I wish I was like you, easily amused

Since today is the day, I thought I’d repost this:

“Stand up straight,” my grandfather used to always tell me. My grandfather had impeccable posture. I had a terrible habit of slouching. To try to correct this, my grandfather used to make me walk around the house with a yardstick across my back with my arms behind the ruler to hold it in place. It forced me into a shoulders back, chest out walking position. Unfortunately, it did little to improve my posture.

My grandfather died almost seven years ago. February is a bittersweet month for me. Among many things, it’s the month that my grandfather died. It’s the month my mom had her surgery for cancer. The only redeeming thing about February is my birthday. And that is something I’m not really sure I like anymore. But this post isn’t about me. It’s about Yu-Ya Kwong. November 15, 1915-February 20, 2000.

My grandfather was the most charismatic and genuinely friendly person I have known. He had a certain aura about him. When I was younger, my family went to the largest Chinese church in the area and most everyone knew who he was. During lunch, after services were over, my grandfather would sit down in the cafeteria and hold court. Person after person would approach him just to say hi. It always gave me a sense of pride to know that my grandfather was such a well-respected man. Even the senior pastor had a certain reverence for my grandfather.

Family was the most important thing to my grandfather. Just about every Saturday while he was alive, my entire family, something like 20 of us, would go out to dinner and order too much food. We went to the good Chinese restaurants, most of which can only be found in Wheaton. Every restaurant we went to, it seemed like my grandfather knew the owner and at least five other people in the restaurant. Whenever all of the Kwong clan is back in town, during the holidays or over the summer, we still go out to dinner. There are 28 of us now.

Every morning after he woke up, my grandfather would go out into the backyard and do Tai Chi. I would stare at the slow, but disciplined movement while I had my cereal. I never really understood it, but it captivated me during breakfast. My grandfather was also a Freemason. I remember him getting dressed in his garb, funny hat, sword, and all. At his funeral, six Freemasons showed up and did some sort of ritual.

My grandfather was 6 feet tall, something rather unusual for a Chinese man of his age. Most of my friends who are Asian have grandfathers that are 5’6”. He played basketball for the Chinese national team and just missed going to the Asian Games in the 1930s. It had nothing to do with talent. For some reason, the government wanted another player from Beijing, so my grandfather was cut. He eventually moved to Hong Kong as the Communists were taking over China. There, he was a part of the sports council. My mom used to tell me stories about how they would sit in the first row at boxing matches or courtside at basketball games.  They saw the Harlem Globetrotters in their heyday. All they had to do was mention my grandfather’s name and they would be escorted right in.

My grandfather had a thing for languages. He claimed to know handfuls of languages. In reality, he knew five or ten phrases in each of those languages. It was an endearing peculiarity. Any time he met someone new, he would greet them in their language. Whenever I brought friends home, he would try to speak to them in their native language. One year, one of my cousins had a Spanish foreign exchange student, Fwen, for a few months. My grandfather would always try to learn new words from her. All of my cousins would get slightly embarrassed, but Fwen thought it was incredibly cute.

We always had a steady supply of Canada Dry Ginger Ale. My grandfather was an accountant for the local Canada Dry distribution center. He always used an abacus instead of a calculator. He said calculators slowed him down. He tried to teach me how to use an abacus several times, but I just got frustrated and went back to the calculator. He also had this Seiko watch that he always wore. I used to like to put in on. It weighed a ton on my seven year-old wrist, but I thought it made me look important, like my grandfather. My grandmother wore it for weeks after my grandfather passed away. I’m pretty sure it’s still sitting in my grandmother’s night stand, gears having long since stopped turning.

My family lives right around the corner from my elementary school. I used to walk to and from school every day. But, when it rained, my grandfather would make the 30 second drive to pick me and my siblings up. He was always first in the car line. There were a couple times the principal made him circle around again because we hadn’t yet made it out to the car line. My grandfather used to park under the big cherry blossom in the front yard. One spring there was a family of birds that nested in the tree. My grandfather did battle with the copious amounts of poo they dropped on the hood of the car. He would wash it off one day, and the next the hood would be covered again. Needless to say, he lost that battle.

Up until I was eight years-old, which was when my mom got sick, my grandparents lived with my mom’s sister. There was a room in that house with shelves of half full glass bottles. I thought the bottles had labels with funny names like Johnnie Walker, Beefeater, Courvoisier, and Wild Turkey. You could say my grandfather was a bit of liquor connoisseur. After dinner he would usually sit down with an after dinner drink, always straight. Every so often, when my mom wasn’t looking, he would let me dip my finger in his drink and have a taste and a funny face would follow as I felt the burn on the back of my throat. A couple years ago, as I was rifling through the pantry at home, I found bottle of Remy Martin with about three shots worth. My mom ended up cooking with it that night. What a waste. Now that I’m 22, I wish I could sit down with my grandfather and have an after dinner drink. I’ve gotten past making the funny faces.

My grandfather died of an aneurysm. He missed his first grandchild’s wedding by just months. Aneurysms are a sudden thing. One day someone’s here, the next they’re gone. You don’t have time to get yourself ready for someone who’s going to die of an aneurysm. It just happens. My grandfather was in good health. He was still driving his beloved Mercedes-Benz right up until his death. I vaguely remember the few weeks leading up to his death. My grandparents had lived with us since my mom had cancer, so I saw him everyday. I was in 9th grade at the time and was the typical self-important, selfish teenager. I don’t remember much leading up to his death. I do remember the family doctor had said something about one of his major arteries being weakened. But, for the most part, he was able to function normally. A couple weeks later, he got up out of bed and immediately fell right back. My grandmother was the only one home. My grandfather smoked unfiltered Camels back in the day, which no doubt contributed to his death. He was also 84. I believe he died without any regrets. He loved his family and his family loved him back. He lived a full life. And he always stood up straight.