Rich, my
beloved, was raised by his grandmother, whom he titled GM. She had been the
wife of the head of the village and clan in Southern China until the Japanese
Occupation when war devastated the community at a great cost of many
lives. She felt very “fook sing” (lucky)
to have made it to America with her only son and they rebuilt their lives from
scratch. She ran a Chinese laundry, which I have no doubt was the finest in all
of Flushing, Queens, and while working and taking care of her grandchildren,
she told stories of the homeland, including the hardest times of having to eat
insects and anything they could during drought and war, famine and pestilence.
She relayed all this with no bitterness, only a sense of great good fortune in
getting to live in the land of plenty in America. Day by day, story-by-story,
she instilled values of excellence- gratitude, hard work, keeping a positive
attitude no matter what. GM’s actions also demonstrated this to her young
charges. As a very petite older Chinese woman who spoke NO English, she faced
prejudice but never let it faze her or embitter her.
When Rich and his younger
brother Jimmy went to public school in Queens, they made lots of friends in
that melting pot metropolis including a young African American adolescent boy
who was really tall for his age and came from a family that had a hard time
putting enough food on the table. One
day, he came home after school with the grandsons. It took GM about two seconds
to assess the situation and she told them to bring him by everyday and he could
eat with the family and she made extra for their new fast-growing buddy. Having
faced severe hunger during the war, GM was not going to let anybody in her
circle go hungry. Every day in ways large and small, she showed her family how
to do the right thing- stand on the bus so others can sit, be polite even if
others are rude and, above all, “take care of your clan.”
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