eulogy

When I was nine, I thought grandmothers lived forever. You see, I knew that mothers broke promises and left you. My grandmother did not hug or kiss children. Her tongue was sharp and her words make the heart bleed. My grandmother was a tyrant, but she was there. As early as I could remember, she had always been there.

When I was growing up, we had crocheted white curtains on the living room windows. There was a matching crocheted table cloth in the dining room. I went home last week and took one of the curtains. I haven’t seen them in years, after my grandmother gave in to the modern times and ordered yellow-gold satin curtains and cream lace curtains. I put the curtain on my dining table as a tablecloth. It must be at least thirty years old. It was delicate, and in places the crochet had unraveled. And as I admired the hard work in the pattern, I thought I could repair the piece. I knew how to crochet; my grandmother had taught me.

Like crocheting, there were so many valuable things I learned from my grandmother that I ignored, or used to laugh at. They are the teachings in life that didn’t make sense when you were nine, or nineteen. Like getting fine furniture to give dignity to your house, or choosing tailored clothes over ready-to-wear ones.

My grandmother taught me never to accept second-best. For her, ‘good enough’ is never enough, from the grades you bring home from school to the service you receive in fast-food restaurants. She taught me that my happiness comes first, because in the end you will be alone, and if you die sad you only have yourself to blame. She was afraid of being alone, of being old, of being forgotten.

If we displeased her, she always threatened to die and haunt us. My grandfather was a submissive, quiet man who never interfered when my grandmother spewed the curses that would befall us if we did not behave. As a result, I never feared ghosts, vampires, and the like, because the Real Thing was alive and could terrorize both young children and old men. Although I vowed to be never like her, I married a quiet man who doesn’t like to fight. My daughter can be silenced with one look from me, and I am notorious for terrorizing call center agents, customer service staff, and parlor beauticians.

My grandmother loved cats. When we were little she adopted orphan cats that slept on the sofa and left so much cat hair on the beds they make you sneeze. The cats defecated inside the house and it stank to high heavens, but she did not have the heart to kick them. When she became bedridden, one cat would always enjoy the ride on her lap when she sat in her wheelchair. As a result, I talk to my cats and allow them to jump up on my back and scratch my clothes. I don’t hate dogs, but I’ve always mistrusted their wet noses, rolling eyes, and waggling tail. Dogs are too big to cuddle.

Her room in the old house looks the same, although she had not slept there for as long as I can remember. She is fond of umbrellas, and there are four new ones hanging behind the door. She likes to take apart old dresses and put together the accents in different outfits, mixing and matching sleeves, collars, belts, appliques, and skirts. In her closet are scraps of Spanish lace and embroidered collars, waiting for her patient hands to recreate into some fashion statement. The towels are individually wrapped in plastic; they are the monogrammed ones that are reserved for when guests arrive. I picked up a tiny ID picture of me when I was a high school sophomore. She kept our photo albums on display in the living room.

My grandmother died last year. I went home for her funeral and helped sort her things. I saw my childhood in the things she kept. There were the kitten-pattern shorts I sewed as a high school project that I could not wear because they were too tight. There was the cross-stitched ‘Home Sweet Home’ wall décor in the fifth grade that she had had framed in carved narra wood. There was my Art Folder, and I remembered that we once had to do artwork using flower and leaf juices, and I broke out in hives from foraging leaves that she said were the best ones. There were the letters I wrote home in my high school and college years, either asking for more rice, or thanking her for sending fruits.

When I visited her grave, I thought I should go home every year to bring flowers and light candles. And I was filled with sorrow to think of all her birthdays that I had allowed to pass, as she wrote letters telling me how sad she was. I think of all the stories she never got a chance to tell me, about her life, about the girl she once had been, about the town I left behind. And I think, perhaps she did not know how to tell me, because I did not know how to ask. I am left with little pieces of her life, the pieces that I live with each day, the lessons that I recall from my childhood.

And now I see my own daughter, so attached to my mother-in-law that she is asking if she could live in her grandmother’s house. She asks for her grandmother’s night light and a little gas lamp, and her grandmother obliges. Her grandmother cuts her hair, allows her to play in the sand, and shows her how to save for a new doll. Tyrant or not, there are things that only grandmothers can teach.

When the crocheted curtain-turned-tablecloth is complete, I will try something else. Like cooking sweetened sticky rice, or making a patchwork blanket from scrap cloth. The way she taught me, the way I remember. Because I was right all along. Grandmothers live forever. They are in their granddaughters’ hearts.