The LemonSqueeze

There was no secret that I was my grandma’s favorite. Somehow, we always managed to be by each other’s side with her hand in mine. She made whatever food that my tiny soul desired including my favorite Korean dessert; sweet rice punch. It seemed as though she devoted much of her existence to my siblings and me(mostly me). In the mornings, we walked across the street into the neighboring cul de sac where we enjoyed the roses lined along the sidewalk. We sat and talked to one another about what I wanted for lunch. After lunch, it was time for practice. With grandma as my only spectator, I practiced my chip shot until my hands were blistered. We watched Wheels of Fortune together on channel 7, and the occasional telemarketer called and disturbed our peace. She picked up and said, “bankruptcy” and quickly hung up. There was no question that grandma was my best friend.

I went with grandma to her Doctor’s appointment in Koreatown and upon entering the office, I was distracted by the sheer number of patients. I let go of her hand, but I knew exactly how to track her. Almost as charismatic as her personality, her yellow topaz ring shimmered in a large crowd. I tugged on her shirt before looking up to see that it was another Korean grandmother. I had to devise a new method to track my grandma.

She spent much of her time at the sewing machine. My sister and I were active and always running around and consequently had a stockpile of socks with holes in the heel and toe. As she aged, she could no longer strain her eyes to thread the needle in her sewing machine and depended on us for help. While my sister and I watched the newest spongebob episodes, my grandma called us from the room. She alternated between “Gim Gu” and “Gim Narang”; and whoever she called, rushed down the hall to assist her.

In 2007, my grandma was tending to her pepper plants and tripped along the stones that bordered the garden. She broke her hip. Soon after this incident, my parents were having increasing difficulties maintaining not only their business, but also their marriage. As a result, my grandma was sent to a nursing home where she developed Alzheimers. I was fortunate enough that her Alzheimers took the form of short term memory impairment since she was still able to recognize her best friend. It was painful to converse with her because she could not remember the questions she had asked five minutes earlier. However, in grandma like fashion, she never failed to ask me if I ate.

She passed away in 2011.

A few years later at UCSD, I formed an extraordinarily guilty conscience. I dreamed about her often and thought about her while studying, and I was haunted with the regret that I did not visit her more often. Whenever I visited, her face and eyes brightened as she did not see me for weeks or months at a time. The thought that I did not allow her the happiness of my presence as she had given me for the entirety of my childhood brought me to tears. I often wondered how she passed her time in a nursing home where no one understood Korean; where no one could understand her desires, or her basic human needs. I’m sure she wondered where I was and what I was doing for much of her day. Even whilst being alone in the nursing home, and unable to see me at moments notice, she seemed to express a sincere understanding for not visiting her more often.