The longing for familial connection

When I thought you might be dying
I cried for all we’d never be
But there’ll be no more crying
Not for me

“Maybe,” from Next to Normal

As a child, I was jealous of my classmates who had relatives living in the United States. All my extended family resides in China. Only my mother’s parents have visited the United States — three times: when I was born, when my brother was born, and when I was ten. Yet even them I barely remember. They must not have spent much quality time with me.

I was also jealous of my Chinese American classmates, some of whom had grandparents who lived with them, and some of whom visited their family in China every few years or so. My parents only took my brother and me to China once, when I was fifteen. They were afraid of us getting sick and of my brother’s selective eating being a problem. Well, we did get sick because of our bodies not being accustomed to the water and the environment, and my brother’s distaste for most Chinese food was still a challenge. I still think the trip was worth it. It’s the only time I met any members of my father’s family.

So I never developed much of a relationship with most of my extended family. As my grandparents are growing older and more frail, I have been thinking of the limited time left to get to know them. My mother’s father died in 2020. It was not of COVID, but because of the pandemic, when he became hospitalized and it was clear that he would die soon, my mother could not go visit him, which was very hard for her. Shortly before he died, he asked to see each one of us on the phone. I remember my last words to him, in Mandarin: “I am in college now. I am very happy.” He knew very little about me and could understand very little of my American young adult life, but at least he could appreciate that.

One of my friends recently cut contact with his parents.
He said that it might be a necessity for me someday.
I had never considered that option.
I knew others had chosen it,
I knew there were good reasons to choose it.
But I was made to be an eldest daughter,
The one who cares for all.
And I am akin to the eldest son,
The bearer of the family name.

My parents are planning to visit their parents in China next summer. They do so out of obligation, as children in a Confucian culture. I cannot publicly write much about how they actually feel, but let’s just say that the generational wounds run deep. But regardless of how well a parent cared for a child, the adult child must care for the aging parent.

I want to go with them. I want to see my remaining grandparents one last time. But my mother tries to dissuade me from this. China would be too overwhelming to you, she says. That is probably true. Too many crowds, a lot of smoking and drinking, and a whole lot of other overstimulation in the environment. I could probably manage it with support, but my parents do not know how to support me. They also do not want our family to know about my “problems.”

But I care about my grandparents, I say. And my mother tells me, they don’t care very much for you. In particular, my father’s father cares for me mostly because I am his son’s child. But by that logic, my younger brother is more important than I am, as he is the only son of the only son. So I am the lesser, but it’s not like my grandfather actually cares much about my brother either. We’re just theoretically the important ones, according to Confucian tradition. My cousins who live in China — all children of daughters — get to have closer relationships with our grandparents than we can have.

And I just cry, and cry, and cry. Even if I met with my grandparents, we’d barely have anything to say to one another. The cultural and generational gaps are unfathomable. My father’s parents even speak a different mother tongue, a regional dialect of Chinese. The connections we can make in Mandarin are only elementary school level.

Autistic as I am, I have never yearned so much for small talk. I wish I could just chat with my grandparents about anything, even the weather or their favorite animal. Just to hear their voice, to know the cadence of their spirit. Before they are gone.

What is there to Confucian values?
My mother sometimes accuses me of not caring for family.
Cultural conflicts make understanding hard.
But I do care for family, perhaps excessively.
I care even if they do not care.
I care even if they do not care for me.

I don’t know if I will go with my parents to China. Either way, I won’t get what I want with my grandparents. There’s no way to make up for never getting to know each other earlier. For no storytelling from grandparent to grandchild, no sharing of traditional recipes, few memories made that I can nostalgically remember.

(I keep trying to remember my mother’s parents who visited the U.S.. I have some isolated memories, but very few pieces of who they were. They last visited when I was ten — why don’t I remember anything? They did not even help my mother care for me when I was born. They changed not a single diaper. Most likely, they did not know how to engage with me when I was older, either.)

My mother tells me that there’s more hope with my cousins. I can continue to connect with them through WeChat, as I have very occasionally (although only my two girl cousins, as my mother sees no reason for me to be connected with my boy cousins and thus hasn’t given me their contact info). In the future, I may be able to visit them in China. Perhaps some of them might visit the U.S. as well.

When I began my masters program, during one of the orientation sessions, someone led a meditative exercise in which we had to imagine walking through a street market. Somewhere in the market, we would find something that we had been looking for. I found a guinea pig whose spirit was my mother’s father. I wept at this unexpected discovery.

My mother has a story from her childhood, when she had to travel in the countryside to visit her grandmother who was seriously ill. One night, she dreamed of her grandmother. Once she got to her grandmother’s home, she learned that her grandmother had already passed, precisely on the night during which she dreamt that dream.

I believe my ancestors are with me, even across distances, even after death. Telephones and internet only make distance connections more salient for those who might otherwise reject them as supernatural. Even if I never see my grandparents again, I will encounter them somewhere. I will hold them in my heart.

For the truest relationship is not in conversation, nor in the touch of hand to hand, but in being with being, and that already is.