One Last Goodbye

I’m about three drinks deep, smoking a joint while waiting for my uber to the airport. The SFO flight to Taiwan is always at 1am and I have the flight locked down to a science. After the flight takes off, I watch a movie, have the in flight dinner, 2 more drinks and knock out for about 8 hours straight. The flight is 14 hours, so I usually squeeze in one more movie and arrive at 6am Taiwan time.

The trick is not to overdo the drinking which I’ve done once before, projectile vomiting into the toilet mid flight. It’s getting the timing down so that jetlag never becomes a factor, there’s nothing worse than a dysfunctional sleeping schedule while traveling. I transfer flights from Taoyuan to Kaohsiung and my mom is there to pick me up from the airport around 9am.

My mom takes me home and I drop off my bags and pick up my brother and cousin and we head to the wake. It is located in the funeral district of the city a stone throws away from the city dump. My brother, cousin, and I take the morning shift for the wake, to be relieved by other family members later in the afternoon. My grandpa sits in a large refridgerated box behind curtains in the corner of the room.  There are scores of other funerals going on at the same time, mostly Buddhist ceremonies. The air is thick with incense, processions and rhythmic chanting.

In hour into our stay, two men show up at the door and announce that they are here to take the refridgerator housing my grandpas body.

“The ceremony is not until tomorrow morning, will his body be okay until then?”

“Yes, his body has been sitting in the freezer all week. It’s customary that we take it out of the freezer the day before.”

The two men open the box and lift my grandpa’s body onto a steel gurney. My grandpa’s face is thin and drawn, it looks like he is asleep. The two men cover his body with a blanket adorned with a cross on it and cover his face. They pack their things and go. My cousin goes out to buy lunch and asks us what we want. When she gets back I barely have an appetite.

My uncle and his family come in a few hours later to take their shift and we go back home. The house is crawling with activity. Family has travelled from all over the world to attend the funeral. It has been almost 2 decades since all the grandchildren in our family have been at the same place, 11 of us in total spread out across Taiwan, Japan, and the States. Sometimes it takes a death to bring people together. When my brother called me last week to tell me about my grandpa’s passing I was not very sad, I didn’t really think much about it at all.

My grandpa was a deeply religious man who had no vices. He didn’t drink, smoke, or gamble. He was 98 when he passed and I suppose that his lifestyle contributed vastly to his long life. The entire family has dinner at home around 6pm and after that, the family pastor comes over and we have a prayer group and sermon. I know it means a lot to my parents and their generation, but I am awfully indifferent to the whole religious overtones and it is hard to conceal my boredom.

Once the sermon and songs are done, everyone says good night and go off to bed as we have a 5:30am wake up call the next day. A few of the cousins stay up to have whiskey and catch up. One  of my aunt’s finds us in the living room and gives us a stern lecture.

“Can you guys please not drink tonight? Your grandfather just passed and you should all be mourning his death and not celebrating.”

“Ok” I say but pour myself a drink after she leaves. It’s not that I don’t care, i just don’t see how having a drink could change anything any which way.

I wake up early the next morning and there is a bus waiting outside to take us to the morning ceremony. It is going to be a very long day. The first event is only for family and close friends, an intimate open casket. God must have gotten the memo, because the day is dreary and wet, the shower continuing through the morning. There is a lot of crying and sadness. I’ve only seen my dad cry twice, once for his younger brother’s funeral and now today. I feel like Meursault from The Stranger. The only time I really feel anything is when they close and seal the casket. I am in charge of leading the procession to the mortuary where the body will be cremated. We head back home to have lunch.

After lunch I head out with my uncles to pick up my grandpa’s cremated body. When we get to the mortuary, his remains lay in two metal trays. One tray contains the remains from his skull, while the other holds everything else. The earthly remains of my grandpa reduced to dust and charred bones. We are told by the mortician to each place three pieces of remains into an urn. I wonder if my grandpa would be proud of the man I turned out to be.

Once the urn is packed and readied we head over to the public funeral ceremony where about a hundred  and fifty people show up at a church across town. The ceremony takes about two hours and I try my best not to nod off by reading the event pamphlet. There are short musings and essays contributed by family members. My mom had asked me to write something a few days ago, here is my portion of the writing:

My memories of grandpa begin when we moved to America into our first house in Union City. We had moved from our cramped space in Kaohsiung into a large house with a large backyard in the suburbs. We had a basketball hoop, a park around the corner and American cartoons. Grandpa was a pretty quiet person, but always affable and with a smile on his face. While on car trips, grandpa and grandma would put on a tape of Taiwanese folk songs and sing along, teaching me and my brother the lyrics.  

