My Popo

My grandma is passing. Her organs have been failing for a few days, I've been begging my parents to let her go now. I didn't go back to China last summer when I went to India, in fear of the totalitarian regime. But I know my grandma would understand me, she always understands and supports me. 

Today I went to a Buddhist temple to speak to my grandma, I kissed her on her forehead, I hugged her, I told her a million times thank you. 

Thank you Popo for being such a strong woman who raised us all up. Thank you Popo for never yielding to all the hardships in life: unrest and uprooting throughout childhood due to wars; working in hard labor factories digging and carrying stones when she was young; four children, poverty and malnourishment during big famine and Culture Revolution. 

Thank you Popo for adoring me the most, shielding me from unreasonable social pressures towards a girl, "Who said my Momo is ugly? She will grow up to be a beautiful woman!" (I had a huge forehead sticking out as a child). 

Thank you Popo for leading me to spirituality: to pray for my health, my non-religious Popo started taking me to local temples and learning to pray for my wellbeing; she heard about Seven Goddess Mothers (originated from India, I just learned the fact last summer) so she made me the Goddess-daughter of them and took me to temples each year during their birthdays and asked them to protect me. 

Thank you Popo for respecting all of my choices in life, even though it meant leaving you. She was the first one among all of my family members to say Yes to my marriage to Raj: "As long as the guy is kind and she is happy!" 

I knew for a long time that this moment would come one day, and I'm not regretting the choices I made, for choosing the free side and fighting for what I value as more important than life. 

I know time and space won't matter in the end, people will be reunited. And I know no matter what, my grandma will be able to hear me, see me, and understand me. 

As I was kneeling in front of Goddesses and Gods, my grandma's image, her voice that was calling me, my memories of her from the first day to now were flooding my mind and creating a passage for me and her. 

I was able to touch her, kiss her, hug her and I was able to whisper in her ears: 

Grandma, thank you for being there for me all these years. Thank you for being so strong and raising me up to be strong too. 

Grandma, don't be afraid, I will always be here with you, holding your hands, I will protect you. 

You can go now my dearest grandma, go peacefully, into peace and rest. 

Don't be afraid, I'm here with you.

 

 

Growing young together

I had no idea Sandra could enjoy late-night parties! For the past 13 years I've known her, most of the time she was married to J, if the husband didn't like going out, rarely the wife would turn into a party gal. So we just never had a chance to go for any sort of girl adventures. Plus she is much more introverted than me. 

Now I look back, it does take a wild girl to even plan a girl-only adventure with me, which Leena did eventually and I am so glad. I think our first time was The Unforgettable Vegas trip, we still brag about it with uncontainable laughs and tears in our eyes. The wildness is always in her, it would be very sad if she had to keep suppressing it because of her own perspectives of a "good husband-wife relationship" or a "good wife/woman". I know deep down Noah is way more open than Leena, he is extremely intelligent and extremely well-read. People at that level usually are very open deep down. It's just that their conversations usually don't go in that direction so Leena has no idea about it, I guess. Her imaginary "good husband-wife relationship" was shaped by toxic social norms that she was used to while growing up and her own understanding of certain things that could look different from the surface. My in-laws never discussed how to build relationships with men or related topics with their children. That's why I intentionally plant some wild seeds in my children's hearts, like how my parents did for me unintentionally. A sane human being needs it because the current mainstream social structure is obviously insane.

Leena and Lipi did come a long way to the kind of women they are today. A lot of things I took for granted, they never had while growing up. Discussing with parents what's bad and good in boys and how to check if their upbringing is good being one. A fun-loving pair of parents being one. A sex-loving and open-minded pair of parents is The game changer. In the early years, Lipi even demanded me to delete certain Facebook posts that were "inappropriate" and could cause "trouble" to the family. "Inappropriate posts" where I enjoyed myself to the level that her society couldn't tolerate. Sister and mother-in-laws in India are famous for censoring Facebook or Instagram posts of their daughter-in-laws. To which pressure I never yield to. I couldn't even understand it properly, to be honest, there had never been any shame or discomfort from inside of me that I would put myself down. So ya, what y'all saying? Sorry, I don't really get it...and here it goes, another post. 

Not only a sex-loving crazy pair of parents, a lot of the credit actually goes to the classic novels I read over the years. Sex, seduction, relationships, women's self-worth, the ugliness of people, I read it all. My favorite during my early teens was "The Lady of the Camellias", can't remember how many tears this novel took from me. 

Obviously, Sandra is extremely intelligent and well-read too, our openness is at the same level. And yes, the degree of stuff we share about our lives is unmatchable. It all depends on if we have the time to do it. Now Sandra has become a single woman again, she is motivated to live a fun life! Second chances don't come easily. We danced for almost 4 hours nonstop last night. I had no expectations before taking her out. She did tell me she can't do dancing, only drinks. So first was first, I got two beautiful and delicious cocktails as gifts for her. The place I took her to was supposed to be a bar for drinks but turned into a dance club due to a special event. She blended in right away, happy after the improvised cocktails the bartender specially made for us! The last half an hour I also took her upstairs to check out the atmosphere of a dance club. She loved it and wanted to stay until it closed. 

So Voila, I got myself a new party mate! We now want to go check out all the dance clubs in town, once per month. Some soirées I will make Leena join us. And yes, Latino music with Latino men is top of our lists, the three of us the same actually.   

Making the women in my life all happy and enjoy our days together, it's something I take as life's purpose. When I think about Sandra, her depression, her sick ex-husband, no kids, and the loneliness of single's life, sometimes I am a little scared if she has established a firm grip on life's purpose. But it looks like she is perfectly fine, we are all fine. We just need to share this journey together, so we will never be alone. Especially deep down in our minds, we should know that we are not alone even when we live in an apartment all by ourselves.