In memory.

My family is not a very religious one, nor are we beholden to many traditions. Holidays pass by with maybe a phone call or two, a dinner with the family members living closest, but no reunions or trans-America flights. We have never, in my remembering, had a large Thanksgiving dinner or a house piled high with relatives on Christmas morning. Most of us prefer a quiet celebration with those closest to us to a large, raucous party. In this respect, we are all remarkably similar. Reclusive and private though this may seem, in my mind it has always belied the fact that we are always in each others hearts, and no distance can separate us.

My mother has 5 brothers, and my father also 5 and 2 sisters, most of whom lived within a half an hour of each other in my childhood. There is no lack of family to go around- my life abounds with uncles in particular and two loving aunts. Visits to Portland (where mother and father met and married) were always full of rushing around trying to see all the family before I had to go home to LA. 10 uncles, 2 aunts, a great aunt and two grandmothers that you see twice a year will do that to your vacation. Even though we don't get together on holidays or birthdays, though all of our family members are not physically present, we all know we're together in spirit.

Now, as I mentioned in the above paragraph both of my parents come from large families. My grandmother on my mother's side came from Oklahoma, then moved to Portland with her four sisters and brother. I'm not sure what growing up with that many siblings would be like, let alone that many sisters, but I can only imagine that it would have been both difficult and rewarding. For her part, my grandmother came out of it with a fighting spirit, one that she passed on in a lesser portion to all of her children, and if i'm any indication, her grandchildren as well. I say in a lesser portion not to play down the saucy boldness we all seem to share, but rather out of reverence to my grandmother's unflinching, insurmountable moxy. The woman made things happen, she made things work. With 6 mouths to feed and husbands that were in and out of the picture, I suppose she had to. My grandmother was a woman you didn't cross, if you knew what was good for you. That being said, she made sure all of my uncles and my mother had what they needed growing up- they may have been poor, but had food, they had clothes. They had someone to drive down to the station and bail them out of jail after a failed underage cross country attempt or a fight with a police dog (see what i meant about fighting spirit?). She was a strong, tough woman. With 6 children and a constantly moving Aleutian lumberjack husband, she would have had to be.

I loved my grandmother. She would sass me, she would tease me and joke, and she was an ornery old lady. Wiley and belligerent, not to mention a reputed fox in her youth, she was a force to be reckoned with. I remember visiting her as a little girl, being subjected to the usual cheek cupping and hugging. My grandmother loved jewelry, and what most stands out in my memory, like many people's memories about their grandmothers, is her hands. Soft, wrinkled and covered in rings. Emerald rings were her favorite, and she had them in spades.

This post is for my grandmother. It's for my mother, it's for my uncles. I'm in China right now, and when i called home last night and the first thing my brother said was 'Mom's flown to Portland', i knew something was wrong. I wish i could be with all of you, but I can't. I wish I could be with you all to celebrate her life, but I'll be having my own celebration for her in China. I don't think there is any more appropriate way to honor my Grandmother's spirit than to keep on the way she would have- making things work in the best of times and the worst of times. Things are far from easy right now in China, but if I learned anything from my Grandmother, it was that you can make things work by sheer force of will. She may not have been an apple pie style grandmother at home in the kitchen all day, but she was her own woman, strong and resilient, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

My family doesn't celebrate the way most families do. We don't do large holidays, we don't like memorials either. We live in the vein of celebrating the life, not mourning the passing. I love you grandma. I'll miss you. You were beautiful, and you were strong. I hope that I can always be as strong and capable as you were. I know when things are difficult for me, I can think back to you, and know that you, like my own mother, knew how to make things work. This part of my spirit i can trace back to you.

All my love to all my family,

Jess