More on Grandpa

One of the good things that came out of our whirlwind trips is that I got to hear more stories about my grandfather. How much of it is exaggerated is hard to know. People rarely speak ill of the dead, you know? But, exaggerated or not, I’d like to share some of the things I learned about the type of person my grandfather was because, embellished or not, they are based on truth. And, as an immigrant who came to the US in his 80’s I know there were far fewer people at his funeral than would have been had he died in the place where he had lived for decades and made many friends, where family of his generation were close by, where his medical colleagues could have paid tribute to him. I also want to share some of these stories because these later years found his health and mental abilities declining and with it, my memories of him and the person he was. In these last years, I had forgotten about the more vibrant and active grandfather I knew when I was younger. And, I suppose like most grandchildren, I never stopped to think that at some point, my grandfather was just a person living life and trying to be a productive member of society. And that my grandpa was more than just my grandfather and may have affected more lives than just those of his family.

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Grandpa was a doctor and apparently was incredibly dedicated and concerned for other people. I remember one of my grandma’s complaints about him was that he was too generous to others and often overlooked the fact that his generosity meant there was too little money for his family. Grandpa’s habit of loaning people money without expecting people to pay it back had always given me the impression that he was someone who was overly nice and, as a result, allowed people to take advantage of him. Since most of my memories of him were of a kind and gentle man, I always thought of him as having a passive nature and so, in some ways, not necessarily a “strong” man. But, this was only one aspect of the person he was. As a doctor of a mid-sized village in China, he came into contact with people of all levels of life. Some could pay for medical services, some could not. But, for Grandpa it did not matter. He treated people regardless of their ability to pay and never turned away patients who needed his help. My grandma told me that whether it was in the middle of the day or middle of the night, if he was home and got called upon for his services, he would hop on his bicycle, or in later years, flag down a taxi, and go to where he was needed. The nature of the illness also did not deter him from doing his job. My mom told me about how he was very proud of the fact that he was the only doctor within several surrounding villages willing to treat people during a cholera outbreak in the1930’s/1940’s.

The most intriguing story I heard about my grandpa concerned his parents. I grew up knowing Grandpa was raised by his uncle and aunt, an uncle and aunt whom he loved dearly and always referred to as “uncle” and “aunt.” The family story is that Grandpa’s father died before Grandpa was born and he was given to his father’s brother to raise because his mom was not able to support him. I asked my grandma for more on this story when I saw her before the funeral. She told me that Grandpa’s birthmother was so distraught over the death of his father that she entered a convent soon after giving my grandpa to his uncle. When I asked if this uncle and aunt ever had other children, she told me that they were unable to conceive. It’s clear to me now that Grandpa was adopted. And the story that was told about Grandpa’s birthparents and being raised by his paternal uncle was one to make his family story culturally acceptable to those around them. If he was related paternally to the parents who raised him, then he is “true” family (versus if he was related through his mother and given to his mother’s brother). The convenience of the “death” of his birthfather before Grandpa’s birth and subsequent “disappearance” of his birthmother to the nunnery is, well, just that, convenient. And who could question, openly anyway, the generosity of an uncle and aunt willingly to take in a nephew to raise as their own? And what a stroke of luck, too, being unable to have biological children themselves. Who knows. Maybe no one questioned it because this kind of story was “code” for adoption in those days.

For me, knowing these things about my grandfather helps me understand how he would have agreed to give my mom away to his sister-in-law to raise. I had assumed it was my grandmother who initiated the conversation between the two of them. But given my grandfather’s birth story, I can see how it could have been a mutual decision between a wife who loved her sister and a husband with a penchant for helping people, who had experienced the benefit of being loved and raised by people who were not his birthparents. It also makes me feel proud to know that my family was built, in part, from adoption and at the same time proud to know the roots of who I am.

When I was asked to give a short eulogy at my grandfather’s funeral, I was very nervous. Though I loved him, I realized I couldn’t really speak to what kind of person he was. Mr. Warrior encouraged me to look inside and just speak the truth. My truth was that I was lucky to be the first grandchild. And like many first grandchildren, I got a lot of the attention from my grandparents. I was even more lucky to have been taken care of by my grandparents after I was born when my parents went back to work and would drop me off at their house for the day. My parents, uncles and grandmother all talk about how my grandfather would carry me and walk around the neighborhood every day after work to show me off. So, even though I don’t have many memories of this time, I have fond feelings of my grandparent’s house. When I was five, my parents and I immigrated to the US. We saw my mother’s parents rarely in those years before they immigrated and by the time they had, I was away at college, then working, then in grad school. In these last few weeks, I learned more about the kind of person my grandfather was. How hard working he was, the 40 plus years he spent as a doctor, how kind and caring. In these last few weeks, I realized that I can see some of those characteristics not only in myself but also my family members. I hope I can continue to live with compassion for others as he did, so I can continue the influence my grandfather had on my family and others.