After a few years we moved to Millbrae into our house on Bertocchi. Grandpa told me stories about his past, our culture and his stance on Taiwanese independence. We would play ping pong together in the mornings and in the afternoon, he would be at his desk writing in his notebook. Everyone would always sit around the table for dinner with the TV on the Chinese news channel. I am still very fond of that period in my life.

Eventually my grandparents moved back to Taiwan and I would see the family twice a year, summer and winter vacation. Each time I went back my grandpa would be a bit older and a bit more withdrawn. The man who had taught me about my family history, culture, and my native country was slowly slipping away. As I became an adult, the grandpa I knew growing up was no longer there, just a shell of the happy, smiling man I had known.

I remember riding in the back seat with my grandpa on one occasion when I was about 12 years old. My Uncle Johnson was driving and my father was in the front passenger seat. It was one of the last times I was to have a lucid conversation with him.

“You know why we brought you to America right?” my grandpa asked me in native Taiwanese.

“Yes grandpa.”

“We want you to make a name for yourself and for our family name. Our family has worked very hard for you grandchildren to have a better future.

“I will try my best to make our family proud.”

“Remember to always put your family first and to be proud of be a Taiwanese citizen. Whatever you do, always have a good conviction and a humble heart. Hard work, family, and belief in God will provide you everything you need in life.”

“Yes grandpa.”

“Did you understand what grandpa said?” my dad asked.

I shook my head yes. It was one of the very last times grandpa would would have a full conversation. And as times goes on and life proceeds, it’s the memories, stories, and the wisdom grandpa shared with me that lasts forever. As a patriarch he has left a great legacy in 3 different countries, a loving family, and imparted his heritage onto the next generation.

He had lived a long beautiful life full of success and love. I always thought that he held on to life because he never wanted my grandma to be alone. He has been the cornerstone and rock of our family and he has left us with a strength that will transcend even beyond his physical being. I choose to remember the grandpa I knew when I was a young boy. And know that he is somewhere out there, smiling down on all of us he has left behind.

It is a little cheesy for my taste, but I am playing to the crowd.

The last part of day is going to the cemetery and burying the urn and remains out in the countryside. There are more sermons, crying, and songs. I remember why I never liked going to church as a child. The air is thick and hot and there are mosquitoes everywhere. The final act is for each of the family members to grab a handful of dirt to cover the urn. And then the day is done as fast as it started. Everyone heads back into their cars and buses and head towards the restaurant where we are to have dinner.

I have not really talked to anyone all day. Usually when I come back to Taiwan, family and friends will ask how I’m doing, if I have a girlfriend, if I’m going to come back to work for my dad, but this time no one asks me anything and I’m okay with that. It’s nice seeing everyone, but my threshold for bullshit is at an all time low. As dinner goes on I start feeling the jetlag and mostly I just want to go back into my room and be by myself.

When I get back I check my email and social media and find an acquaintance has left a particularly snide comment on one of my posts. At first it doesn’t bother me much, but it just eats and eats at me until I feel like I have to say something. I suppose in any other instance I would’ve thought it was funny and let it go, but instead I PM him and tell him that I was going “cut his tits off and feed them to his cat.” It definitely wasn’t the proper way to handle things, but it feels right at the time.

As I lay in bed, I begin to cry and it comes slow and steady until I cannot stop. I feel like going out, getting drunk and hurting someone or myself. I want to forget the day, but it is too fresh in my mind. I want to yell, scream and destroy something, but do not have the energy or heart to do so.

After awhile, sleep comes and I am transported to my youth. My family has just moved to America and I am walking to the park with my grandpa. He has always been a very quiet person and in my dream he is no different. He doesn’t say anything to me, but takes my hand and we walk down to the park of my childhood home. I try to talk to him, but my voice is not working, he gives me a reassuring smile and strokes my hair. I want to say something to him, but nothing comes out. I feel like I never got to properly say goodbye and I want to let him know how much I love him and he just gives me a look like he understands.

I wake up and it is morning. The sun is out and the morning traffic has begun to stir. Nothing has changed, but the world is different and so am I.