“Immigrants say a momentous goodbye one time, and then spend the rest of their lives repeating it.” You keep inviting me to feel feelings my culture has taught me to dissociate from! Once again, your writing here is such a gift.
To qualify my remark, I want to say I am neither female, Muslim, nor am I an immigrant. None of that prevents me from hearing your messages. I’m 75 and grew up in Pennsylvania then moved to Tallahassee, Florida, in 1971. Intolerance seems to flourish. Growing up the cruel remarks were based on ethnicity, religion, and income levels.
NEVER COMPARE
In Florida all of the above were operative. In 1971 slave quarters remained and were occupied by “tenant farmer.” Ones with no resources. No land, no home that was theirs, and always subject to the whims of white owners. I was shocked by the living conditions. Black churches were an anchor for their lives. A chance to socialize, have fund raising events for church repairs. Funeral services provided a safe place to grieve. With modern times the young black folks don’t rely on their churches as a mainstay of their lives.
Why this blah, blah, blah? Perhaps from my father fighting during WW II in Europe. He accompanied a photographer from LIFE Magazine who came to obtain photo documentation of the liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp. My dad took a substantial number of photos that he brought home. I saw them at age 12. It took little effort to recognize all the plans, dreams, and aspirations for their lives as well as their families that the Nazis had brought to naught.
I’m grateful for your courage in dressing and speaking so openly on this mostly hostile North American continent. With violence against innocent people all over the World, you can be certain I don’t say any cheery words to trivialize any of this.
Gary, I really appreciate this insight. I think there is so much suffering across so many places and, as you said, violence against innocent people all over the world. Most people just want to live in dignity and self determination, and those should be basic human rights.
I was so touched by this piece. It reminded me of my grandmother - who is still there - who left Cameroon for France as an old lady to be closer to her daughters and sons. Even though here doctor's appointments, her children, and grandchildren are there, she is definitely livelier when back to Cameroon. She is now reaching an age where travelling back to Cameroon is challenging so it always feels she is nostalgic.
There is so little said about grandparents who changed country in an advanced age and how it affects them, yet it is so important.
My French grandmother starting having alzheimer when I was in high school, but I consider a blessing she stayed with us until I started working. Yes, her memory faded, and I was especially afraid she would completely forget me as I studied abroad, but it was always such a pleasure to see her moments of lucidity when she believed to be at a certain period of her life or came back to present times and would talk to us or getting to know us again. Alzheimer is such a terrifying disease as you see the person you have always known becoming a stranger, yet short moments of lucidity are the most beautiful. At least, it was the way I got through it. When she passed, I was ever so sad because I saw her a month earlier and we had a conversation like in the old days, she perfectly remembered who I was.
Emmanuelle, I'm so touched that you shared this all with me. Your story of your grandmother who left Cameroon as an elder is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind when I was writing this. Just my parents' experience, of immigrating as adults, is mindboggling to me. I can't even imagine how my grandparents felt when they left everything familiar and came to Canada for a few years.
I'm glad you had some of that time with your French grandmother and that you got to experience more of those moments of lucidity. I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope your memories of her can sustain you...
Being an elderly immigrant is such a different experience. Yes, they are with their family, children and grandchildren, but they left memories of a life well-lived, habits, their language, food, traditions and homeland. I cannot think of a more destabilizing experience for our elders.
Thank you for your kind words about my French grandmother. Just yesterday we remembered her with my family. I am so sorry for your loss, too. I could feel in your writing how much you miss your grandfather and also how difficult it was to see him battling Alzheimer. Sending you lots of love.
Thank you so much, Dee. It is particularly cruel. The person changes so much you feel like you're losing them while they're still there. I'm sorry for the loss you felt with her.
"He’s upset because everything is so confusing, because everything keeps changing, because he used to know so much and now it is just out of his grasp, no matter how he reaches." - such a succint way to summarize an all consuming disease.
"But what can you fit in a suitcase among the logistics of leaving? What can you take when the bags will be weighed and there are limits?" - absolutely gutted.
There's so much suffering in Gaza. Thank you for keeping it in the forefront when it is often easier to scroll it away.
