Obaachan
I was going through my old journal and revisited this entry. It’s been a while since I thought about her, but I figured I’d repost it here. I miss her still and cannot deny the effect she had on my life.
Sunday, April 20th, 2003
I called her “Obaachan,” grandmother in Japanese. Her real name was Misako and when I was younger I would go over to her house to eat cookies, watch cartoons and play with her cats. She had a VCR before my parents and she would take me to a rental place where I could pick out any cartoon I wanted. She couldn’t have been more than 5 feet tall, so it was strange when I started to grow and became taller than her.
She introduced me to Japanese food, Japantown in San Francisco, seaweed as a snack and taught me how to fold paper cranes. I remember once, when my Mom was sick and had to stay overnight in the hospital, my Dad dropped me off at her house late at night so that he could stay with my Mom. She made up one of their guestrooms for me and on one of the walls was a bookshelf lined with books in a language I couldn’t understand. She tucked me in and I wasn’t scared that I wasn’t sleeping in my parents’ house. She told me she’d be down the hall if I needed anything.
After all this time of living across the street from each other I still didn’t know much about her. She grew up in Nara, Japan. Her husband said she was spoiled as a child. I don’t know how they met or how she came to the United States.
As I got older, I saw her less… before she got sick she invited me a couple times to go have lunch but each time I said I was too busy or something along those lines. Now, I can’t even remember what I was so busy over…
She passed away this morning after battling with cancer for almost a year. The last time I saw her tore me apart. She looked so small, so frail… like she could break if you held her too hard. Doctors put her on morphine to dull her pain, but it also meant that couldn’t really focus on anything anymore… drifted in and out a lot and could barely make eye contact. I could barely look at her because I kept crying so much.
While my parents and I were visiting her in her convalescent home, they told her that I would be visiting Japan this summer. Her eyes flew open and she smiled and laughed a little… I’d like to think that she saw me then.
I’ll miss my obaachan, and I hope that wherever she is now she knows how much I considered her my grandma.
Rest in Peace
Misako “Obaachan” Kosobud
1936 - 2003
