My grandmother

I'm not close to my grandmother. My family has dinner with her every Sunday, but she's usually talking to my parents in Cantonese. My grandmother is fiercely independent and strong - she's 84, and recently fell in the bathroom and dislocated her shoulder, and the doctor simply popped it back with no problem. She's also fiercely opinionated. For a long while after my granddad died, she warned me never to become a Christian, because my granddad died shortly after converting. (I, personally, am so grateful that God waited for him to turn to His love before finally releasing him of his immense physical suffering.) And later on she was like, well at least don't get baptised, because that way you can still conform to the religion of your future husband, and there won't be family disputes like that of my aunt.

Anyway.

So I'm not close to my grandmother, but she loves sharing about her past, which is why I was inspired to start that website for people to share their grandparents' war stories. I know she dotes on my brother and me, and she's very proud of us when we do well in school, and she keeps on telling us to listen to our parents and treat them well when we're older. She calls home when Mark or I am about to go overseas, and when we've just come back.

Recently she's been giving me a lot of food - pineapple tarts, honey pears and more. When she heard that I was getting a lot of mosquito bites in school, she very enthusiastically gave me some leaves of a plant she had grown. I think she thinks my hostel doesn't feed me, which isn't true, but is very useful hehe. This good ol' honey chrysanthemum tea has also been sweetened with a grandmother's care, and the crackers are actually really good!!! Buttery and crispy and apparently only 60 cents a pack! Sometimes grandmothers know best.

I'm not close to my grandmother, but I feel like she genuinely really cares for me. She keeps telling me to study hard and get a good job, and now I feel like when I'm here in my room studying or slacking off, I have a responsibility to her, too. To give her something to proudly boast about, and to make her feel like all the food she's giving me, the care she's showing me, is worth it.