gramma sayo

I'm very sad to say that Gramma Sayo died on June 6. She was 83 years old. It was our last night in London when she passed away. Phet had already left for Bangkok to pick up his father. Ji and I went downtown together in the evening and were planning to go on a walking tour about ghosts in London, but we got to the Tube stop late. Instead, we wandered throughout the rainy streets of the financial district and watched all the bankers loosen their ties and toss back pints. We eventually got ourselves headed in the right direction - away from the glass and steel office buildings and deserted streets - towards St. Paul's Cathedral. We walked around it and it was lovely; the sun just barely glittered through the high clouds, letting little sparkles shine through the mist. Then it drizzled in earnest and we crossed over the Thames along the Millenium bridge. We passed by the newly re-built Globe theatre, wandered alongside the Tate Modern, and strolled with our umbrellas all the way down to the banks across from the Parliament buildings, which were lit with pink, dusky light by the time we got there. We crossed back over the river, watched yobs drizzle beer on double decker buses passing underneath the bridge, walked through Trafalgar Square, past the Haymarket Theatre, and up to Picadilly Circus which was brim-ful of Friday night party-goers. It was 10:30 pm by the time we hit the Tube again, and when we got on Ji and I sat and watched interesting characters come and go - including a couple dressed in 1940s style finery, with the man in a suave top hat. We wandered back to our flat holding hands and chatting away. It was a lovely and really special evening, and it was while we were a-wandering and really just enjoying hanging out together that Gramma Sayo died.

Very sadly, Phet and his Dad didn't make it back to see Gramma Sayo in time. They were in Bangkok together, though, when they got the news, so at least they had each other. Phet's cousin, Sandy, who lives in London very kindly came by to our flat in Hammersmith after work to tell us the sad news. She and her husband Laurent waited for Ji and I for more than an hour but finally had to leave and head home. Ji and I got back, heard the news, said a good-wish prayer for Tai Ma, and then went to bed.

Gramma Sayo was a truly kind and lovely person. I knew her for as long as I've been together with Phet - something like 17 years now. In that time, she was always calm and relaxed about having a weird non-Asian girl join her family. I think the most she ever said (that I heard about, anyways!) about me was that I had really big feet. Other than that, nothing. I never had the sense from her that I wasn't welcome or that I wouldn't fit in. After I learned some Vietnamese and later Lao, Gramma Sayo went out of her way to talk to me. She'd sit in the living room at her house and tell me stories about the family, about what she liked to do, and would occasionally offer advice about how to avoid digestive problems. One day she even told me a story that she'd never told anyone else in the family -- apparently, before she married Phet's grandfather, she had married another man! They didn't have any children, she said, and they later broke up. I never got to hear further details, but I get the impression there were alot of things that she'd been through or experienced that we never knew about. She did tell me about her family life when she was little. Her father was a very poor green onion farmer. She said that when she was still very small (we think about six or seven years old), her mother died of respiratory problems - maybe tuberculosis. She also said one time that her mother had bound feet, but perhaps I was misunderstanding that. I can't imagine a farmer's wife having bound feet, but maybe that was the case. Everyone knew, though, that after her mother died, Gramma Sayo's father sold her as a servant to another family. It's not entirely clear to me who she worked for, or whether she changed to and from different households. But at some point, she started to work for a Japanese family and then travelled with them for several years to different places.

We always thought that she had gone to Japan with them, but aunts say that actually she learned Japanese just by working with the family and then at the end of the second world war, they went back to Japan. When we told Gramma we were moving to India, she piped up and told us that she'd lived there! Pheuy's Mum told us that just a couple of weeks before she passed away, she kept asking her to tell us to buy her two Indian-style outfits because she thought the cotton would be so comfortable. Aunt told me recently that Gramma had also lived in Myanmar before moving with the Japanese family to Laos. I have no idea how the family came to live in Pakse -- was the father a Japanese army official? Was he an administrative person? How many people were in the family? Aunt says that when they had to leave Laos, the family offered to have papers made for Gramma Sayo and several of the other servants to go with them, but Gramma said no and stayed in Laos. It was always my impression that Phet's grandfather then offered to marry her, partly so that she would be able to stay safely there in Pakse despite not having proper papers, but I could be mistaken about that as well.

Within the family, Gramma Sayo (also know, by her grandkids and me as "A Ma" and by her great-grandchildren as "Tai Ma", and by her kids simply as "Ma") was a small pivot point around which everyone's lives revolved. She was pretty calm and quiet and peaceful. Phet says she used to do alot of the cooking and cleaning at home, but gradually Nga Gu took over those duties, leaving Gramma to do just a little of the veg washing and occasional rice frying. Phet's aunts are rigorous cleaners and exceedingly industrious, busy people, but Gramma took a much more mellow approach. She loved joking, playing cards, gambling, visiting people, and back when she was allowed to tipple she enjoyed good whiskey.

She was also an amazingly thoughtful grandmother-in-law and a very engaged great-grandmother. When I was pregnant, Gramma would always check that I'd eaten enough. When Ji was little and we were living with Gramma, she tell him to let me finish my dinner properly before coming to play with me. When I'd be getting up ridiculously early due to jet lag, she'd putter down the stairs and check that I had some breakfast. I remember that the summer I was pregnant with Seung Yi, I was up one day at 5 am and Gramma had already gotten up to put on the rice cooker to make sure I'd have some warm food ready for me when I wanted it. This was when she was 81. With Seung Yi and Ji Hong, she was always interested in what they were doing and learning and loved playing with them. She was patient with Ji Hong's distracted ways and inability to speak a language she could understand. She loved, loved, loved skyping us and aunts told me that she'd ask to check this site every day. Jenny and Pheuy very kindly would open up the videos and pictures here for her to see all the time.

And lastly, I can't express it in alot of words, but to imagine the important place Phet's Gramma has in his heart, you just have to think of a little boy, five years old, leaving behind his parents and friends, his school and community, and trustingly holding his Grandmother's hand as she leads him into an entirely different universe.

Thanks so much to everyone who dropped by the visitation and who attended the funeral service. It really meant so much to Phet and his aunts especially. Aunt Theresa, aunt really let her emotions show through to you, and it was so kind of you and your Mum to come. John, Katy, Pat, Cathie, and Jodi, thank you for going out of your way to see everyone. Mum, Em, and Adam, thanks so much as well. We love you all.

[Toronto-14-June-2008]