Shengliver’s Note: She embodies kindness, tolerance and generosity.

Who is this woman? Is it Marie Curie? Is it Liu Hulan? Or is it Madame Sun Yat-sen?

No, none of the above. The woman with the biggest heart is my maternal grandma. She passed away in the winter of 2003–2004, a few days before the Spring Festival.

Grandma was not beautiful by today’s standards. She was not sexy, either. She couldn’t read or write. She could not speak perfect Mandarin, but she was an excellent communicator. She even didn’t have a proper name. Her maiden name forgotten by her neighbours, she was simply addressed by her husband’s family name. Her name, Fengshi, translated into English, is Mrs Feng. I remember asking her what her given name was many a time when I was a kid. She once told me that it was juhuar, or chrysanthemum.

Born in a village in Hubei, she was married to my granddad, who was a Henanese. Cross-border marriages are commonplace in my hometown, where three Chinese provinces come and meet. On the wedding day, she was carried in a sedan chair from her parents’ home to the groom’s. When she was reminiscing about the sedan chair ride, her face glowed.

Altogether Grandma has six daughters, no son. My mom is the third of the six. Raising the six was no easy job. To make matters considerably worse, my granddad left her quite early on. In my memory there is little of Granddad. One image pops up when I think of him. He was hobbling on crutches to and fro on the cobbled path leading to the yard gate, groaning with pain. A disease caused pain all over his body. No doctor was able to cure him.

Granddad died, leaving Grandma in charge of their three younger daughters. It was often a hand-to-mouth existence for the family of mother and three daughters. Farm work was labour intensive. Had Gran had a son, things would have been much easier. Gran’s three older daughters, my mother included, had been wedded out of the family by then.

Grandma could not walk fast. For one thing, bent with age, she had to go with a stoop. For another, like her female contemporaries, her feet had been deformed by her parents before she grew up. Bound female feet were a prevalent social practice which was initiated in feudal China and persisted well into the early 1900s. Gran’s feet were wrapped up by long stretches of cloth. Sometimes when I accompanied her on a trip to the veg garden, I had to slow down or simply walked behind her.

Grandma was kindness, tolerance and generosity incarnate. As a kid, I was shy, timid and insecure. I tended to keep myself to myself and I felt nothing wrong with it. Part of my character is probably written in the genes. In retrospect, however, my misery had a lot to do with my father. A very traditional Chinese dad, he was strict and over-disciplining. He was always finding fault with me. Brought up in his way, I came to believe that it was safe to say little and to try to cover up whatever I was doing, good or bad. I was not happy in school either, for I did not have the courage to speak up in class. Naturally enough, most of my teachers did not like me very much. I might look like an idiot in their eyes. As guys believe, fortunately, when one door is dead shut, another is ajar. My grandma was the open door.

Throughout my childhood I paid almost a weekly visit to her. In retrospect, I was like a messenger between Mother and Gran. Mother was too busy to see Gran; it was almost impossible for Gran to travel the distance on foot. On my visits, she and I chatted about anything and everything. She asked me about my mom, dad and brothers. I asked her various questions I had on my mind, the answers to which I couldn’t get from my dad back home. I was open when I was with Gran because she was not critical. She was ready to praise whatever good qualities she found in me. She was the exact opposite of my father. With my father, I was all wrong. With her, I was all right. No wonder my father was incredulous when Grandma one day told him that Shengliver was not shy at all.

Talking with an elder you trust is absolutely a right way to grow up. Humans need to talk to others and to be talked to. If a child stays in a corner and sulks, that is a sure sign of withdrawal. I can’t imagine how I would have been getting along over those years without my grandma there lending a sympathetic ear.

Hunger was no longer a big issue in my childhood. My parents had suffered far worse when they were children. Still on my weekly visits to her, Gran treated me to something special. It could be a snack she had reserved for me. Or before she cooked for the whole family, she would do a nice little meal only for me. It might be a pancake or fried egg. In those years cooking oil, scarce and expensive, was sparingly used in meals. The little meals done exclusively for me by Grandma, however, had no lack of it. My aunts were not allowed to touch them.

When I was a fourth grader, my class director got furious with me for making noises in class with some of my pals. He tied the three or four noise-makers up by a rope in a circle. We were forbidden to step out of it. I think I was hurt. I ran all the way from school to my grandma. It was a drizzling spring day and I was not carrying an umbrella, a raincoat or even a straw hat. To get to her home, I had to cross the river Danjiang on a ferry. The small boat was manipulated by a ferryman. There was no engine at all on it. The rain that morning was so fine that it was all soaked by my clothes when it fell on me. By the time I got to Grandma’s, I was drenched.

I pleaded to attend the primary school close to her home. But it was impossible for we were in two provinces. Besides, what would my parents think? It was Grandma, an illiterate cottage woman but a good communicator, who consoled me and put me back on my feet. In her eyes, Shengliver was a good lad. And I was indeed. On the afternoon of the same day, Mother came over and found me with Grandma. She took me back home, and school was resumed.

After primary school, the idea of giving up on education came to my mind many times. Poor meals served at my middle school canteen, horrible hygiene in the dorm, and inferior instruction done by the masters, coupled with loads of teenage stuff, from time to time overwhelmed me. I could have dropped out citing any of the above as an excuse. A lot of my childhood buddies did that. Each time I found myself dwelling upon the thought, a voice from within was there telling me to hold on. That inner voice instructed I live up to my grandma’s expectations. Under no circumstances should Shengliver let her down.

At the end of high school, when I told Gran I had passed the exams and that I would attend college, she beamed. I was the first of my family to do so. When I finished college and landed my teaching position at a renowned high school, she was bursting with pride. “Shengliver is to be a xiansheng (meaning teacher)!” she exclaimed. Her excitement still echoes in my mind even today.

When my daughter was two years old, my family of three visited Grandma during the Spring Festival. It was the first time she had met my daughter. Seated on the sofa, Gran was holding my daughter’s hand, talking gently, doting on her, all smiles. A chubby baby hand in wrinkled ones makes a perfect picture.

When word came that Gran had passed on, it was towards the end of a term, around which time all kinds of affairs at the workplace had me tied up. On top of that, I happened to be teaching some graduating students then. My father (he passed away several months later in 2004) ordered me to go and attend her funeral, but I failed to make it there. Although I was not at the burial service, I prayed for Grandma.

Gran will have a special place in my heart for ever. In times of confusion, she comes to my dreams and gives me inspiration. This entry is done in her memory because last night I met her in a dream once again.

Thank you, Gran. Shengliver owes you a lot.