Confronting life, dealing with death

My grandpa died one month and four days ago. He died choking while eating. With no one else in the house, he passed away 4 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005.

He is not the only one to have died this year. Two of my classmates are no longer at Princeton.

I am not the only one to have lost a family member. Others no longer live with their fathers or sisters.

Death did not touch me until it touched someone I knew. I expected that, being a selfish person. I never expected, however, how much it would hurt.

My grandfather lived with my family from 1991 until 1999, under the pretense of taking care of my newly born sister. He was also trying to obtain his American citizenship. Every morning at 7 a.m., he practiced tai chi on our driveway. I blushed when I ran to my school bus, hoping that no one would make fun of me for my weird Asian grandfather.

He enjoyed working outdoors, planting leeks, green onions and garlic. By the end of the first spring, he had transformed our backyard into a green maze. By the end of the first summer, his tomato plants had taken over our front yard as well. I complained to my father, yelling at him to stop the growth of the Asian cucumbers. Normal American families grow pretty flowers in their front yard, I insisted. Not stupid cherry tomatoes.

When snow and ice smothered the earth, my grandpa stayed inside and practiced English, shouting "One! Toe! Tree!" I hustled friends upstairs and shut my bedroom door tightly to block out the broken English.

He attended Friday Bible Study and church, but I suspect he went only to socialize with other Chinese people, not to be converted. Despite going to Christian churches, he still practiced so-called pagan ancestral worship, burning cutup pictures of money, television sets and gourmet foods in a rusted pot every year to remember his ancestors and wife.

Even after a stroke that partially paralyzed the left side of his body, he still walked five miles a day. Family friends called my parents, expressing concern and amazement at seeing our grandfather strolling by the local supermarket two miles away from our house.

I dreaded his presence the entire time he dwelled in our house. I always worried what my friends thought when he hung up his hand-washed and hand-darned socks and underwear outside on the laundry line. Whenever he went back to Taiwan to visit, I always told my dad to keep him there. He doesn't like it here, I insisted. He has no one to talk to.

A few years after he failed to become a citizen, he went back to Taiwan permanently. My mother cleaned out the house, and discovered unopened bags of socks and underwear my grandpa had saved for us, too humble to wear them himself.

My father wrote letters and visited him. I never did, and only asked about him out of courtesy.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

This year, my parents began to seriously consider bringing my grandpa back to live with us again. He's old and lonely, they said. So what? I snapped. Doesn't he have old Chinese friends to talk to in Taiwan?

Until recently, I didn't realize that no one in Taiwan, including his own children, really wanted to take care of him. They came over to cook meals and make sure he looked healthy, but didn't come over to talk to him.

No one has to take care of him any more. No one has to worry about buying plane tickets for halfway around the world or scheduling in time to spend with him. And I don't have to worry about living in a too-Asian household anymore.

It sickens me that I feel more guilt than sadness over his death. After 19 years of a small and self-centered life, I finally feel the effects of being a neglectful and rude granddaughter. I regret that I ever blushed in embarrassment because of him. I regret that I yelled at him to leave me alone when I was reading. I regret that I never even tried to understand him in either Chinese or English.

My grandpa is dead, and no amount of sorrow or regret can change that. From my selfish viewpoint, death is cruel because life still goes on without you. I did not shed a single tear for him until a week after his death. But when I started crying, I realized that the tears were not for him. They were for me. My tears were a pathetic mixture of self-pity and self-disgust. I cried because I never loved or respected him the way I should have. I cried because I will never have the opportunity to do so. Anna Huang is a sophomore from Westlake, Ohio. She can be reached at ajh@princeton.edu.