R.I.P. Popo

I'm not sure whether or not everyone know's this, but my Grandmother passed away a little over two weeks ago. She lived to be 96 years old. Last week I was back in Hawaii for her funeral and to celebrate the impressively disciplined and faithful life she lived. Below is the remembrance I gave at her funeral. I would also love to have my brother's speeches, as they spoke quite emotional and touching words about a woman who touched so many lives in such a subtle and profound way. I love you Popo, rest in peace.

I’m going to begin in a rather odd manner. First, by talking briefly about my Grandfather, Paul Chun, Bea’s husband. Now, you’ll have to forgive me, because for the rest of my remembrance I’m going to refer to Paul as Gung Gung and Bea as Popo. Seeing as how there are quite a few Chinese members, I know there’s a lot of Gung Gungs and Popos out there besides my own. But that is how I knew them, so this is how I will remember them.

Gung Gung passed when I was only nine or ten years old. I never really knew him that well, and at his funeral, while my older brothers gave moving remembrances, I sat in among the congregation. This was fitting; I had very little to say that day.

But, I was struck by how vivid and joyous the memories of Gung Gung were to my older brothers. Their emotional stories brought him to life for me, and made me truly miss him. I wished I had been able to stand here that day and tell you all how much I loved my Gung Gung. And how I adored and missed the man I now saw through their words.

I want to share a passage from one of my favorite authors, Ken Follett: “The important thing in life is what a man leaves behind in the minds of others, not the things that remain of himself.” This is a rather ironic statement when applied to Popo’s memory because Popo had, actually still has A LOT of stuff. In fact, Popo was famous in our family for the STUFF she kept.

Popo saved nearly everything. When I dropped off the mail at her house or brought up her groceries I would marvel at the vast jungle of Stuff piled atop her dinning room table. It was a swirling mass of paper. A sea of newspapers, magazines, letters, envelops, stamps, ads, coupons, pictures, calendars, pens, pencils, and paper clips. My father often joked, with a rueful grin, that one morning he would sneak into her house and shuffle the whole mess into a hefty garbage bag. In fact, I myself teased her by picking up various pieces of mail, reading them aloud to her, saying it was useless junk and pretending to cast it into the nearest trash can. At which point, she would almost jump out of her chair and demand that I pull it out because she hadn’t read it thoroughly yet. Ironically, because she was so diligent about writing today’s date on each piece of mail that came in, I knew exactly how long some of her envelopes had been sitting there. It’s 2011 now, and some things were still marked from the 1990s!

Going to her house was always an adventure because I never knew what I might find. A March 1955 National Geographic? Maybe shoes she bought from the ‘70s, still neatly packaged in a dusty box? Ziploc bags with a receipt from April 5^th, 1985, that’s almost a year before I was even born. And sometimes I would find true treasures, like a picture of her trip to Southeast Asia with Gung Gung, faded and cracked around the edges, just lying on a shelf in her closet. Few things were placed with more care than the next, but they all had a place in her home.

That was Popo’s way. She had little care for formalities, no time for luxuries, and no patience for trivialities, except Jeopardy. She sat in the back of this community church for decades. I never saw her ask a question, give a speech or sing a song. But, I know she has been one of its most faithful benefactors, and over most of her 96 years, she was in attendance every Sunday. In many ways, she still is sitting back there, enjoying the camaraderie of her follow members, listening to the word of the Lord, and moving closer to her maker.

Popo was not one who often told you how she felt with words. Instead, she showed you with her actions. Popo actually scared me as a child. She threatened to lace my fingers with chili pepper if she ever caught me picking my nose again, or wash out my mouth with soap for saying a bad word, both things I still do, sorry Popo. As a teenager, my often-blemished face caused her to give me a sheet of thin cosmetic papers to wipe off the oil from my pimply skin. And when I returned from college one summer with a stomach full of beer and pizza she said, “Be careful Stephen, you’re getting fat, huh?” But despite her blunt, insensitive style, she couldn’t hide her love. Each time I told her I was leaving to go back to college or spend a year abroad she forced a little smile, clutched me firmly and wrapped a tiny arm around my neck. Her grey-blue eyes welled up with tears and she told me….. “Study hard!”, or, “Don’t forget to eat your vegetables”. But when she finally let go and said “Goodbye”, I knew she was really saying, “I love you.” THIS is the image she left behind in my mind, and I pray she has done the same for you.