I cannot turn away from Gaza. I read an incredible article for Naomi Klein in The guardian this weekend about the suffering becoming ambient to our lives. Highly recommend
3 out four of my grandparents are still living. My maternal grandparents live 10 minutes away. I enjoy going out to eat with them, coloring with them, and playing games with them. My paternal grandmother lives 10 hours away so we see her twice a year at best. She has fun stories of growing up on a farm and makes delicious fudge. My maternal grandmother makes chocolate cake for my birthday every year. My paternal grandfather died a year before my parents met each other
Sakari, that sounds like such a privilege to have two of them so close by, and to still be close (emotionally, if not physically) to your paternal grandmother too! I love that you still do so much with them. I never met my paternal grandparents. They both died before I was born. I think having my maternal grandparents live mostly in another country/culture also led to more separation than if my parents had either remained in Egypt, or if they'd been the ones to immigrate.
This is a lovely essay. It makes me think of my dad. He went through Parkinson's disease for 15 years and suffered memory loss and loss of speech in his last years. It's hard witnessing someone fading away. But I love sentimental tokens. I have drawings from my younger siblings who are now adults, and my son's little things he made for me over the years. On one of my bookshelves I have a letter A he made for me out of Legos. I still have one living grandparent, my father's mother, who now has dementia. She'll turn 100 in September insha'Allah.
Ambata, I love your collections. It's sweet how these tokens help us connect and remember. I'm sorry about your dad - that must have been very hard. And to think of not just you as his daughter but of his mother losing him breaks my heart. Insha Allah you still have many moments with your grandmother to come.
This is beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing these very personal reflections. It's hard sometimes to know what to hang onto and how to honor those who are gone. My dad died many years ago and I'm not sure what objects were meaningful to him, but they are long gone now. My mom has Alzheimer's and it's a struggle sometimes to remember who she used to be. Old photos help. I never knew my grandfather, an Irish immigrant who died before I was born. But I recently found a photo of him I'd never seen before. In all the others I have he's looking away or his face is in shadow. I finally have one of him looking right at the camera and smiling. I love it. It makes me feel like I've finally been introduced to him after all this time.
Tara, the photo of your grandfather sounds like such a gift. When I was looking for photos of my grandfather to include in this post, I had other ones in mind but couldn't actually find them, and then stumbled upon these and they were even better. I felt I'd been gifted with something special.
I hope you have many precious moments remaining with your mother, and I'm sorry for the loss of your father.
I am an immigrant and what you said is true. I don’t have any family heirlooms and don’t want them but it’s because I don’t want a connection with any of my family, not after the severe abuse I grew up with.
I loved reading this. Grandparents are so special. My grandma gave me a pocket watch before she died. As a child I used to think she was the cold and grumpy grandparent but now as an adult I can see and understand so much more behind that and her life. Oh how I wish I could ask her a million questions right now.
Sarah I love that you came to realize there was so much more there. The longing is real. I think we're connected up so many generations, but sadly, we can't travel through time to reach those people.
What a heartwarming story about grandparents. I think we don't really understand the value behind such memories until we grow older and start to create our own families. Those childhood memories take on such a deeper meaning at that point
What a handsome man your Grandfather was! I didn’t have a close relationship with any of my Grandparents, most of whom passed when I was young. I think they would have struggled to approve of my way of being, not necessarily to the outer world it my inner thoughts and beliefs which are so different than theirs were.
Cognitive decline in a loved one is such a challenge to witness, you want to help but can’t. I have gone through it with my Mom.
Oh Donna, I'm so sorry about your mom. That must be incredibly hard. Watching it in my grandpa was difficult but I think it must have been so much more difficult for his children than his grandchildren.
I never really thought about the discrepancy in beliefs and wondering how that relationship would be - my mom's parents lived until I was 13 and 18 respectively. My dad's parents I never met. Even though my mom's parents were around, I think the relationship never got "deep" enough for me to consider this. Perhaps if they had lived further into my adulthood?
