I have a tattoo that goes all the way down my spine. It’s a strip of Ancient Egyptian text that reads:
“Oh, heart that is in the house of hearts, I have my heart and it is pleased.”
It’s been over two years since I got it inked, and I’m still not sure what it means to me. But the memory of reading those words for the first time is still crystal clear. Walking through the black-vinyl rooms of the ‘Egyptian Antiquities’ exhibit in the Brooklyn Museum, I saw it – a frayed scroll about twenty feet long, rolled out onto a bed of white lights illuminating the markings carefully brushed onto the papyrus:
“Oh, heart that is in the house of hearts, I have my heart and it is pleased.”
My grandma died last month, and I’ve been thinking a lot. Mourning a little, but thinking all the time. It’s sad to think she won’t be around on this Earth anymore. It was hard to watch her go through those final days, with the pain she was in and the way a nest of IV bags can make someone look so weak. She wasn’t weak. She was the strongest person I knew. Yeah, I’m sad but I mostly just wonder.
At certain points of my childhood, she and my grandpa looked after me when my parents were working. She had an infectious laugh and a deceptively dark sense of humor. She was stoic. She could be unforgiving. She had the softest hands. She taught me one of my favorite breakfast recipes – a simple porridge made up of Bok Choy (Chinese Cabbage), rice, chicken broth, and salt. I could never do it the way she did it.
That porridge is kind of how my grandma lived her life. She was a woman who couldn’t care less about wealth, in all its forms. She didn’t give a damn about the approval of others. Money was only currency for her. Even romantic, spiritual riches carried very little weight. You could see the handful of values – compassion, unconditional love, family, sacrifice – that mixed to make her who she was. Like her porridge, grandma held the simplest things in the highest regard.
I didn’t know her very well. She spoke very little English, and my Chinese wasn’t fluent enough to have a deep conversation with her. But I know how she lived. I know how much she meant to her son, my father. She raised him with the highest expectations, not of worldly success but of virtuous triumph. And she was no hypocrite. Grandma always walked the walk, and very rarely talked at all.
The source of my tattoo comes from “The Book of the Dead, of the Goldworker of Amun, Sobekmose.” In Ancient Egypt, people were often buried with a book of spells to carry with them into the afterlife. Some of those spells were for improving quality of life in the next world; Sobekmose’s spell was for improving quality of happiness.
“Was my grandma a happy person?” That’s been on my mind through this whole process. I’ve never met anyone more unflappable, more indomitable; the only time I ever saw her cry was on her deathbed. Maybe she wasn’t happy all the time, but she was always joyful. Life was good even when it was bad, and she wouldn’t let anyone change her mind on that. She insisted on being joyful. That’s how I want to live my life. I don’t want to be happy all the time, that’s a pipe dream. But I want to enjoy the little things. I want to make sure the day never comes that I can’t taste every flavor in the bowl.
So, here’s my porridge recipe:
- Cherish friends, because the older we get the easier it is to lose touch.
- Don’t take family for granted. Time together is exponentially finite. And that goes beyond blood.
- Be someone you would have looked up to as a kid, because someone could be looking up to you right now.
Everything extra is just that: extra.
I think my grandma’s passing would have been a lot worse if my family and I weren’t so sure that she’s alright. We know, with absolute certainty, that wherever she is she’s exactly the way she was. Grandma built a house of hearts with us, through us. A few weeks ago, she took her heart with her on her next journey. I know she is pleased.
Just Writing 