Last night, the world lost a great man, as my grandfather, Dr. Te Hsiu Ma, passed away in his sleep. He was 90 years old.
He was born August 24th, 1924, in a small village outside of Beijing, China. Twenty years later, he was forced to flee the country, a refugee from the government. He spent the next 60 years of his life becoming a world-renowned scientist and much-beloved professor at Western Illinois University. A gifted biologist and geneticist, he is most well-known for the discovery and development of the Tradescantia Micronucleus Pollution Detection System. He traveled all over the world, demonstrating the incredible abilities of this common wildflower to detect pollution in air, water, and soil.
He married my grandmother, Peggy, in 1959, at a small ceremony attended only by a few friends. Together, they raised four children, my uncles, Lyndon, Lindsey, and Linwood, and my mother, Linette.
He was a loving grandfather to nine grandchildren: 7 biological grandchildren, and 2 step-grandchildren, whom he loved equally much. As the oldest biological grandchild, I was fortunate enough to have spent the most time with him before his passing, and it pains me that my younger cousins will not have many of the memories I have been blessed with. I therefore wish to pass along some of my favorites, both as a tribute to a great man and loving grandfather, and as a way to share these memories with those who will never get to experience them.
I remember the way he used to mispronounce "milk" due to his thick Chinese accent, and how I, as a precocious child, would always correct him, "No, grandpa, it's not moke, it's milk!"
I remember his art studio in the basement, and the playhouse he built for me under his desk out of a very large cardboard box. It had windows and a small door, and I used to play in it for hours, dragging toys in and out, and begging him to join me.
I remember painting with him, watching him put colors on canvases in works of art more precious than I could possibly have understood, with masterful strokes of his beautiful brushes, while I, young and inexperienced, sat nearby with my crayola watercolor palette, oblivious to the presence of a master.
I remember receiving "Letters From Felix," a reference to a popular children's book about a stuffed rabbit who is lost at the airport, and ends up on an international adventure, sending letters to his owner, Sophie. He would write me elaborate stories about a trip to some kind of candy land, and his adventures there, under the nom de plume of Felix the rabbit. Sophie wrote to Felix for the last time this February, after far too many years of letterbox-silence.
I remember traveling with him, stopping at a rest area to stretch and play Frisbee, where a somewhat poorly aimed throw (on my part, of course) resulted in some rather interesting roof-climbing adventures.
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I remember flying kites with him in a large field, and I remember the day we learned the hard way to tie the string to the spool, as my beautiful plastic storebought kite soared beyond the reach of its cotton line, and was lost forever in a reservoir.
I was reminded of this particular memory yesterday, as I spent the afternoon flying a homemade kite with my fiance. We built the kite in our little apartment out of wooden dowels and fishing line and trash bags and twine. We carried it down the street to the park, the boyish excitement evident on my fiance's face. He had never built a kite before. It was a childhood dream come true.
We struggled to get the kite in the air, trying every possible method for anchoring the twine so as to reduce the kite's penchant for midair-pirouettes, resulting in two separate arguments. As we finally came to a design that might work, the unimaginable happened - the kite broke. The horizontal part of the frame snapped directly in half. I watched, heartbroken, as all of my fiance's childhood dreams came crashing to the ground. Frantically, I pulled the broken pieces together, wrapping layers and layers and layers of twine around the center of the kite, trying to anchor the pieces back together in the frame. I watched my fiance's face light up as he found hope again, and shared in his joy as, by some miracle, the kite was fixed. Quickly, we attached the final anchoring point and lifted the kite into the air in a powerful gust of wind. It didn't fly well, but it flew...
