The Stratagem’s Archive

Category: Family

  • What Do I Love About Where I Live?

    What do you love about where you live?

    “A Mastermind’s always thinking!”

    What Makes My Home Special?

    Where I live is the only place I’ve ever known; I’ve lived alongside the ocean all of my life and besides the mountains, so you could say I live directly between the sea and the mountains. I’ve lived in the “country”, though it’s not purely country like the mainland, but it is for us because it’s far out of the way of any tourist attractions.

    It’s also considered “ghetto” and, people outside of the state need to understand that “paradise” has its own share of troubles, has a lot of issues. I remember, before moving out, that our neighbors were climbing their fences one night and called my dad. My parents and I went out looking towards the neighbor behind us’s property and our next door neighbor said he saw 2 kids climbing on the roofs of people’s garages to get into everyone else’s yards.

    We’ve had issues with the surrounding distant neighbors, but kids sneaking in the dead of night and trespassing into other people’s properties? That was a new and terrifying development.

    We’ve had fires, water mains breaking, rolling power outages, cops and fire fighters and EMTs showing up at random times throughout the day and night that it was normal.

    My city literally only has one way going in and one way going out, there’s no other way to get to it unlike the other cities that are connected by the highways, freeways, and backroads. So, getting home would take between 2-3 hours before, maybe longer, because of traffic and the long traffic lights. Though that was before I moved to a different city, but it was home.

    Renting in a different city is different because I don’t have the luxury of my own space as before. Don’t get me wrong, I’m renting a studio and I have the place to myself, but having neighbors just less than a feet away from my door is stressful.

    I could play with my dogs, let them run around in the yard without much problems, I could eat as much ice cream or chocolate shakes if we had because my city has a dry heat to it. Even with a nice breeze, it would carry heat instead of cooling us down, though privacy was ensured from people we didn’t like.

    Our neighbors were good, we’d help each other out, I’d pick mangoes from our tree when they bloomed and make sure to share. Our neighbor’s wife would offer us mango bread in turn, she’s good friends with my grandma, and it was nice. We didn’t expect anything, though it became a ritual.

    I’ve visited a decent amount of places over the years in my lifetime:

    • California
    • Texas
    • Texarkana
    • Las Vegas
    • Colorado
    • South Korea
    • Japan

    Even though a lot of places were nicer than where I lived, it never felt like a place that I could call home. Everywhere else, though this isn’t to say it’s true, felt disconnected. It didn’t feel like a place I could call or make it a home because I’ve never stayed long enough to explore that possibility.

    I do miss living near the ocean and smelling the salt being carried on the breeze, seeing the white haze on an early morning drive because the water churned up so much salt, and getting a nice view of the night sky because there isn’t as much light pollution.

    I miss my family as well, I do what I can to visit and keep in touch, but when I was presented with an opportunity to experience independent living, I took it. They won’t be around forever, so learning what it’ll be like without them will be a lot, it is a lot to think about, so I better do what I can and appreciate and irritate them while I can.

  • It is Important to Carry Memories

    What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

    I’m a hypocrite because I don’t make enough memories in my life with my family or those I care about. I’ve always hated cameras and flashes – it mostly stemmed from a childhood fear of one of R.L. Stein’s Goosebumps book about the haunted camera – and I never liked seeing my own face.

    Although, I guess I’d rather live through the memories than be included in the memories. I’ve always believed that my presence, even among family, tends to spoil the fun and experience. I’ve gotten good at being an observer because I know what it’s like to have someone very close to me lose their memories, themselves, in real time.

    Despite my personal feelings, the reason I chose memories is because I grew up with my paternal grandpa who had Alzheimer’s. As a kid, I didn’t understand why my Papa couldn’t remember much and my family told me to be patient because he couldn’t remember. You can’t tell a kid to do something when, at such young ages, it’s instinct to be impulsive and impatient.

    On the days he forgot, it hurt because it was as though, as a kid, my Papa could remember to do his chores, walk to McDonald’s to get his coffee, and get home safely, but not remember us.

    Sadly, I wasn’t the most behaved kid and I would do really stupid things like, locking the house door from the inside and watching him try to force the door open until my grandma would tell me to open the door. After I did, my grandpa would walk in, see me, and nothing else.

    I even remember when I would sleep in my grandma’s living room and I was woken up because my head was hurting, like someone was taking a hammer to my skull, and it had been my Papa hitting my head like I was a pillow because: 1)it was dark; 2)he couldn’t recognize or remember me.

    Even though it’s been years since I thought about him, he passed away in 2009 and I was just entering intermediate school, I think I’m thinking of him because my maternal grandpa passed away last month.

    He was still young – in his mid-sixties – he loved to cook, sing, play cards and make up his own rules to play, he told me stories of his time in the Army, his regrets, and how he would have done things differently if he had the chance.

    Now, I have both of my grandma’s still alive, but because I’ve been working so hard I haven’t made time to hang out with them or my family.

    My paternal grandma is in her early 80’s, still sound of mind and body, and maternal grandma is in her late 60’s, still sound of mind and body too.

    I fear that something will happen to my paternal grandma because I moved out, even though I tend to call her, I haven’t called her in a while. Even to my other grandma, hell, even to my parents.

    My mom likes taking pictures, I found them a waste of time, but as I’m getting older I’m starting to see their significance. As I get older, so does everyone else, and the amount of time I’ll get to listen to my family’s stories grow smaller and smaller, but even memories will slowly fade with time.

