EVERYTHING I COULDN’T SAY

Unlike most kids my age, my grandpa wasn’t my “rock” or “hero” or “role model”. From the start, we didn’t get along. Maybe it was his personality. He was old, a lover of piano (along with everything else I hated), and 100% Chinese. Maybe the reason was cultural barriers, which left me feeling as I wasn’t the granddaughter he expected. Or maybe it was because of something I realized years later and years too late.

Back then, I was a proud graduate of elementary school entering middle school. My grandpa came to the U.S. almost every year starting from sixth grade, much to my dismay. I didn’t understand why he kept coming year after year. After all, he was away from his friends and family, he couldn’t venture out of the house since he didn’t speak English, and he had to deal with my sister and me. We were the worst.

During Chinese lessons, we fooled around, kicking each other underneath the table, purposely forgetting characters, and reading passages slowly to end class sooner. He had no choice but to discipline us, and yelling became a frequent part of our daily lessons. As a chemistry teacher back in China who had to talk over the voices of 100 students, he excelled at it. No matter what my family members said, I hated lessons. Not only was Chinese hard, but I had no interest. Yet I was continually forced to learn it. And so for years, I would hold this anger against my grandpa.

Along with grueling language lessons, he also taught my sister and me how to ski and swim. He loved to emphasize the principle of efficiency, and over time, the two merged into one. He made us watch video after video (all in Chinese, not surprisingly) on the arm strokes of freestyle and the proper method of skiing down a steep mountain. Then, we’d practice. I remember lying on my beaten piano bench for the 2984th time, my arms in motion and my feet kicking up and down, thinking this will never end as my grandpa watched, analyzing my movements and ready to point out what I did wrong. Although this process was easier than learning Chinese, it was exhausting to swim lap after lap at the pool and use my school breaks to drive hours upstate to the frozen mountains. So I did what anyone else would do: I complained. I argued. And I resented. Why did I have to learn this? Over time, with each and every visit, I began to assume love was too soft, too kind to have a place in our relationship. There would be nothing more except unhappiness.

Fast forward to the summer of 2017 when my family and I visited China, one of the reasons being so that we could see our extended family. I hadn’t seen my grandpa in almost two years. It was extremely awkward when we met at the hotel we both stayed at. With my aunt and her family, we ate at a fancy restaurant before the adults stood up to toast. My aunt, her eyes weary from a day of traveling yet with a smile on her lips, stood up to speak. She spoke of the time when my grandpa went to Japan to earn more money. I had heard this story already, and her words disintegrated one by one, becoming worthless. I knew he took on three jobs daily, and that one night, out of exhaustion, he crashed while riding his bike, knocking two of his teeth out. But my aunt didn't end her story there. She continued on. And I began to listen. Out of shame, my grandpa told no one, not even my grandma. It was only by accident when my aunt discovered his secret. She was too young and foolish to understand the damage she caused when she exclaimed he was missing his two front teeth to the whole house. And with that, tears began to stream down my grandpa’s face.

I had never seen my grandpa cry, but in that instance, it was as if a door, once shut, opened up a fraction of an inch. A sliver of light tiptoed into the other side — my side — and offered a hand. I took the chance, and its warmth silenced the howling cold, from the tips of my fingers to the core of my heart to the edge of my toes. It was a fragile moment, one I was afraid would break if I held on too tight. All at once, I understood how my aunt felt, despite how long this one memory stayed locked away in the past: Small. Ashamed. Regretful. Because I, too, knowingly and unknowingly, purposely and accidentally, hurt a person who sacrificed his life for mine. My grandpa could have stayed in China where he was surrounded by his family and friends and the language he grew up with. There, he had freedom and mobility. Yet he chose to fly halfway across the world to teach his selfish granddaughter all the things his own grandfather did not.

For the longest time, I refused to love my grandpa because I didn’t believe he loved me. My heart hardened as I held on tighter and tighter to my bitter memories, and I would blame him for the dark, swirling cloud above. But those emotions only blinded me further. I chose to ignore the nights he stayed up late, rewriting the Chinese characters I didn’t know on index cards. I took for granted the videos he downloaded, uploaded, and played over and over again on the infuriatingly slow computer. I forgot that even though the words were never said, love was the reason behind it all.

I’m not the sentimental type, and it’s probably the only thing I have in common with my lao ye. But I hope he knows the words I never said:

Thank you.

谢谢.