Dear Pópo,
What a lovely afternoon. It's such a beautiful day today. These types of days were your favourite to go on walks on. Remember when you would bring home the flowers that you plucked off the side of the road? My favourite were those purple ones, the ones that looked like thistles.
Sometimes I wonder if you still go on walks in heaven. What’s the scenery like?
How are you doing, lately? How is Gōnggōng? Do you go on walks together? It must be nice to catch up with him after all these years. Do you guys talk a lot about what we’re doing down here?
My boys are doing great. They would have joined me but Ian has soccer practice and Danny has tutoring. He’s struggling a little with math, and hates fractions! I’m still very proud of him. He got 100% on his spelling quiz last week. And Ian’s soccer team made it to the finals this year!
Sometimes the incense bothers the boys but they do love to visit you. Everyone will be here on Qingming to see you, so don’t worry.
I brought zòngzi to share with you today. The boys and I made them on the weekend. They’re naturals! Look, you can barely tell the difference between the ones I made and the ones they made. Mark tried making some too, but he’s a lot clumsier at it (they still taste great though!). We have to leave the peanuts out because Ian’s allergic to them.
Ha! Remember the time you got mad because the school rules made you leave peanuts out of your zòngzi? If I remember correctly, you said: “Who’s allergic to such a tiny nut?”
I miss hearing your voice a lot, you know. Even when you would scold me.
Thank you, for always watching over me.
Love,
Fei fei.
Notes:
Since this deals with death and traditional cultural beliefs, I would like to provide some insight into what is traditional and what is my artistic liberty.
Our speaking character is a Chinese immigrant living in the diaspora. Thus, her beliefs and interpretations of customs are influenced by her experiences growing up away from her homeland.
1. Traditionally, Han Chinese people and their families visit cemetaries on the Qingming Festival. It is a day to honor the dead and visit their graves. It involves several elaborate traditional practices, such as cleaning the grave, lighting incense, and offerings of food. She is visiting the grave alone on another day. I could not find any sources about visiting graves outside of Qingming, that was an artistic liberty that I took.
2. There is no universal belief in a specific place the dead go, like Chrisitan beliefs of Heaven and Hell. “Heaven” here is another artistic liberty that I took, but also a reflection of how the character, impacted by her diasporic experiences, interprets where her grandmother’s spirit is right now.