Ba Ba:
A man leaves his home in Binhai, China, for America in hopes of a better life. He was a child who left the arms of his family to go to the promised land, or so they call it, in search of economic and social prosperity. The American Dream.
It is a fitting name. It is and will always stay a dream.
He leaves his family and starts his own. Generations upon generations left behind, the only contact by letter that must travel across an ocean and more.
But today, he wakes up at exactly 7:30am. He lets the alarm ring once before shutting it off with the palm of his hand. The fabric of the duvet rustles underneath him as he swings his body out of bed, ready to start the day.
His torn slippers shuffle against the hardwood floor of his bedroom before reaching the carpet of his daughter’s room. Tentatively, he opens the door. He is met with a blast of warm air from the heater inside the room and a mound of blankets thrown together over a resting figure.
“Anna, it’s time to wake up. Time for school.”
He waits until the figure turns in their sleep before closing the door. His slippers continue to shuffle. His robe sweeps the floor.
In the kitchen, he makes himself a humble bowl of cereal. His fingers pluck two gummy vitamins from its container to place on top of the lid. They wait for his daughter to wake up and take them one by one.
He drives thirty minutes to work. He drives thirty minutes back. Only, his tie is a little disheveled and his hair is ruffled at the very back. His nose bridge has indents from where his glasses pressed against the skin and window of the microscope. He listens to the news radio station the entire way there and back.
The man finally arrives home. He shuffles his keys and places them on the counter in the entryway.
“I’m home!”
Sometimes he is met with a response. Otherwise, he is greeted by silence.
He immediately sets to work, cooking dinner for the family with little to no break. He cuts the vegetables with the same hands that grip his tennis racquet. Calluses grace the thumb that curls around the handle. His hands, covered with scratches from a day’s yard work, slice through the body of an onion in a single motion. He cuts with dry eyes.
Lao Ba:
My mother’s dad I have no stories of. He passed when I was still a small child. I had no relationship with him.
I saw my mother cry in China once. My six year old self laughed. Why is she making that face? Who is this man in that wooden frame? And what is this box next to me?
We visited the Tiananmen Square. I pointed at the picture of Mao ZeDong hanging in the center, eyes pointed towards the sky.
“Is that Lao Ba, your dad?” I asked my mom. She shakes her head solemnly and takes my hand in hers. We walk side by side. She gets me a jar of yogurt, reminiscent of street food in China. I forget about the incident.
I think back to the funeral. “Why was she crying for a stranger?” is what I thought. I did not, and still do not know his name.
Nu Er:
The first time I saw my father cry was when he was brought with news of his grandfather passing away. It was a strangulated sob, like a noise made by an animal. I wanted to laugh when I heard it.
Dad. What was that?
In America, I feel the wrath of those annoyed by the elderly, ready to shut them in an institution to fend for themselves. I see them go back and pay them a visit every weekend, as if that were to justify crushing all that they owed by abandoning them. We, as America, turn our backs on them. And yet we blame them for all the trouble they cause us, needing help with their old and rusting bones and their temperamental behavior.
I have never seen my grandparents long enough to feel that way. And I can’t imagine doing the same with my parents, the very people who have raised me. I cry now, when my grandma leaves for China. I don’t know when she will come back. I don’t know if this will be the last time I see her, and if I am ever able to feel her in my hands again. If she disappeared, it would be a phenomenon that happened across the world.
It’s everyday that I see kids walking with their grandparents on the sidewalks, or helping them carry their purse to church. It’s everyday that I feel a pain in the empty space within me that begs for a similar relationship. I always wished after school, I could bike to my grandmother’s house and enjoy a bowl of steaming dumplings, or simply enjoy her presence as she knitted a pair of socks for us. I wanted the forcefield of love and protection the eldest generation gave us, the hot soup they would carefully coax down your throat when you were sick, the softness of their fragile hands as they tucked you in at night. I wish I could have felt my grandparents’ gentle caress.
Nai Nai and Ye Ye:
In elementary school one day, I came home and saw my small grandma from my dad’s side standing in the rain with an ornamentary sun umbrella bought from China. The ink dripped down the sides; it was not meant to be used in the rain. It was one of the only times I have had someone wait for me by the bus stop, and of the only times there was a pair of arms open and ready for me to run into.
Years later, my grandfather told me to move to Shanghai. He kept trying to convince me of its growing prosperity and the potential it had, the immediate success that would embrace me if I moved there. He said that I could move to Shanghai. He added that I could take the train to take care of them on the weekends. And that I would always have a hot meal waiting for me if I were to come back.
But it is too late. He passed away the following month. Just a phenomenon that happened across the world.
October 2020