A Farewell I Couldn’t Make
When I think of my grandfather, I don’t see a hospital room or the word “cancer.” I see a small courtyard in Fuzhou, where the late afternoon sun painted the walls golden, and a full-grown man crouched beside a tricycle, patiently guiding my four-year-old self as I pedaled for the very first time. I was born in New York City, but with my parents busy working, they sent me back to Fuzhou almost immediately. My grandparents on my mother’s side were the first to truly raise me. He spoke in our soft Fuzhounese dialect, laughter in his voice, promising I’d be racing past the neighborhood kids in no time. That moment, wheel against cobblestone, his steady hand on the back, was the first of many ways he taught me how to find balance in a new world. Every evening, as the sky turned lavender, grandfather would hum “老鼠爱大米” (“Mice Love Rice”). His voice cracked a little on the high notes, but he’d lean close and let me trace each Chinese character in the steam rising from my bowl of congee. That silly song, about tiny mice scurrying for grains, became our secret lullaby. Even now, years later, whenever I hear that melody, I can almost feel his rough, warm palm smoothing the hair off my forehead.
Around the age of five, I boarded a plane from Fuzhou to New York, returning to the bright lights of the city that my parents called home to begin pre-K. Grandfather stayed behind in Fujian province, and our lives stretched across oceans. I learned English faster than I learned to cook rice; he learned to wait by the phone, knowing my mother would call from the States and hand it to me.
Years later, while I was eating breakfast, my mother sat beside me and told me that grandfather’s cancer had taken a turn. I was stunned; up until that morning, my mother had kept his diagnosis from me. At the time, I was still too young to even understand what cancer was, but old enough to know he was very sick by the worry etched on her face and the weight it carried in her voice. She flew back to Fuzhou for his funeral, while my dad stayed behind, balancing his job and two kids. I couldn’t be on the plane due to school.
But through international calls and blurred video calls, grandfather’s last lesson revealed itself: love can span continents, survive silence, and outlast even the hardest goodbyes. I’ll never sing “老鼠爱大米” quite the same way, and that’s how I know he’s still with me, in every lyric that slips through my lips and in every wobble-to-steady-ride moment I face. Writing this isn’t about cancer statistics or fundraising links; it’s about a grandfather whose simple acts, singing, steadying my tricycle, fed my courage and shaped my heart. The song isn’t just any song; it’s a reminder of where I come from and what I’m capable of. And so, I’ll carry his resilience, quiet strength, teachings, and warmth wherever life’s next road takes me.