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Photo via Azure ChungI grew up in a single-family home in Kapahulu with my grandma. I often went to her house to avoid arguments with my mom or to run away from my problems. On this particular day, I just want to check up on her. The sunlight fills the house, a kiss of diffused light through the frosted jalousies. Grandma acknowledges my presence with a nod. “No fun gettin’ old!” she says with one eye closed and a grimace from a pain in her back or a cramp that has yet to subside. I wonder what new complaints she has today. Will she mention the new mailman and how much she liked the old one? She’s leaning against the kitchen sink unable to walk for a moment, then slowly makes her way to the table to eat the breakfast she prepared: a small ceramic bowl of banana and oatmeal mush, and a bottle of Ensure that I know she fully intends not to drink. An unsatisfactory but perfect meal since she has few of her own teeth left. Grandma didn’t have many options when it came to eating at 93.
I sit down across from her. “How are you today, Grandma?”
“Eh. I’m the same. You know, still alive.”
I have so many memories of sitting at this table with her. What now is a calm and quiet morning looked different to us 13 years ago. Same house, same kitchen, but different versions of us.
My six-year-old self would ask her, “Grandma, how do you make my hash into a dolphin? Magic?” My dolphin-shaped corned beef hash, rice, and fried egg was my gourmet breakfast. My sister wanted hers shaped like a stupid star. The dining room table is protected by a plastic covering. A wrinkled hand slams down onto the table and drags across the floral pattern. Uh oh, what did I do now?
“Ants,” Grandma whispers to herself. “Now where are they coming from?” She turns to us. “Hey! You better pick up your crumbs after you eat or you gonna attract the ants!”
We finished the food on our plates completely or she would berate us about children starving in Africa. My sister gets a Clorox wipe and starts to scrub between the tears in the worn tablecloth while I crawl under the table and pick up each crumb by hand.
Later in the day, our cousins came over. For Grandma, it’s just more kids to watch. My Aunty dropped them off from school, and immediately we built a fort out of what seemed like an endless supply of wooden clothespins, a jump rope, several blankets, any pillows we could find in the house, and all the dining room chairs. Grandma marched into the living room.
“Where’s the clothespins?!” She stole some off the walls of our fort.
“Wait! Wait, no!” We screamed.
“I gotta use these, you know! You never put it back anyway!” She stuffed them into her pocket. “All you guys do is make a mess!”
Under the cover of night, we are out in Grandma’s garden. She handed each of us a sharpened stick, thin but sturdy. We’re going slug hunting. Her prized garden, which wrapped around the perimeter of the house, was where she spent most of her time.
“Make sure you twist, okay? Or stick ’em twice, okay?” We watched her spear a slimy, chunky slug in the moonlight. “Okay, once you get a full stick we can go back inside, ‘kay?” Grandma said.
“Okay, Grandma.”
I’m convinced Grandma liked us only for the free labor.
My Aunty came back, and my cousins went home. Eight rolls around, then nine, then ten. Mom wasn’t finished with work and my eyes were getting droopy. I fell asleep on the couch while my sister stayed up and waited. Half asleep, I noticed someone walking towards me in the dark with a blanket and pillow. Grandma gently draped the blanket over me and tucked the pillow under my head. Silent as a shadow she closed the windows.
My Grandma and I never said “I love you” to each other, but I knew she loved me. She cooked for everyone and always ate last. She sewed clothes for us but preferred the hand-me-down shirts and pants that had holes in them which she called “air conditioning” like a novelty invention she made up.
My Grandma: expert hash molder, ant terminator, clothespin stealer, slug slayer. In the last days of her life, I made sure always to tell her “I love you.” I knew the day was coming when I wouldn’t be able to say those words to her anymore. Every day, I made sure she heard them.
“I love you, Grandma.”
She smiles. “I love you, too.”
About Azure Chung: Azure Chung has been engaged in writing since her formative years, exploring the realms of poetry and screenwriting. She aspires to capture and convey the unique narratives of Hawaiʻi, the place she calls home. Presently, she dedicates her efforts to crafting original screenplays with the intention of creating films that inspire. Beyond writing, Azure devotes herself to her passions – entrepreneurship and modeling. Azure is a proud graduate of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Cinematic Arts and Shidler College of Business in marketing.
About Stories Matter: Stories Matter, a mentoring program for young female writers founded by ENTITY Mentor and writer Leslie Zemeckis, nurtures the next generation and inspires them to tell their stories. Co-sponsored by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) and ENTITY Mag, published female authors give their time to emerging talent to encourage greatness and share their writing process. “The recent group, whose assignment was to write about ‘A Woman You Should Know,’” noted Leslie, “was exceptionally talented and a joy to work with.” ENTITY Mag is thrilled to showcase the work of these gifted young writers.
