She was the most powerful woman in the world. She was demanding, critical, and at times unapologetically unreasonable. But she was also loving, generous, witty, and truly caring of those around her. For almost a century she graced this earth, and for the last 40 she was my #grandma - or "Popo" as I called her, which is the Chinese term used to refer to your maternal #grandmother.
She passed away on April 20th and it still doesn't feel real to me. Since I was born she played a huge role in my life, only living a few blocks away when we lived in my parents' first home in Hawthorne. She and #GungGung (my grandpa who passed away in 2011) would walk to our house from theirs on a regular basis. On their way, they would stop at the local liquor store, Friendly Market, to buy us Carnation ice cream sandwiches and shared them with us before heading out to our backyard to tend to the garden they used a portion of our yard to create. I still miss the loquat fruits that grew on the tree back there.
Popo and Gung Gung babysat us often, whenever my parents had somewhere to be, and a few times each week while my parents both worked. They would pick us up from school and always had fresh-squeezed juice and snacks for us when we got back to their house. Their home was my second home. #Jeff and I never wanted to leave and at night, when we heard the front gate open, signaling my dad's arrival, we tried to hide. Every Sunday well into my adulthood our entire family would go to Popo's for dinner where she and Gung Gung always prepared a huge meal (there were 10+ of us) for their kids, grandkids and sometimes special guests. Popo loved to cook, and she was so good at it. I admire the way she used her cooking as a mechanism to bring her family and friends together. I definitely got my love for bringing people together from #Popo - the cooking not so much.
When I was around nine Popo tried to teach me to knit. It was my first foray into knitting and it didn't last long. I knitted a few pathetic inches full of mistakes with a ball of pink yarn, and put it in my closet where it stayed for more than 30 years until my #mom pulled it out last summer and it made its way back to me. The night before we buried Popo, I picked up the unfinished project and knitted a few more inches, of course this time perfectly. Before we closed her casket I tucked what I had knitted inside. I've come such a long way since my childhood and I feel like the knitting showed that in pristine detail - Popo has always played a part.
When I was in fifth grade Popo and Gung Gung took a trip back to China. Popo returned with a green jade bracelet that she wanted me to wear. Fun fact: my Chinese name translates to "beautiful jade." I tried to slip it on but it was too small and wouldn't fit over my hand. "It doesn't fit," I told her. "It fit, it fit," she insisted in her Chinenglish accent. She took the bracelet, dragged me into the bathroom, soaped up my left hand, wrist and forearm and shoved the bracelet on victoriously. The next day, everything was so swollen that I couldn't get it off. And so it stayed. Until this day I haven't taken it off and as I write this, I'm unconsciously wiggling the bracelet every so often so that it sits correctly between my wrist and my desk as I type on my keyboard. When I graduated high school a friend of mine volunteered to bring a tool that would cut the bracelet off, but when it came time to do the deed, I couldn't part with it. It's been with me during every major moment in my life, all the ups and downs, all the firsts and lasts, and having to cover it while I'm filming in front of a green screen is a small inconvenience for something that has become such a big part of me - and a really great story. I also never ever get pinched on St. Patrick's Day.
The bracelet story is the perfect example of how she always got her way, even if it didn't make any logical sense. She knew what she wanted and she always knew how to get it. When she needed something, she asked for it. In her last couple of years, after she moved to the senior facility, she developed a new love for the color pink, and requested practically a new wardrobe - all pink, like the "cool kids" - in her mid-90s! She always took pride in her appearance. Her eyebrows were always perfectly sculpted and filled-in, and one of my favorite things about her look was her red lipstick. She loved wearing red lipstick when she went out and in 2015 when I found what I thought was the most perfect shade of red ever - Ruby Woo from Mac - I bought her a tube for Christmas which she loved and eventually needed a restock of. I love that we had the same favorite shade of lipstick.
She would have been 96 today - NINETY-SIX! Even as I continue to process the fact that she's not here anymore, I can't help but be happy as I think about her life. She had everything anyone could ever want in this world. She had a devoted husband and a doting family, which included five grandchildren. She and my grandpa owned their own businesses from which they were able to retire and travel the world. She had hobbies like cooking, gardening, and sewing that kept her occupied and happy. She was even able to support herself in her old age and used her own income to pay to live in her senior community, as well as all her final expenses. If that isn't impressive enough, she was ready to go to heaven to see my grandpa: she had the outfit she wanted to be buried in all picked out, along with a couple of outfit changes she asked us to include in her casket! I can only imagine where she's going in heaven where she would need to wear the sequined number she had us put in there. Well, I hope she's wearing it today, doing something cool for her first heavenly birthday, having been reunited with her six siblings, my grandpa, my #dad, and #Chile, whom I'm sure convinced her to cook him some chicken at least a few times by now.
Happy First Heavenly Birthday, Popo. I love and miss you.
"A rich life has nothing to do with money." -Anonymous