...for about fifteen minutes. After several unsuccessful attempts to achieve flight, and a few incredibly satisfying successful attempts, the kite came crashing down on its head, snapping the vertical dowel in exactly the same place as the horizontal. But we still refused to give up. We shoved the broken pieces back into the messy knot of twine and threw the kite back into the air, believing it could fly like some kind of plastic Peter Pan. And whether it really was faith, trust, and pixie dust, or just some fluke of physics, somehow, that thing still flew. Even after one side of the sail detached and had to be tied back on with leftover twine, it managed to capture the wind and soar into the heavens. It continued to float and spin on the breeze until, finally, we decided it was time to go home. By this time, the kite was an ugly thing, repaired and re-repaired several times, with more twine holding the frame together than anchoring it to the ground.
Yet, when it was in the air, it was glorious. You didn't see the broken frame or the knots of twine or the struggle just to keep it in one piece. You saw a great white sail gliding through a blue-sky sea. It snatched onto the wind's tails and was carried far into the heavens, one gust at a time. It may have been terribly broken, but in the heavens, it soared.
By the end of his life, my grandfather was not a healthy man. He suffered for the better part of a year from dementia and memory loss. By his final days, he had difficulty telling night from day, or remembering if he'd eaten recently. He had to be kept under constant supervision, and was on morphine to keep him comfortable, as inside, his organs began to fail one by one.
But this is not how I choose to remember him. I like to think that as he has left this broken body, his spirit now flies in the heavens, just as our broken kite did. I see him on streets of gold, singing like Pavarotti with the heavenly chorus, and asking God all the questions he never got answers for on earth. I don't see the broken man being held together with bandaids and medication, but a man in his prime, soaring with the angels for eternity.
While I do have many wonderful memories, there are some I will never be able to share with him. He will never see me graduate college. He will never see me finish my book. He will not be there when I walk down the aisle this October. He will never met his great-grandchildren. He will never see my first home, meet my cat, or hear my second album. And while he may witness all these things in spirit, never again can I hug him, or talk with him, or tell him how much he meant to me.
I was supposed to see him next weekend. My fiance and I were going to drive down for Easter. I had plans to bring a kite to fly with him one last time, and to share one last Easter celebration with him. Now, we will most likely be traveling to his funeral. I only hope that I can show adequate respect and appreciation for a man who has shaped more of my life than even I probably know, and who I hope is watching me with pride from his seat at the hand of the creator.
Rest in Peace, Grandpa Te. I love you.
He was born August 24th, 1924, in a small village outside of Beijing, China. Twenty years later, he was forced to flee the country, a refugee from the government. He spent the next 60 years of his life becoming a world-renowned scientist and much-beloved professor at Western Illinois University. A gifted biologist and geneticist, he is most well-known for the discovery and development of the Tradescantia Micronucleus Pollution Detection System. He traveled all over the world, demonstrating the incredible abilities of this common wildflower to detect pollution in air, water, and soil.He married my grandmother, Peggy, in 1959, at a small ceremony attended only by a few friends. Together, they raised four children, my uncles, Lyndon, Lindsey, and Linwood, and my mother, Linette.
He was a loving grandfather to nine grandchildren: 7 biological grandchildren, and 2 step-grandchildren, whom he loved equally much. As the oldest biological grandchild, I was fortunate enough to have spent the most time with him before his passing, and it pains me that my younger cousins will not have many of the memories I have been blessed with. I therefore wish to pass along some of my favorites, both as a tribute to a great man and loving grandfather, and as a way to share these memories with those who will never get to experience them.
I remember the way he used to mispronounce "milk" due to his thick Chinese accent, and how I, as a precocious child, would always correct him, "No, grandpa, it's not moke, it's milk!"
I remember his art studio in the basement, and the playhouse he built for me under his desk out of a very large cardboard box. It had windows and a small door, and I used to play in it for hours, dragging toys in and out, and begging him to join me.
I remember painting with him, watching him put colors on canvases in works of art more precious than I could possibly have understood, with masterful strokes of his beautiful brushes, while I, young and inexperienced, sat nearby with my crayola watercolor palette, oblivious to the presence of a master.