My elders gave me values which I still uphold but our life view and underlying beliefs about it all would be very different since they were pioneers in the Canadian prairies with very little expose to the bigger world (not that I have a ton of that either, living in a rural BC community but I try😂)
I was fortunate enough to know all my grandparents and even one of my great-grandparents. Sadly, they are all gone now, with my mother's mother being the last to pass this fall just after her 99th birthday. She was the only great-grandparent my own children got to know, though they also have all their grandparents still, hopefully for a long time to come.
I have an assortment of random things connected to them: tie pins, cufflinks and an engraved silver money clip set with a giant piece of jade from my maternal grandfather; my maternal grandmother's rolltop desk, given to her to by one of my grandfather's patients; the Tom's peanut jar that sat on the counter of my paternal grandfather's hardware store; a piece of costume jewelry that belonged to my paternal grandmother. But it's the memories and things they taught me that remind me the most of them—my love of gardening, books and animals all come from them.
Ty! What a treasure trove of "heirlooms" you have from them.
I had my mother's mother and father in my life through childhood and partway into young adulthood. I never met my father's parents, who both died before I was born, and before any of my sisters were born (another essay I think). Getting to meet a great-grandparent too is such a gift.
I love that they passed so much on to you. Not only the physical, but all the memories and teachings and things you treasure.
“Immigrants say a momentous goodbye one time, and then spend the rest of their lives repeating it.” You keep inviting me to feel feelings my culture has taught me to dissociate from! Once again, your writing here is such a gift.
Shaina! Thank you so much for these kind words - I'm very touched.
Beautifully said, Shaina, and very similar to what I was going to say!
An absolutely lovely essay, as always. I want to read it again and again ❤️
Thanks my friend.
To qualify my remark, I want to say I am neither female, Muslim, nor am I an immigrant. None of that prevents me from hearing your messages. I’m 75 and grew up in Pennsylvania then moved to Tallahassee, Florida, in 1971. Intolerance seems to flourish. Growing up the cruel remarks were based on ethnicity, religion, and income levels.
NEVER COMPARE
In Florida all of the above were operative. In 1971 slave quarters remained and were occupied by “tenant farmer.” Ones with no resources. No land, no home that was theirs, and always subject to the whims of white owners. I was shocked by the living conditions. Black churches were an anchor for their lives. A chance to socialize, have fund raising events for church repairs. Funeral services provided a safe place to grieve. With modern times the young black folks don’t rely on their churches as a mainstay of their lives.
Why this blah, blah, blah? Perhaps from my father fighting during WW II in Europe. He accompanied a photographer from LIFE Magazine who came to obtain photo documentation of the liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp. My dad took a substantial number of photos that he brought home. I saw them at age 12. It took little effort to recognize all the plans, dreams, and aspirations for their lives as well as their families that the Nazis had brought to naught.
I’m grateful for your courage in dressing and speaking so openly on this mostly hostile North American continent. With violence against innocent people all over the World, you can be certain I don’t say any cheery words to trivialize any of this.
NEVER FORGET
Gary, I really appreciate this insight. I think there is so much suffering across so many places and, as you said, violence against innocent people all over the world. Most people just want to live in dignity and self determination, and those should be basic human rights.
I couldn’t agree more Noha. Thank you for replying to my comment. Dignity and self determination is fundamental for human beings.
Hello Noha,
I was so touched by this piece. It reminded me of my grandmother - who is still there - who left Cameroon for France as an old lady to be closer to her daughters and sons. Even though here doctor's appointments, her children, and grandchildren are there, she is definitely livelier when back to Cameroon. She is now reaching an age where travelling back to Cameroon is challenging so it always feels she is nostalgic.
There is so little said about grandparents who changed country in an advanced age and how it affects them, yet it is so important.
My French grandmother starting having alzheimer when I was in high school, but I consider a blessing she stayed with us until I started working. Yes, her memory faded, and I was especially afraid she would completely forget me as I studied abroad, but it was always such a pleasure to see her moments of lucidity when she believed to be at a certain period of her life or came back to present times and would talk to us or getting to know us again. Alzheimer is such a terrifying disease as you see the person you have always known becoming a stranger, yet short moments of lucidity are the most beautiful. At least, it was the way I got through it. When she passed, I was ever so sad because I saw her a month earlier and we had a conversation like in the old days, she perfectly remembered who I was.
