Family Lunch: a talk with Grandma

We took mom to NBC Seafood restaurant in Alhambra for her birthday. This is one of the few times of the year where everybody actually come to meet with each other. A crab is only $15 there and cooked with zesty Chinese spices. Now I'm thinking that it is actually more expensive to eat crab at the beach market anywhere. It was $10 a pound at Redondo. My brother in law, Greg, confirmed that it is the same price at Long Beach too. Sighs...

We had so much food!!! After the lunch, we met back at my younger sister's place for the cake and coffee. It's a very yummy cake layered with slices of mango... not too sweet, not too rich, but just right. I had two slices even though I was really full... I look around and everyone was having a second slice just like me... hahaha. It also look like we're all going to skip dinner now.

After the cake is finished, the coffee emptied, and others departed. I've learned that my grandma is leaving back to Taiwan tomorrow. And I'm at a loss for words.

I used to be very close to my grandma. She took care of me since I was 1 or 2 weeks old after my parents took me to I-Lan from Taipei because they both have to work and there's no one to watch me. So as far back as I can remember, I have the smell of grass in my nose and the color of the field farms in my eyes. This was I-Lan 30 some years ago.

Memories came back as I sat down with my only surviving grand parent to talk about her recent trip/vacation to Hawaii. How she thinks that the ocean was so pretty. How the names that she'd only heard others spoke of has met her eyes in the realest way... and how she would remember the things that I have already forgotten... 32 years ago.

She got both me and my brother a T-shirt from Hawaii... I think I might only wear it one time... because it will be so "precious" to me. But I think, in her mind, she would wish that I could wear it everyday.

To my dearest grandma... a song that I used to sang to her when I was in Taiwan... when I was a little kid. Who thought I had everything.... because I did:

外婆的澎湖灣

晚風輕拂澎湖彎 白浪逐沙灘
沒有椰林綴斜陽 只是一泓水藍藍
坐在門前的矮牆上 一遍遍懷想
也是黃昏的沙灘上 有著腳印倆對半
那是外婆拄著杖 將我手輕輕挽
踩著薄暮走向餘暉 暖暖的澎湖彎
一個腳印是笑語壹串 消磨許多時光
直到夜色吞沒我倆 在回家的路上
澎湖彎澎湖彎 外婆的澎湖彎
有我許多的童年幻想 陽光ˍ沙灘
海浪仙人掌
還有一位老船長