Our Oral History Memoir project is due in about a week and I just wanted to talk about how much I enjoyed this project. My extraordinary person is my po po (grandma), Diane, and she’s 91 years old. I’m close with my grandma just not in the most traditional way because we have a language barrier. However, I’ve spent a lot of time with her at her house in San Francisco because every other weekend, my mom and dad would have overlapping shifts at the hospital. When this happened I’d spend a day and a night there up until I was about 9 or 10. Although with the language barrier it was difficult to share a lot of the smaller details about each other’s lives. In recent years I’ve noticed she’d slip things about her life into conversations with me and just my cousins. Things about her past and her relationship with our late grandpa trying to communicate things we’ve rarely heard anything about before. I’m not sure if she was beginning to talk about these things because I, the youngest, was older in her eyes to hear about these parts of her life or if she just wanted to share more because she felt herself getting older. Either way us, the grandkids, were open to listening yet there was still a barrier of none of us knowing chinese for her to elaborate.
For this reason, my mom helped me ask and translate her answers. The whole process was very emotional and intense at some moments. When we came to touch on topics and hardships it was like reopening a wound that never healed and was difficult to move forward or try to lighten the mood. It somewhat had a snowballing effect that once one bad memory came up, a string of negative thoughts and feelings followed. I care a lot about my grandma and it was hard to hear about how she felt and still feels about things that happened to her. However I learned so much about her life and so did my mom. I understand this process was healing for her to share things she probably hasn’t shared in a long time. Mental health is rarely discussed and therapy services are not often utilized by older adults especially Chinese older adults. I’m so grateful that she felt comfortable enough to share her life story with me and that I got to do this with her. I don’t think we would have ever gone so in depth if not sparked by this project and to think these memories could have been lost is now unthinkable to me. I can’t wait to show her my finished project and for it to hopefully be displayed in her living room along with all the many photos of us grandchildren.
For this reason, my mom helped me ask and translate her answers. The whole process was very emotional and intense at some moments. When we came to touch on topics and hardships it was like reopening a wound that never healed and was difficult to move forward or try to lighten the mood. It somewhat had a snowballing effect that once one bad memory came up, a string of negative thoughts and feelings followed. I care a lot about my grandma and it was hard to hear about how she felt and still feels about things that happened to her. However I learned so much about her life and so did my mom. I understand this process was healing for her to share things she probably hasn’t shared in a long time. Mental health is rarely discussed and therapy services are not often utilized by older adults especially Chinese older adults. I’m so grateful that she felt comfortable enough to share her life story with me and that I got to do this with her. I don’t think we would have ever gone so in depth if not sparked by this project and to think these memories could have been lost is now unthinkable to me. I can’t wait to show her my finished project and for it to hopefully be displayed in her living room along with all the many photos of us grandchildren.