Eulogy for my grandfather

My grandfather, Wang Lia Min (1914-2007):

• Born and grew up in Dalian, China, a beautiful coastal city in the northeast of China which I'd been lucky enough to visit multiple times last year.
• Married to my grandmother in 1935 and remained together for 68 years before my grandmother’s passing in 2003. I find this quite amazing – it had been an arranged marriage although arranged through the help of their friends. My grandfather was already in the police by then and my grandmother was the daughter of a local professor. They had never met before they got married. My grandmother’s first reaction to seeing her new groom: “He was really short!”

My grandparents wedding day in 1935, Dalian, China

• Eventually rose through the ranks of the police to become Chief of Police in Jinzhou, a nearby city, where my aunt Liza and my father were born.
  

• During the Communist Revolution and because of his position, he was forced to flee to Taiwan with the Nationalists in 1949. My grandmother along with my aunt and father, after a brief year in Beijing, were able to reunite with him in Taiwan.
• In Taipei, he became a police instructor and professor which he remained until 1972.

With my father in early 1960's Taipei

• Both my aunt and father immigrated to the United States in the early 1960’s. My grandmother and grandfather reunited with them in 1971 although my grandfather returned for one more year in Taiwan and finally was convinced to move in 1972. He really loved his police instruction job.
• Both my grandparents moved into senior housing in Venice Beach in 1977 where I would visit them frequently for the next thirty years. I imagine it was a bit challenging for a non-English speaking Chinese couple to live the last part of their lives in the craziness that is Venice Beach. Nonetheless, my grandfather remained in exceptional shape and continued to wake up at 7am every morning and play racquetball next to the beach well into his late eighties.

With my grandmother in 2000

• In contrast to me, my grandfather was also an exceptionally outgoing person, always introducing himself to people and asking how they were. When I was young, I thought that my grandfather was some kind of VIP because no matter what Chinese restaurant we went to, he seemed to already know all of the managers and waiters.
• 67 years is a long time to be married. My grandparents had the playful quarrelling kind of relationship. Every conversation seemed to always be a small argument of some kind that it became kind of a pattern. Despite this, I don’t know of any other couple who lived as closely together as they have.
• My grandfather remained in exceptional physical condition until my grandmother’s passing Christmas three years ago. After that, his memory began to decline very quickly and he often confused my father for his deceased brother and his caregiver for his mother. The saddest part is that his mind just couldn’t accept that my grandmother had already passed away and so everyday he asked where she was or went out looking for her. I know that this was terribly hard emotionally for my father and aunt.
• His physical health didn’t really begin declining until last September. Last month, he had a reoccurance of cancer that quickly spread throughout his body. I was in Hong Kong when my family let me know and had planned on returning to see him in mid-May. Patrick advised that I return earlier – I should have heeded his advice – he passed away on the evening of April 20^th surrounded by his family. He was unable to speak but his last act was to write down that he really missed my grandmother. We believe that he was mentally clear at the end and understood that my grandmother had passed away and was ready to rejoin her.

My paternal grandparents don’t leave behind a very large family, at least not by Chinese standards. They had a son and daughter, five grandchildren (three grandsons including me from my Dad, and two granddaughters from my aunt with me being the youngest in the generation), and three great grandchildren (all on my cousins’ side) with at least one more on the way.

Two of my cute nieces, Melia and Nikki

Our family gathers at our grandparent's burial plot

I gave a eulogy at the funeral on Saturday morning:

I don’t believe that people live their lives in order to teach a lesson. It’s left to those of us left behind to derive our own lessons from their lives. I think we can all agree that people of my grandparents’ generation are made of a different material than the rest of us: stronger, more resilient. They fled China under very difficult circumstances at around the same age as I am today and travelled to Taiwan. It was extraordinarily difficult. They again travelled again in 1971 to the United States and I imagine that it was also a great challenge since they couldn’t speak English.

My grandmother’s passing three years ago was the spark for my current adventure in life. I feel like their life lesson for me is to constantly challenge myself and grow. Each challenge is an opportunity to go through a trial by fire, to enter the kiln and come out stronger and more resiliant like them. Their lives provided a strong foundation for the rest of us to live happy and successful lives. Because of their choices, I have the luxury of choosing to return to China and tackle my new challenges. With these pursuits, I hope to be able to provide a strong and large foundation for my family as well. I can only hope to eventually become as strong as they were.