Grandma is Obaasan, Grandpa is Ojiisan...

(that is what we learn to say...in Japanese!)

I don’t know my grandfather (Ojiisan, Grandpa, Tita, Peter). I never really knew him. Yes, he’s still alive. But my memories of visiting my paternal grandparents’ house when I was little consist mostly of remembering running up and down the stairs with the hole in the wall, playing with my aunt's old dolls, and watching The Swan Princess while the grown-ups played hearts after dinner.

I don’t know what he was like before he got older. I only have one really clear memory of my grandfather before he moved in with us, and it’s short and not very illuminating:

I’m about three, and reading one of those Disney read-along books with my grandmother. My grandfather comes in, says something funny, we both laugh, and my grandmother says something along the lines of ‘Grandpa is a very silly man isn’t he?’ He leaves, and we go back to our book.

That’s the only thing I remember of what I think of as my ‘real’ Grandpa. Not that he isn’t real now. But my day-to-day interactions with him in the here-and-now consist mostly of reminding him of where he is, who I am, and why he’s living in Virginia instead of New Jersey or California. That’s tiring, emotionally and physically. It’s harder on my father of course, but I feel bad that I can’t do anything to make it better, that I can’t remember who he was, that I so often feel frustrated and irritated instead of sympathetic.

I wasn’t interested in my grand-parents when I was younger. Sure, I did a project on my grand-father’s experiences in Poston during WWII, but other than that, I never asked questions about him or his family or their history. Now, it’s almost too late. My grandfather’s 95, and I only found out a week or two ago that he used to work at selling the types of gadgets you normally see advertised in infomercials. Who knows what other stories I’m missing out on? Will I have the patience and the energy to try and learn more when I get home? Or will I be too distracted by the mundane demands of school and clubs to pay attention to my Ojiisan, too tired to struggle through the repeated sentences and lost trains of thought? Is the short term gain of reading a book or watching a tv show worth losing the personal history?