Grandma's House

I wish I had said this to you, my cousins. But I couldn't get all four of you together at once. I couldn't, or I wouldn't. For while I felt welcome, I didn't always feel comfortable. It's a powder keg here, and as in all wars, the children will suffer most, and most blamelessly.

What would I say?

I would say that she was your grandma most of all. I was given, unexpectedly, a place of honor at the service, as the surviving descendant of her eldest child, her eldest son. Because of this I was charged with starting the procession for incense and prayer. I also sat in the front row. My mother -- bless her heart! -- sent flowers via the Kahului florist, flowers that read "From Ryan". I know that some read this as arrogance and presumption and not kindness, sounding a dissonant note. (The other two wreaths simply said "Beloved Grandmother" and "Beloved Mother", with no names.) Perhaps worst of all, my aunt proposed, last-minute, to add a brief statement and prayer dedicated to my late father, extending the service another ten minutes.

All of these serve, in some way, to separate me from you. It is the last thing I want, for your kindness has been the one thing that has kept this trip tolerable.

I can't claim her. She gave birth to my father, and my father gave birth to me. But our relationship was a tenuous one, one of a half dozen visits and cards during the holidays. You, on the other hand, were there every week -- even now. You grill, you eat, you laugh, you talk story.

I want to tell you that I don't know that with Grandma Yamada. I'll never know that. But I know what it is to have that, and to lose it.

Every Sunday, with few exceptions, my mother's family would gather at Grandma Yasuda's house. Not everyone had gone to church. But everyone ate. Everyone talked. As the youngest cousin, I enjoyed the attention and patience of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and older cousins.

As an only child of a single mother, this experience was absolutely vital. Without it, I have no doubt I would be dead, in spirit if not in body.

I even lived there for a time. In retrospect, I am grateful my mother had both the privilege and willingness to go to half-time employment and live a couple days a week with her parents when they contracted cancer. I spent even more time with some of my cousins. I learned how to change a colostomy bag. I learned to grieve as I saw both my grandmother and my grandfather alive one day and dead the next.

And I grieved, especially for my grandmother. I lost her in 8th grade, on the cusp of graduation, before I could give the valediction. I talked about teaching then, because I didn't have the heart to talk about how much I missed her, what she had meant to me.

If I am honest, then, I do not share your pain. But I know it. I know that pain better than I know my own face.

You aunts and uncles -- I also know what it is to lose a parent, a parent with whom, maybe, you feel you had unfinished business. But damn you and your foolish machinations and grudges. Choke on your bitterness. I will speak to your children.

You may wonder if you'll lose that center, now that she's gone. You may. Maybe not. You are four, and your spouses, and your own children, bound by a father who yet lives there. Will he be your center? Perhaps, though fathers and sons, and fathers and daughters, do not always have the same luxury, the same patience, the same opportunity for love to feel unconditional, though in these cases, at least, it certainly is.

We lost our emotional center, and eventually, we lost our place of congregation. The diaspora is spread less through space and more through neglected ties. It can be rekindled, and I have the good fortune of picking up where I left off with many of these cousins and aunts. But it is different, and in many ways, inferior.

If your bonds live -- and they have a better chance, for you are brothers and sisters -- it will be because you work to reforge the broken links through frequent and strenuous effort. You will be fine, I hope, I think. But the rest of us? If we let three months, six months, a year pass, what will become of us?

No matter. I will instead focus on my gratitude. You have, without knowing, let me feel the slight touch of a rope tied to a ship long disappeared over the horizon, a ship bearing my happiest memories, my most important influences. I weep for your loss, but I celebrate the realization that I had this best of gifts. I hope you know what you had, and what you must fight to keep.

Sigh - wine has substituted feeling. Food has substituted grief. Let me walk on these sands and clear my thoughts, for they ramble irregularly like the waves in this breakered lagoon.