Emmanuelle, I'm so touched that you shared this all with me. Your story of your grandmother who left Cameroon as an elder is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind when I was writing this. Just my parents' experience, of immigrating as adults, is mindboggling to me. I can't even imagine how my grandparents felt when they left everything familiar and came to Canada for a few years.
I'm glad you had some of that time with your French grandmother and that you got to experience more of those moments of lucidity. I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope your memories of her can sustain you...
Being an elderly immigrant is such a different experience. Yes, they are with their family, children and grandchildren, but they left memories of a life well-lived, habits, their language, food, traditions and homeland. I cannot think of a more destabilizing experience for our elders.
Thank you for your kind words about my French grandmother. Just yesterday we remembered her with my family. I am so sorry for your loss, too. I could feel in your writing how much you miss your grandfather and also how difficult it was to see him battling Alzheimer. Sending you lots of love.
“You don’t even know what you’re missing, until it’s laid bare before you once again, and you feel your loss anew.”
🥲 I felt my Grandmother through your piece Noha. Thanks you for the powerful words. Alzheimer’s is such a particularly cruel disease.
Thank you so much, Dee. It is particularly cruel. The person changes so much you feel like you're losing them while they're still there. I'm sorry for the loss you felt with her.
🙏
This one broke my heart in all the important ways, Noha. Thank you. ❤️
awww thank you for this, Dana. That means a lot.
You are spitting.
Two lines jumped out:
"He’s upset because everything is so confusing, because everything keeps changing, because he used to know so much and now it is just out of his grasp, no matter how he reaches." - such a succint way to summarize an all consuming disease.
"But what can you fit in a suitcase among the logistics of leaving? What can you take when the bags will be weighed and there are limits?" - absolutely gutted.
There's so much suffering in Gaza. Thank you for keeping it in the forefront when it is often easier to scroll it away.
Rachel!! I appreciate this so much 🖤🖤
I cannot turn away from Gaza. I read an incredible article for Naomi Klein in The guardian this weekend about the suffering becoming ambient to our lives. Highly recommend
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/14/the-zone-of-interest-auschwitz-gaza-genocide
3 out four of my grandparents are still living. My maternal grandparents live 10 minutes away. I enjoy going out to eat with them, coloring with them, and playing games with them. My paternal grandmother lives 10 hours away so we see her twice a year at best. She has fun stories of growing up on a farm and makes delicious fudge. My maternal grandmother makes chocolate cake for my birthday every year. My paternal grandfather died a year before my parents met each other
Sakari, that sounds like such a privilege to have two of them so close by, and to still be close (emotionally, if not physically) to your paternal grandmother too! I love that you still do so much with them. I never met my paternal grandparents. They both died before I was born. I think having my maternal grandparents live mostly in another country/culture also led to more separation than if my parents had either remained in Egypt, or if they'd been the ones to immigrate.
It’s a privilege indeed. Your comment about your own grandparents reminds me not to take mine for granted
This is a lovely essay. It makes me think of my dad. He went through Parkinson's disease for 15 years and suffered memory loss and loss of speech in his last years. It's hard witnessing someone fading away. But I love sentimental tokens. I have drawings from my younger siblings who are now adults, and my son's little things he made for me over the years. On one of my bookshelves I have a letter A he made for me out of Legos. I still have one living grandparent, my father's mother, who now has dementia. She'll turn 100 in September insha'Allah.
Ambata, I love your collections. It's sweet how these tokens help us connect and remember. I'm sorry about your dad - that must have been very hard. And to think of not just you as his daughter but of his mother losing him breaks my heart. Insha Allah you still have many moments with your grandmother to come.
It was hard but alhamdulillah I was able to be with him just before he died.
Alhamdulillah.
