Yesterday and today we visited my Grandma and Grandpa (step-, but seeing as I never knew my real grandfathers, there's no real need to make the distinction) and Auntie Diana. We mostly spent the time eating -- Max's fried chicken, Goldilocks filipino bakery, the Boiling Crab, Dim Sum.
I hadn't seen my Grandma in 5 years, and honestly it probably was the first time I personally made an effort to think about Family. Growing up, we were never close to our grandparents, which after age 12 was really just my Grandma here in L.A. My parents have permanently moved far from where they grew up, so connecting with extended family was not something that was emphasized growing up.
And so its only been recently since I've been in Boston that I've come to appreciate much more the time spent with my immediate family; while living in Madison, though I was not distant in any way with my parents, I also was very independent-minded, presumably taking a page out of my own parents' life stories.
In seeing my Grandma again, who is now 87 years old, it made me realize something else that is lost in a household detached from your elders -- an intimate, natural connection to death. I do not in any way mean this in a morbid sense, but more in the sense perhaps of what children get when they have pets (which I did not have) that pass away: you learn important lessons about the ephemeral nature of life. These experiences are at first very negative -- losing a loved one can surely be very difficult -- but ultimately positive as you learn to come to terms with events that all people will have to deal with.
In my case, though, after 27 years of living I've really still never had to cope with the loss of a close loved one. In the case of my Grandma, though she is still doing generally well, she is still quite old and has recently been diagnosed with dementia. I haven't been close with her through my life, but I have known her throughout it, and I can't help but feel an innate sense of Family when around her that I have never really bothered to acknowledge until now. All of this makes her passage through old age seem not sad but natural to me, in a way that I would never have even thought about 5 or 10 years ago.
I suppose the point is that familial lines can do more than connect individuals to one another, it can also at a much deeper level serve to connect birth and death. This is new for me.
I hadn't seen my Grandma in 5 years, and honestly it probably was the first time I personally made an effort to think about Family. Growing up, we were never close to our grandparents, which after age 12 was really just my Grandma here in L.A. My parents have permanently moved far from where they grew up, so connecting with extended family was not something that was emphasized growing up.
And so its only been recently since I've been in Boston that I've come to appreciate much more the time spent with my immediate family; while living in Madison, though I was not distant in any way with my parents, I also was very independent-minded, presumably taking a page out of my own parents' life stories.
In seeing my Grandma again, who is now 87 years old, it made me realize something else that is lost in a household detached from your elders -- an intimate, natural connection to death. I do not in any way mean this in a morbid sense, but more in the sense perhaps of what children get when they have pets (which I did not have) that pass away: you learn important lessons about the ephemeral nature of life. These experiences are at first very negative -- losing a loved one can surely be very difficult -- but ultimately positive as you learn to come to terms with events that all people will have to deal with.
In my case, though, after 27 years of living I've really still never had to cope with the loss of a close loved one. In the case of my Grandma, though she is still doing generally well, she is still quite old and has recently been diagnosed with dementia. I haven't been close with her through my life, but I have known her throughout it, and I can't help but feel an innate sense of Family when around her that I have never really bothered to acknowledge until now. All of this makes her passage through old age seem not sad but natural to me, in a way that I would never have even thought about 5 or 10 years ago.
I suppose the point is that familial lines can do more than connect individuals to one another, it can also at a much deeper level serve to connect birth and death. This is new for me.
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