I remember receiving "Letters From Felix," a reference to a popular children's book about a stuffed rabbit who is lost at the airport, and ends up on an international adventure, sending letters to his owner, Sophie. He would write me elaborate stories about a trip to some kind of candy land, and his adventures there, under the nom de plume of Felix the rabbit. Sophie wrote to Felix for the last time this February, after far too many years of letterbox-silence.
I remember traveling with him, stopping at a rest area to stretch and play Frisbee, where a somewhat poorly aimed throw (on my part, of course) resulted in some rather interesting roof-climbing adventures.
I was reminded of this particular memory yesterday, as I spent the afternoon flying a homemade kite with my fiance. We built the kite in our little apartment out of wooden dowels and fishing line and trash bags and twine. We carried it down the street to the park, the boyish excitement evident on my fiance's face. He had never built a kite before. It was a childhood dream come true.
We struggled to get the kite in the air, trying every possible method for anchoring the twine so as to reduce the kite's penchant for midair-pirouettes, resulting in two separate arguments. As we finally came to a design that might work, the unimaginable happened - the kite broke. The horizontal part of the frame snapped directly in half. I watched, heartbroken, as all of my fiance's childhood dreams came crashing to the ground. Frantically, I pulled the broken pieces together, wrapping layers and layers and layers of twine around the center of the kite, trying to anchor the pieces back together in the frame. I watched my fiance's face light up as he found hope again, and shared in his joy as, by some miracle, the kite was fixed. Quickly, we attached the final anchoring point and lifted the kite into the air in a powerful gust of wind. It didn't fly well, but it flew...
...for about fifteen minutes. After several unsuccessful attempts to achieve flight, and a few incredibly satisfying successful attempts, the kite came crashing down on its head, snapping the vertical dowel in exactly the same place as the horizontal. But we still refused to give up. We shoved the broken pieces back into the messy knot of twine and threw the kite back into the air, believing it could fly like some kind of plastic Peter Pan. And whether it really was faith, trust, and pixie dust, or just some fluke of physics, somehow, that thing still flew. Even after one side of the sail detached and had to be tied back on with leftover twine, it managed to capture the wind and soar into the heavens. It continued to float and spin on the breeze until, finally, we decided it was time to go home. By this time, the kite was an ugly thing, repaired and re-repaired several times, with more twine holding the frame together than anchoring it to the ground.Yet, when it was in the air, it was glorious. You didn't see the broken frame or the knots of twine or the struggle just to keep it in one piece. You saw a great white sail gliding through a blue-sky sea. It snatched onto the wind's tails and was carried far into the heavens, one gust at a time. It may have been terribly broken, but in the heavens, it soared.By the end of his life, my grandfather was not a healthy man. He suffered for the better part of a year from dementia and memory loss. By his final days, he had difficulty telling night from day, or remembering if he'd eaten recently. He had to be kept under constant supervision, and was on morphine to keep him comfortable, as inside, his organs began to fail one by one.
But this is not how I choose to remember him. I like to think that as he has left this broken body, his spirit now flies in the heavens, just as our broken kite did. I see him on streets of gold, singing like Pavarotti with the heavenly chorus, and asking God all the questions he never got answers for on earth. I don't see the broken man being held together with bandaids and medication, but a man in his prime, soaring with the angels for eternity.
While I do have many wonderful memories, there are some I will never be able to share with him. He will never see me graduate college. He will never see me finish my book. He will not be there when I walk down the aisle this October. He will never met his great-grandchildren. He will never see my first home, meet my cat, or hear my second album. And while he may witness all these things in spirit, never again can I hug him, or talk with him, or tell him how much he meant to me.
I was supposed to see him next weekend. My fiance and I were going to drive down for Easter. I had plans to bring a kite to fly with him one last time, and to share one last Easter celebration with him. Now, we will most likely be traveling to his funeral. I only hope that I can show adequate respect and appreciation for a man who has shaped more of my life than even I probably know, and who I hope is watching me with pride from his seat at the hand of the creator.
Rest in Peace, Grandpa Te. I love you.
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