This is beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing these very personal reflections. It's hard sometimes to know what to hang onto and how to honor those who are gone. My dad died many years ago and I'm not sure what objects were meaningful to him, but they are long gone now. My mom has Alzheimer's and it's a struggle sometimes to remember who she used to be. Old photos help. I never knew my grandfather, an Irish immigrant who died before I was born. But I recently found a photo of him I'd never seen before. In all the others I have he's looking away or his face is in shadow. I finally have one of him looking right at the camera and smiling. I love it. It makes me feel like I've finally been introduced to him after all this time.
Tara, the photo of your grandfather sounds like such a gift. When I was looking for photos of my grandfather to include in this post, I had other ones in mind but couldn't actually find them, and then stumbled upon these and they were even better. I felt I'd been gifted with something special.
I hope you have many precious moments remaining with your mother, and I'm sorry for the loss of your father.
I am an immigrant and what you said is true. I don’t have any family heirlooms and don’t want them but it’s because I don’t want a connection with any of my family, not after the severe abuse I grew up with.
MaryClare, I'm so sorry! That makes perfect sense.
I’m an international trafficking victim but you know, things worked out.
Oh my God!! MaryClare. That's atrocious. I am so so so sorry.
I loved reading this. Grandparents are so special. My grandma gave me a pocket watch before she died. As a child I used to think she was the cold and grumpy grandparent but now as an adult I can see and understand so much more behind that and her life. Oh how I wish I could ask her a million questions right now.
Sarah I love that you came to realize there was so much more there. The longing is real. I think we're connected up so many generations, but sadly, we can't travel through time to reach those people.
What a heartwarming story about grandparents. I think we don't really understand the value behind such memories until we grow older and start to create our own families. Those childhood memories take on such a deeper meaning at that point
I couldn't agree more!
What a handsome man your Grandfather was! I didn’t have a close relationship with any of my Grandparents, most of whom passed when I was young. I think they would have struggled to approve of my way of being, not necessarily to the outer world it my inner thoughts and beliefs which are so different than theirs were.
Cognitive decline in a loved one is such a challenge to witness, you want to help but can’t. I have gone through it with my Mom.
Oh Donna, I'm so sorry about your mom. That must be incredibly hard. Watching it in my grandpa was difficult but I think it must have been so much more difficult for his children than his grandchildren.
I never really thought about the discrepancy in beliefs and wondering how that relationship would be - my mom's parents lived until I was 13 and 18 respectively. My dad's parents I never met. Even though my mom's parents were around, I think the relationship never got "deep" enough for me to consider this. Perhaps if they had lived further into my adulthood?
My elders gave me values which I still uphold but our life view and underlying beliefs about it all would be very different since they were pioneers in the Canadian prairies with very little expose to the bigger world (not that I have a ton of that either, living in a rural BC community but I try😂)
lol I love the self-deprecation. Trying is important, and a lot of it is knowing what you don't know, which I think applies both ways.
My grandmother had alzheimers and I am an immigrant, i related to all this, visualizing your grandfather and the sunlight!
Thank you so much, Reem. Did you know your grandmother well? I hope you had some years with her where you still felt connected?
Yes:)
I was fortunate enough to know all my grandparents and even one of my great-grandparents. Sadly, they are all gone now, with my mother's mother being the last to pass this fall just after her 99th birthday. She was the only great-grandparent my own children got to know, though they also have all their grandparents still, hopefully for a long time to come.
I have an assortment of random things connected to them: tie pins, cufflinks and an engraved silver money clip set with a giant piece of jade from my maternal grandfather; my maternal grandmother's rolltop desk, given to her to by one of my grandfather's patients; the Tom's peanut jar that sat on the counter of my paternal grandfather's hardware store; a piece of costume jewelry that belonged to my paternal grandmother. But it's the memories and things they taught me that remind me the most of them—my love of gardening, books and animals all come from them.
Ty! What a treasure trove of "heirlooms" you have from them.
I had my mother's mother and father in my life through childhood and partway into young adulthood. I never met my father's parents, who both died before I was born, and before any of my sisters were born (another essay I think). Getting to meet a great-grandparent too is such a gift.
I love that they passed so much on to you. Not only the physical, but all the memories and teachings and things you treasure.