Kuv Puj (My Grandmother)
Every visit to grandma’s house on Friday or Saturday night mostly ended up with my siblings and I begging to sleep over. 1 out of 10 times, my parents would agree. We were still very young, because this happened at the apartment on Harvey. All of us (uncles, aunts, siblings) had spread out on the living room floor, each with their own blanket and pillow. After we were all suppose to go to sleep, there I was – wide awake and freezing. My grandmother had woken up to drink some water, or something, but it involved her going to the kitchen. And in the sea of children, she noticed I was awake. So, she walked over and asked why I wasn’t sleeping. I told her I was cold and the thick blanket was not keeping me warm. I had folded the blanket in half. She said I should open it, and to lie in between the layers, and not put both layers on top of me. The ground was cold and it was taking my body heat. I was desperate and tired, so I did what she told me to do. It worked, because I had fallen asleep to the sound of whatever she was doing in the kitchen.
At a young age, my parents taught us that whatever our grandparents asked of us, the answer had to be yes. As we grew up, our sleep-overs at grandma’s house became an opportunity to pick produce. Grandma would often wake us up to pick strawberries with her. Even when we weren’t sleeping over, she’d call my mom the night before and get us to go. My mother gladly dropped us off at the farm to keep our grandma company. At this particular farm, you would pick the strawberries, placed them in a palette, and then move the palette to the end of the row to indicate that you had completed the row. Grandma was kicking all our butts when it came to stacking those palettes at the end of the row. Finally, we saw my mother’s car coming to pick us up. Since grandma was the adult in our group, they gave our share to her to give to us. We just wanted to go home and told her to keep it. She insisted that we worked hard for it and to use it, but we traded that mere $40 to be able to leave. She often picked produce in the summer heat and inside green houses. Grandma worked hard, and she never complained.
Grandma
did so much for us. I have lost count of
how many times she would
come pick us up from school, to drop us off at home. We knew that if we called her, she would
come. She “tried” teaching me, Foua and
Bat how to kill a chicken when we were 13. It took all 3 of us to do one chicken. We put that chicken in the bucket, so proud
of what we had done. She looked at us
and said “it’s not dead”. And right
after, that chicken’s head popped right back up from the bucket. She had to do it as all 3 of us sat there and
watched. I never did learned how to
properly kill a chicken.
Grandma's laugh was soft and quiet (unlike grandpa's). I visited her with my daughter who
was a little over one at the time. We
walked inside her home and she looked at me and asked, “Is that May Lee’s baby?”
I said “No, she’s mine, puj. I sent you a Christmas card with our picture”. She laughed and laughed and said that my
daughter looked so much like May Lee. May Lee always
gets mistaken for being one of my grandmother’s daughters because May looked so much like grandma. My heart is happy because in a way, that means Aubrie has hints of my grandma's physical features.
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My
grandmother was the second woman in my life who I could truly depend on. Growing up, I always knew that if I needed her,
she would be there. When I was a child, then
going through my teenage years, and well into my adult self – her affection towards
me never wavered. She was constant.
I
will miss the way she would tell me to visit her whenever she saw me in
town. I will miss the sound of her
laughter, the smile on her face, and I will miss the family gatherings with her
that were always at her house. The distance
and this pandemic definitely took away time with her. But, I will appreciate
every moment I had with her.