    I can’t remember much of my time with my Papa anymore and my Grandpa’s stories are slowly fading because I didn’t hang out with him as much as he wanted. I’d try, but I also didn’t make much effort either.

    I don’t know what anyone is going through, but if you have people in your life you still care about: call them, tell them you love them, something. Anything, especially if they do matter to you. My family doesn’t say a lot of things enough, we’re not ones for words of affirmation but through actions, but I can share that, from my experience, it does make a difference.

    I’m still working on this myself as I’m learning to navigate my own life as I’m approaching my new life stage of 30. Not there yet, but making memories is all we’ll have, even if we forget them, it’ll come back to us when we need them.

  • $200 in Exchange For More Time and Memories

    What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

    Before every Outback Steakhouse closed down in my state, it was the restaurant that my family would go to for lunch and dinner. It was the closest, and one of the better, sit down restaurant where it would be roughly a 20 minute drive for both sides of our family to get there.

    We used to buy a lot of appetizers before the entrees and then pack in dessert. For 2 people in a HCOL state, $200 is roughly the norm, including tip as well.

    The reason Outback was special was because it had been where I used to take my grandpa for his birthdays – I wasn’t making much money, but it was worth spending the little money I was earning – to hang out and talk stories with him.

    Good food, good company, what else could anyone ask for?

    I hadn’t hung out with my grandparent’s on my Mom’s side often, I usually didn’t feel like going to visit their house because I just preferred to stay home. Although, I used to work the night shift before, so I couldn’t hang out regardless during the week.

    Just so happen, my grandpa’s birthday landed on my days off, so I called him to hang out and we met up. He’d try to ask me if we could do lunch whenever I was free, but our days wouldn’t always line up because of our jobs. Gramps wasn’t retired yet, he was pretty young, so the movie productions would call him to work and I had my job to do too.

    Anyways, I remember some of the stories he used to tell me:

    • His time in the US Army after her graduated high school.
    • When he was stationed in Japan and in South Korea during the Propaganda war between North and South Korea, I think. (I remember the propaganda part, that was crazy!)
    • He was one of the few American soldiers that was able to compete, and win, in the Korean soldier’s Taekwondo military competitions.
    • He used to be the unofficial quartermaster in his unit. Whatever you needed: money, steaks, cigarettes, beer, he was able to get it and provided. He even remembered selling to his CO’s and they wouldn’t bother.

    I remember that he shared a few of his regrets. Gramps was a stubborn guy, like it was either his way or the highway kind of stubborn. He wished he made different choices if he had the chance. He told me that he:

    • Wished he stayed the full 20 years of active service to have gotten the pension and benefits from the military. He only completed 17 years.
    • Instead of joining the movie productions as an equipment driver, he wished he became a Stevedore instead. He mentioned they had great benefits and were part of a good union, but he was young and arrogant then.

    My Grandpa seemed vulnerable during those moments. I know that, as he got weaker, no one took him seriously at the house. I would tell my younger cousins that, if Gramps was as young as he was when I came into the picture, they’d be shitting themselves.

    They didn’t believe me because the Gramps they grew up with was very different from the Gramps I grew up with.

    At family gatherings, I’d help him cook. He’d show me how he did things, be it steak or making shrimp tempura from scratch. I listened when I was there because it seemed no one else was listening. Not even my younger, and his favorite of us, cousins.

    We recently had his funeral – he was in and out of the hospitals and we all thought he was getting better – and it didn’t look like he was dead in his casket. He looked like he was sleeping instead.

    I waited to see if he was going to sit up and have this as some sick joke because we didn’t visit as often like we said, make us come together in a morbid way. But he didn’t. He didn’t wake up.

    Much like my other grandpa who died when I was graduating Elementary school, though he had Alzheimer’s, I’ll eventually forget this grandpa’s stories: I’ll forget how he sounds like, what he smelled like, how he used to play music and sing. I might eventually forget the songs he sang along to too. I know what they are, I had most of them on my first IPhone in high school, but I won’t be able to hear him sing along anymore.

    Just like my other grandpa who passed years prior, the only memory I can remember is when he used to hum to himself. Just a tune when his mind was good. I used to copy him intuitively to remember. Even his tune is a broken forgotten melody I struggle to pull to the surface.

    Even though I didn’t have the money then, I could have made more money, made more time for him. But I was more worried about my paternal Grandma I lived with because she was much older than my maternal grandpa that I thought we’d have more time.

    The last time he was strong was when we celebrated my 28th birthday at the Cheesecake Factory last year. I was working the night shift when he passed away in the hospital this year.

    My parents told me the morning after I finished work, and on my day off, that he passed and I asked them why they didn’t call me. They said that they didn’t want to tell me while I was working and that they didn’t want me to remember my gramps’s last moments with his passing.

    I could have at least been there, but that time passed and now he’s gone. I don’t think of him much these days, but when I do, I still cry. Like I didn’t grieve enough at his funeral.

    I wish I had more time, I wish I didn’t waste what time I had, and I’d trade all the money I have and more if I could have been around more. But I can’t and I’ve learned from my mistakes with my surviving Grandmas. Do more than I did before.

    Even though I had spent $200 at Outback to celebrate the few birthdays the two of us went for him, it was worth the memories we have and I miss him.