecture, including I.M. Pei’s library and Eero Saarinen’s Miller House. The city was as silently beautiful as I had dreamed, and Popo was just as enthralled by it all as I was. She was so happy to spend quality time with my brother and me.
Still, I'm disappointed at how little we focused on her wishes. Popo's only request for the trip was to stop in Indianapolis to visit her old choir friend. However, my brother was so insistent on returning home in time for an evening Jiu Jiu Jitsu session that we almost skipped the visit entirely. When we found out that her friend had recently been exposed to COVID, we made them stay apart when what Popo needed the most was the physical support of a dear friend. I still remember the tears in Popo’s eyes above her mask.
Before I left, we hired a photographer to take family photos in the park. It felt grim, but Popo needed new headshots for her funeral. Popo told me that these photos and this visit home were how she wanted me to remember her. She didn't want me to come home again to witness her withered-away body.
After my parents took her on one last trip to Utah's national parks in June, Popo’s condition started to deteriorate. She required more medicine and days in bed. Popo was shedding weight and hair rapidly. My mom spent every night with her and cared for her during the day while also working full-time because Popo no longer had the strength to walk down the stairs from her condo.
While I was glad that I visited Popo, I still felt numb when I thought of her, until a conversation with my mom caused my old feelings of resentment to resurface. Mom shared that Popo had been saying horrible things about her to her friends. She complained that Mom wasn't visiting her enough, calling her an awful daughter. I asked Mom how she put up with such cruelty. She responded that everyone deserves love and compassion in their last days alive. I couldn’t understand how Popo remained so angry and ungrateful despite all of Mom’s efforts.
In July, Popo changed her mind: she wanted to see me one last time. Battling my anger, I took a few days before agreeing to come home. I knew that I would regret not going to see her when she needed me.
Mom booked me a last-minute flight, but she warned me that Popo would look like an entirely different person, especially compared to the portraits from our photoshoot. Despite the warnings, I was horrified when I first saw her in the condo. Already a tiny woman, she'd perceptibly shrunk. Her face was gaunt, and her ribs poked through her shirt.
The first day, she could still walk on her own. She even fed me several slices of Chinese egg cake that she'd baked for my arrival.
A few days later, though, we needed to carry her between the living room and her bed after administering her dose of morphine. My brother picked her up like a baby, and I cradled her head as we walked. In a croaking whisper, she asked us to massage her. Slowly, we worked up and down her body. I felt all of her bones. The insides of her body felt jumbled up, bones disconnected from muscle and skin.
Before ending each visit, my parents would wash her sheets, which were constantly soaked with blood and bile. Cleaning products couldn't cover up the smell of the condo.
Mom said Popo had something to show me on the next day. From her bed, Popo gestured to the two closets in her room. We slid the doors open. She asked me to start trying on clothing. Each item was brand-new, perfectly folded, with the tags still on. They fit me perfectly, and they looked gorgeous. At first, my mom and I laughed. We remembered how Popo would bring me a bag of clothes to try on nearly every week. But our laughter turned into amazement as Popo kept pointing at more and more boxes full of beautiful clothes for me. I must have been trying on clothes and jewelry for hours. Although Popo couldn't say much and was hovering between sleep and consciousness, joy filled her eyes whenever she opened them to look at me.
We asked her where all these items had come from. In between coughs, she responded to my mom in Chinese that she had been saving these clothes for me since I was young. These were her treasures, her ultimate expression of love and devotion after losing everything all those years ago.
An emotional dam in me broke. I hadn't felt such a connection with Popo since the sleepovers we'd shared when I was a little girl. I started tearing up and got up to hold her hand. Thank you, grandma, I said. I hugged her tightly, wiped the tears away, and continued trying on clothes.
After that visit, Popo stopped speaking almost entirely. She lost awareness of who was in the room and what was happening around her. I felt lucky to share such a special day with her, one of her final moments of lucidity.
In the last days of my visit, Mom shared that she wasn't sleeping at night. Popo had been waking up repeatedly and screaming for her own mother. Popo also thought that she heard ghosts talking outside her window. Mom visited Popo late one night with her good friend, Donna. A devoted Christian, Donna told us that it's common for dying people to see ghosts if they're holding onto grudges. Only after someone forgives can they die in peace. Together, they woke her up from a morphine-induced sleep and persuaded her to reconcile her past. From that night, the ghosts vanished. Popo and Mom could finally sleep in peace.
The next morning, I flew back to San Francisco to take a weekend wilderness first aid class in preparation for a long backpacking trip next month. On Sunday morning, we paired off to practice measuring blood pressure. I usually had no trouble with this, but that day, my heart rate quickened, and I grew so lightheaded that I needed to go lie down outside.
Eyes closed, I cried out of fear. I held my class partner’s hand, chest heaving, until my heart rate normalized. I knew that something had happened to Popo.
When we got released for a lunch break, I rushed to my car and called Mom, who confirmed that Popo had passed away in the early morning. I asked her what Popo's last few days were like.
Forgiveness had done much more than expel Popo's inner demons.
The hospice center, which had been full for months, suddenly had room to admit Popo. She could rest there in a beautiful room, receiving 24-7 care. Although Popo hadn't been able to move for days, she gathered the strength to use the bathroom by herself. She told my mom that God had given her the power. When she decided that she wanted to die on a Sunday, the Lord's Day, she made it happen.
Her last wish for my brother and me? To become more spiritual.
Almost a year later, I set off on a year of solo travel to do just that.
During my first week of travel, I sat at the bar of a coastal Oregon restaurant. I talked for hours with an older woman about all the times God had protected her. She told me that she had felt an inner push to start a conversation with me, to teach me how to receive God's protection. When I shared this with my mom the next day, she said, through tears, that she had been praying every day for people to watch over me on my travels.
Flash forward to October and my yoga teacher training. I was sitting in a yoga shala practicing the Sa Ta Na Ma chant for the first time. The literal meaning of the mantra is—SA: Infinity, TA: Life, NA: Death, MA: Rebirth. It translates to shedding the old you and becoming who you were meant to be.
While my mom forgave Popo for her past cruelty, I held a grudge against her. I'd felt sad when Popo passed away, but after that, I could only feel numb when I tried to think of her.
Near the end of the chanting session, something inside me shifted. The emotional coldness melted away. Instead of only seeing in Popo all the things that I hoped to never become, I could see her beauty and wonder. I could see all the ways that I came from her, that I'd been following a variation of her transformative path before her death: traveling the world, practicing yoga, discovering new passions. I had even felt her hands supporting my back during a particularly painful meditation. I realized that my main challenge in life would be to learn the same lessons that she did.
I was finally ready to forgive her.
Since that breakthrough moment, in addition to forgiveness and understanding, I seek to honor Popo's legacy through my life, which she saved all those years ago. By beginning to break Popo’s generational trauma and learn her lessons earlier in life, I am freeing myself to live my own life fully and freely.
I'll leave you with this excerpt from Sheila Heti's Motherhood:
“Give the soul that passed down from your mothers a chance to try out life in you. As a custodian for the soul passed down through your mothers, you might make it a little easier this time around. Treat it nicely because it's had a hard time. This is the first time in generations it can rest. Or decide with true liberty what it will do. So why not treat it with real tenderness? It has been through so much already, why not let it rest?"
Now go call your grandma.