My grandmother could hardly speak in the last three years of her life. Yet her voice before her laryngeal cancer was the clearest and the most encouraging I had ever heard in my life. “One day when we were young, that wonderful morning in May…” my father first mentioned her perfect voice, singing those meaningful words. She never complained throughout her entire life; she never lost her temper in her eighty one years, and no son or grandson on earth can hope for a dearer or shinier example of determination, selflessness and love. “It’s all right dear; you can do it as long as you persist!” my father, imitating my grandmother’s way of speaking, reminded me of her motto.
“Your grandmother was a most beautiful woman, in her looks and in her soul” my father said while he was staring deeply into the black and white portrait of my grandmother. Her almond face exuded rouge that framed a pair of piercing black eyes and perfectly curved lips that sat below an uncommonly narrow nose, with a tiny beauty mole on the right side. My grandfather undoubtedly loved her classic beauty, which I believe, no man could resist.
My father perceived my grandmother as an extraordinary woman of her generation that was dominated by men. Back in the 40s, female students were required to wear tight-fitting Chinese dresses that covered their knees to school, causing great inconvenience when they were getting on the bus especially when climbing up the deck. At that time, sexism was prevailing; school girls tried filing complaints about the inconvenience hoping that the authorities would abandon the conservative rules on school uniform, but to no avail. As a result, with my grandmother as the leader, they started a protest with 50 members to fight for female rights and to express their outrage to the authorities. “She was there, the girl with two long pony tails in the front row, holding a flag in her right hand and a horn on her left.” My father pointed at the picture in the shining purple steel frame, hanging prominently on the wall at the center hallway. “Despite multiple failures, your grandmother did not give in. This is the never-die-spirit she possesses,” my father alleged with a respectful tone. My grandmother’s group finally succeeded, bringing the concept of feminism to the country. She always referred this as the “revolution of school uniform”.
Since then, she devoted her entire life as an elementary and secondary school teacher. Nurturing and educating the younger generations was her ambition. She loved teaching patriotism through singing, and was very strict when it came to singing the China’s national anthem. “Sing clearly and keep your hand in the right position!” My father said that she always stressed the importance of the national anthem, and she sternly required every student to memorize the lyrics without any errors. “She disliked people with shallow patriotism, and once she made me practice two lines for three hours just because I was not loud enough.” My father explained, and he naturally straightened his back, thrust out his chest, placed his right fist on it and began to demonstrate how to sing correctly.
My grandmother’s optimistic attitude helped her to overcome many hardships. As my grandfather passed away at an early age, he was unable to provide much for my grandmother. My grandmother was one of those exceptional single mothers who worked two jobs, as a school teacher and a cleaning lady, throughout the day in order to support her two sons, my father and uncle. “We are really fortunate to have such a tough and adorable mother to look up to,” my father emphasized. At that time, she could not afford to rent an apartment, so three of them became lodgers in a room to a distant relative. All he could offer to them was a small bunk bed: my father and uncle slept on top, my grandmother below. It was very hot and humid in the summer, but there was no question that they could afford air-conditioning, and they had to make do with a small electric fan. “Sharing it on a bunk was not easy, but your grandmother always propped it up for me and uncle. In almost every night, I would wake up in semi-darkness and look down in the bunk to see your grandmother sweating gently and frowning slightly in her sleep and would divert the fan towards her out of guilt and respect.” My father intentionally diverted his eyes to another direction instead of facing me after saying these words.
Honestly, I did not have much experience with my grandmother, but I would always remember our first Dragon Boat Festival without my parents. My grandmother cooked me big gluttonous rice dumplings, as she knew that I liked them but could not afford to have normally. I still remembered the two dumplings came to $15, the amount of money my grandmother earned in a whole day. I was much enjoying the taste until I saw that my grandmother had only make herself left-over chicken rice from last night. “Eat more! Eat more! My chicken rice is delicious too!” This dialogue would be imprinted in my mind forever.
I learned more from my grandma about living life than from any writer’s works I have read or any person I have met. When I think of her now, I secretly cry a little in my remembrance of her care for our family and her positive attitude towards life, which I have grown to appreciate properly only after she left this unfair world.
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