Me Maulikkaaah HADHHAYY? HADHHAYY?
Molica why?! why?!
CHEEEUHH BOOOUGGHHH RAUGGHDADONG?
everyday your tummy hurts?
I wanted attention from the touch of an affectionate hug from any person at that moment, those wishes were not granted. My grandma had the completion of a smoothed tanned peanut butter indigenous beauty. Always walking topless since my birth, she always walked with a grace of confidence I still envy to this day. She was there as a service doing what needs to be done as the matriarch of the Pao family, then I came along waddling before school 5am waiting for the combing of my ponytail so slick, the baby hair was meant to be perfect for school.
Perfect hair, perfect start for the day,
even if I was going through self-identifying crisis with myself and the American perspective at school clashed with myself that there were chores to be done, things to be set, food to be tasted and expectations is the minimum for my daily tasks after school. When I got home, there was homework to be studied, there with all energy expensed, I passed out most of the time.
I grew up learning English through cartoons phrases, my grandma would learn with me. Times with her dentures came out were the highlight of my day. We never hugged as a child, and it was normal that made me have the urge to hug as an expectation through my late teens and 20’s as a validation for having a connection.
My grandma gave me that hug, even if she says why is the purpose in doing it?
maybe for making it up for lost time? She did it; while the discomfort of my parents and my relationship was becoming one of the most troublesome situations, being in the middle of chaos, my grandma was always there to poke fun at me, easing me from overthinking. There was nothing like the smile from the one you love the most in your darkest time.
That was my ma yay, grandma in Khmer . The story of Thí Bui’s memoir graphic novel “The Best We Could Do” shows a struggle between the parental nature of her upbringing that rings close to my life. She is paving her narrative as an important way of embracing the “you are not alone factor” that many first generational children face is the inadequacy of being good enough.
As this isn't my reality in the present, the death of her brings a current me a more conservative hybrid mindset. I miss her every day and even if it has been a good number of years the flashbacks to her smile, the pokes, the laughter are there to coddle me in a lonely world. It may be depressing after her death I do not care for a hug; it feels like I have earned this superpower of feeling other people’s emotions. I cannot survive some days due to the freezing pain. I try to stay away from the world because of the burden of knowing too many hurts me from my healing.
I was born from Cambodian refugee parents, there is an aspect of a nature that as a girl is raised to be perfect. If your born with pleasing western features is fully in congratulations you won the jackpot! that applies great in the mid modern century look but not the fundamental basic needs of a simple hug. My family were robbed of their childhood and expected to be married early and start the cycle of life, a family. There is this expectation of being the perfect person esthetically, the perfect hair and clothes laid out for the day were to impress my mother for her day to be easier. There was always no time to reflect. My grandma never changed me. That’s the ideal she had. Her standards of marrying my cousin which it is normal in our culture to bring to the so-called land of opportunity.
Discrimination is a steady undercarriage that is in the progressive mind, I didn't understand those social cues and at a young age it would not set me up for the real world, even with silence the roars around people that began to affect my inner self, I had to be tough. When I came to my grandma, everything washed away when I would see her just a laugh, gave me ease to be okay for the next day.
My grandma barley knew English, but that smile, that greet was all that mattered when the world was at my shoulders. She never wanted to know what was going on, as an elder the one who makes time to bring all the people together became the lone widow in her late years, that wishes people would stop by to just say hi.
That was my job to say hello.
She was never my initial hero to begin with, the person who worked me so hard to the bone wasn't my favorite time of day coming from grade school but that recycling of daily routines have advanced me to things my peers would not experience. Yes, my childhood was not based on asking questions, why you do this if you do it to sustain a routine without talking?
All I can answer is that it was my reality, how can I not?
The final days for my grandma were sudden, her final days finally reassured me that what I did my whole life was the reason long lives are gifted. She told me that all her children are growing and do not be too hard on them, words a child should not hear and the reason why she loved me the most is through all the stories of me crying growing up I have done the most, the action that felt never ending was only reassured in her final months, looking back maybe she knew she was going out but to remain calm and collected and manage to make me laugh.
she was an incredible force.
My family are so hard to be vulnerable but incredibly soft to our people and culture. It makes an emotional kid isolated in the cornered shut out. My grandma knew without saying anything. Being called weak is now the badge that brings substance to other stories. The sense of urgency that humans have is that adrenaline that propels positive societies. Preferring a simple life is what my grandma chose, and I will follow in her footsteps. Sometimes I do smile at the fact that even if I did not live where she slept every night, she gave me all the reasons to change the ability to live life. Life isn't an everyday constant changing mindset of ideas and moving on. Real humans sit in a space to accept your reality, the true feeling of isolation is within yourself and unfortunately there isn't protection just real energies and auras that help you heal silently. So, with the saying “not all heroes wear capes” there is a grandma dawned in a pink robe door, spritz with her favorite perfume, sometimes that favorite perfume is Febreze fresh linen, watching her YouTube videos of catching fish from all parts of the world on her hand me down laptop from her youngest child …… knocked,
ANAAAA GAUUYY?
Who is that?
It is her me map, fatty in Khmer waiting for the repeating of the story “MAAAA YAAYY MY TUMMY HURTSSSSSSS” just for an instant contagious laugh from her to make me feel okay when I have had a crummy day.
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