Talida Bakes

Grandmothers

Over the weekend, I attended the wake of our Poh-Poh, Ing-Fen Hsu Jeng, who died January 15, 2011 at the age of 85. Technically she’s my husband’s sister‘s husband’s Poh-Poh (maternal grandmother), but I’m calling her Poh-Poh because she was a woman who loved everybody as her own family. I didn’t know Poh-Poh terribly well, but I see and know the fruits of her love through her family. I’m thankful I had the chance to attend her and Gong-Gong’s 60th wedding anniversary a few years back, and it was the sweetest celebration to join in, especially as a newlywed at the time.

A snapshot of their 1948 wedding.

One after another, family and friends relived stories about what a big heart she had towards others, and some of her grandchildren shared how they always found it weird that Poh-Poh never cooked for them (the cooking was Gong-Gong’s job). Hearing these stories made it so sad to say goodbye, but we pray with great hope that God’s mercy has brought her and Gong-Gong together again in eternity.

After coming home from the service, I immediately thought about my own grandmothers, and how fortunate Tim and I are to still be able to talk to and Skype with all four of ours today. And how happy were we to visit Thailand last summer to celebrate Arpor’s (my maternal grandmother) 90th birthday and Khun Ya’s (my paternal grandmother) 92nd birthday with them!

Having lived my whole life in the States with most of my extended family residing in Bangkok, I only saw my grandmothers once every 3 years at best. Still, I have many fond memories of them, and food plays an important part of those memories. I’ll be posting a few of those memories (as well as new memories from this past trip) in a mini-series to come. In anticipation of those posts, I’d like to ask y’all…

What are some of your fondest memories of your grandmother(s)? I look forward to reading your stories!

4 Responses to “Grandmothers”

1. lisa:
   January 25th, 2011 at 10:13 pm

   My grandma's stories and my grandpa's winks. Those are definitely my favorite memories. I'm excited to see the recipes that form some of your favorite memories!

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2. Christopher:
   January 26th, 2011 at 3:15 am

   My favorite memory of grandma was her constant encouragement. Almost every time I went to visit her, she'd tell me that I've gotten taller. She know's that I'm close to 30 and hasn't grown an inch since the 8th grade.

   Thank you for this post, Talida :)

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3. monkey:
   January 26th, 2011 at 9:11 pm

   sorry to hear the sad news =( it's great to hear what a great impact she had on friends and family.

   my favorite memory of my maternal grandma is her playing japanese nintendo with me when i was a kid! she still plays today!!

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4. Yoshi:
   February 3rd, 2011 at 5:14 am

   My grandma was recently diagnosed with cancer, which has left me thinking a lot about my relationship with my grandparents (I still have all 4 too). It's funny how these people who are so different from you, if only due to the generational gap, played such an integral role in shaping your life. One of my favorite memories is when I decided a few years ago to interview my grandparents and learned a lot of their stories of how they met and got married. Such sweet anecdotes, and it's fun to think of them at my age!

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