Riding the Bus with Grandma

I wait for the bus while standing in front of the chicken rice shop on River Valley Road. The smell is unavoidable, but I work hard to avert my eyes from the pallid poultry hung by their feet in a crowded row in the window behind me. The bumpy, flaccid chicken skin gleaming with slime. How this is considered gourmet, I will never understand.

But then again there’s a lot I’ll never understand about this place, no matter how much I love living here or how long I stay. Singapore’s magic is on loan to me, like a library book I am privileged to enjoy but must return, and my rightful place – I am reminded again and again – to seek to understand, knowing I never fully will.

Stepping onto the bus, I dial Grandma. This is our time. I surf in the middle of the most grounding influence in my life and this bizarre expat adventure as I pipe Grandma’s voice into my ears, while taking in the morning Singapore views from the bus window.

“Helllooooo?” she answers the phone with the exact same intonation as she has in all my 32 years. Like a song you immediately recognize upon the first note, I will never in my life forget the tone of her phone greeting.

“Hi Grandma!”

“Stacey?!?!!” she answers with authentic surprise and trademark shriek in her voice, even though I call her at this exact time nearly every single day as I ride the bus to work.

“Hi, Grandma, how are you?”

She is home. My home. I move through this foreign land while tethered to her voice and the routine of daily connection. Her love unwavering, unquestioning. Always so much said and unsaid.

“How are you feeling, Grandma?”

“Great… I feel great.”

“Are you lying?” I ask, as I always do.

“Yes.”

And I laugh and say, “ok.” No need to talk about it. I don’t judge her either. I don’t question. If she wanted to be nudged she’d talk to my mother. It is my privilege as the grandchild to be the enabler rather than the caregiving protector that my mother must always be.

There is a grace in the things we don’t say. It’s our pact. I don’t actually need to ask how she feels to know. I know it in the decreased frequency of her hand-written letters, or in the recaps she gives me of her days. There is a direct correlation between the number of times she and Grandpa go out to lunch per week and the way she feels. I’ve discovered the ways of asking without asking.

“Did you see the ballgame?” she asks.

Um, no. I couldn’t care less about her beloved Cubs. Never did. The only thing about ball games I care about is the opportunity for sun on my face and a hot dog.

Grandma hasn’t been to a game in over a decade, but she never misses watching one on TV. I laugh out loud when I think about her neighbors in the assisted living home hearing her shriek when yelling at the screen. Hopefully it brings them as much joy as it would me.

Grandma didn’t live to see my 40th birthday, but if she had she would have lost her s**t witnessing the Cubs making it to the World Series after years of curses, false starts, and embarrassing seasons – but the loyalist fans in the business. When I took the Red Line that night with Simon on my shoulders and Rosie gripping my hand tight amid the crowds in Wrigleyville, I could feel Grandma with me.

We did have a commonly held love for ballpark hot dogs though. Mine with ketchup only (much to the chagrin of every Chicago-dog purist in my life), hers with all the things, like a true Northsider. The hotdog and her weakness for it was an ongoing point of contention between my mother and I, when discussing the myriad things Grandma should be doing to take better care of herself, to help us by keeping her on this planet for even one more day because this planet was without a doubt a better place with my Grandma in it.

Eating a hotdog complete with mustard, relish, onion and pickle was one of Grandma’s purist joys, but it would wreck her system for days.

I’d shake my he