Rich, my beloved, was raised by his grandmother, whom he called "GM." She had been the wife of the head of their village and clan in Southern China until the Japanese Occupation, when war devastated the community at the 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. While working and taking care of her grandchildren, she told stories of the homeland, including the hardest times of having to eat insects during drought and war, fame, and pestilence. She relayed all this with no bitterness, only a sense of good fortune in getting to live in the land of plenty in the US. Day by day, story-by-story, she instilled values of excellence-gratitude, hard work, keeping a positive attitude no matter what- in her children and grandchildren. 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 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 stopped by her house with Rich and Jimmy. It took GM about two seconds to assess the situation and she told them to bring him by every day. She always 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 or small, she showed her family how to do the right thing- stand on the buss so others can sit, be polite even if others are rude, and, above all, "Take care of your clan."
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