Evidence of Existence

In the midst of this decluttering spree, I am reorganizing the linen closet. I’ve refolded the towels, separating the solid-colored bath ones from the printed beach ones. Once I find a basket to store the hand towels, I should be able to check off the linen closet from my to-do list. On the bottom shelf of the closet is a small suitcase, one that is only as wide as a school backpack. I’ve had it for awhile, and I think it is time to throw it out.

I pull out the blue leather bag that was manufactured at least 30 years ago. There is a zipper, but no shoulder strap to carry it with or handle to pull it with. The suitcase had belonged to one of my grandmothers. I brought it back home with me after I attended her funeral in 2004.

When I was a young child, I often visited temple with this grandmother. She was the former mother-in-law of the mother who raised me. She had only one child (a son) who, similar to my biological parents, died in the civil war in our native country. After the war ended, she, my mother, and I immigrated together as refugees to a state on the west coast of the United States, but when my mother and her new husband decided to move to the east coast, my grandmother stayed behind.

Throughout my childhood, I overheard bits and pieces of my mother’s frustration over her mother-in-law. To her, my grandmother was never satisfied with how much my mother had done for her. My grandmother was overly critical of her. My grandmother blamed her for the car crash that they both were in during a visit. My grandmother also complained to friends and neighbors that my mother was not dependable and had not invited her to move with us, forcing her to be family-less. I don’t remember this grandmother having been especially gentle or having ever bitten her tongue, so I am sure that there is some truth to my mother’s assessment of her former mother-in-law. But I do remember my grandmother treating me well enough when we did live together and later on the few visits I saw her. I think this was why I brought her suitcase that carried her most prized possessions with me after her passing. That, and because she had left behind no children to claim it.

I dust off the suitcase. The zipper takes a bit of work, but I finally get it to open. The last time I opened the luggage and perused its contents was when I brought it home over ten years ago. Resting at the top is an 8×10 photograph of the Buddhist monk at the temple she and I regularly attended. I remember this monk well — he and the elderly parishioners were fond of me, frequently asking me to dance Apsara for them and rewarding me with a quarter each time I fulfilled their request. There are other framed photos, one of my grandmother with a shaved head and garbed in white sheets (she had eventually completed many rites and earned herself a Buddhist nun status). Visiting temples and fulfilling boun became her mission. She took pilgrimages to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and other temples in India.

I lift up a thin, narrow photo album, where the sleeves are plastic and compartmentalized to hold individual photographs. I see pictures of more Buddhist monks and the interiors of temples; the colors in the old photos are varying shades of orange. I see a couple of pictures of my grandmother in her younger years, when her hair was black and cut short around her ears. Her face had been angular back then, but later it filled out when she started gaining weight and became diabetic. I flip through more pictures of temples and monks, and then I see a picture of myself. Three years old in the photo, I was practicing the Apsara dance. Besides this newly discovered photo, I have, maybe, only three other ones of when I was a toddler. I slide the photo out from the album sleeve.

Tucked in a folder under the album is a certificate recognizing my grandmother as a United States citizen. There is an address book in a corner of the suitcase. I pick up a wallet and flip through her photo IDs. She must have saved every single picture ID she was given in the U.S., even the expired ones. There is also a framed professional photo of her taken with a man, a woman, and a young boy. She is sitting in a chair, with these unfamiliar people standing behind her, a scene that is often hung over fireplaces in homes. She appears to be the matriarch of the family. This must have been one of the families she lived with after my parents and I moved away. I wonder if the boy, who is probably around my age now, has come across a copy of this picture recently. If he has, does he remember who she was?

Aside from the photo of me as a tiny dancer, I repack my grandmother’s belongings — everything that proves her once existence — into the suitcase. Then I set the suitcase back on the bottom shelf of the linen closet.

November 27, 2017