The Phenomenal Woman who raised me: Abu.
Me and Abu
I wish the whole world could have known her. Could have felt her kind and loving spirit. Her face was often on the verge of a giggle or a smile. She had a childlike spirit, she had this sense of wonder, sprinkled with a little innocent mischief. She was my grandmother and the woman that raised me until I was around 11 years old. We called her Abu, Chinese Rui An dialect for maternal grandmother.
She gave me and my siblings unconditional love. No matter what, she loved you for you. She adored us. I felt adored by her and I adored her right back. Abu was my mama and my first ever soulmate in this life. She taught me about life and love through being herself and loving so deeply. She shaped who I am. Although she passed away in 2013, she continues to shape who I am. Her love is still inspiring me, teaching me and healing me. I feel that she is closeby. I feel the love of us. It’s like a hug from within.
The heart-to-heart hug
My first and earliest memory that I can remember is of her, Abu. It came up a couple of years after she’d passed. I never had a lot of young childhood memories. I just couldn’t remember much. Some bits and pieces, although some might even just be from pictures melting into a memory. I happened to do a little regression exercise during a workshop. And something drifted up.
The memory that came up was one of us. Me and Abu. I was a tiny, few months old, baby and I was lying on her chest. Heart to heart. And I felt the heart connection. I felt us bonding into soulmates.
I realized why I would turn out to be a hugger. Abu often told me she raised me on her chest, never in a exhausted blamey way, although she did say it was hard. I was a crybaby, I heard often growing up. I apparently literally wouldn’t sleep unless on my Abu’s chest. So I spent many many months sleeping heart to heart on my grandmother’s chest. And those moments, I realised, when I recalled this memory, are the moments that have shaped so much of who I am and how I live life. No words, just from her heart to mine, LOVE. The experience of love, unconditional love, is the most powerful force ever. And to this day, her love, our love, holds me up. Love stays alive and every day it touches me still, encourages me, sees me, accepts me, knows me, connects with me. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have known this woman, to me she is phenomenal, a truly phenomenal woman.
That memory is one of my most treasured belongings. I often go there and be there for a while, to soak up that feeling of pure love. And let that soothe me.
The chocolate test
This is one of my favorite memories of my grandma and me, of us. It’s the chocolate memory. That already sounds good right?! I was about 10 or 11 I think, when me and her decided to do a chocolate test, cause obviously we loved chocolate and we were absolutely serious about it. So we wanted to know which chocolate bar was the absolute best bar.
We went to the supermarket, AH, and bought a lot of flavors, some we had never tried before, like butterscotch. We bought from multiple different brands to compare the same kind of flavor of different makers. We were very scientifically serious about this, as should be. Chocolate is an important business. We bought so many chocolate bars. We had dark, milk, white chocolate and flavors like hazelnut, aforementioned butterscotch, crunchy. We brought them all home to test. (I’m realising what a cool grandma I had! Is this not every child’s dream come true?! What adult would consent to buying a ton of candy to do a taste test?! My crazy amazing Abu, I LOVE you!)
So off to testing: we didn’t like dark (now I do actually), we did NOT like butterscotch, crunchy did not impress us. We liked a lot of milk chocolate ones, especially the ones with hazelnut. So we ended up comparing different bars of milk chocolate hazelnut. After seriously sampling and resampling all the different kinds and comparing the same kinds to other brands, we came to a unanimous decision. The best chocolate bar was: AH delicata milk chocolate hazelnut.
If you think that was where the test was concluded, of course not, I said we were serious about chocolate, as any self-respecting woman/girl should be.
So this best bar: the AH delicata milk chocolate hazelnut, came in three sizes at the time. Mini bars (single serve), medium and large. We decided we should test the different sizes. The minis were a big no, the hazelnut was chopped so fine, the whole experience of the bar was different and not balanced anymore. I remember this very clearly! The medium one, the one we originally tested, had a good balance of whole hazelnuts to milk chocolate. With enough hazelnut in every bit, giving a satisfying crunch to the chocolate. The large one, had also whole hazelnuts, the chocolate was thicker though, influencing the balance. The ratio of hazelnuts to chocolate was off. There were less hazelnuts in the biggest bar, more spread apart. The large one wasn’t it either. The ultimate best bar winner was to be: AH delicata milk chocolate hazelnut, the medium bar size.
The best bar travels with us
This chocolate bar has accompanied us throughout our lives. It’s the bestseller chocolate bar of our family. It must be in the hundreds of bars we bought. When Abu, went back to China, we would send her the care packages of all the things she missed from here (the Netherlands) via post or when we’d travel to her. Like coffee pads, crunchy Calve peanut butter, bread (if we where traveling), also Switsal baby cream (she loved it) and the best tested milk chocolate hazelnut bar, medium size, of course. When it came time for another care package assembly we would go to AH (supermarket) and clear the shelves of this particular chocolate bar. We would send like 30 to 40 at a time. God I miss having to buy 30 of these bars to send off. This bar became unanimous with Abu.
Love is the best memory
I love the chocolate memory. It feels like a reflection of our special bond. I’ve always felt like I was her favorite and she was mine. I never said it out loud. After she passed on, my siblings, two brothers and two sisters, and my two nephews (who were also raised by her), would talk about her. And in those conversations we came to realise that we all thought that we were her favorite.
Which makes it actually even more beautiful. She loved so deeply and unconditionally that we all thought we were special. And we are, we all are. And she saw it. She saw and she loved deeply strongly fiercely unapologetically. Her love is her legacy, it continues to give and build and inspire. Abu, I love you, always, words cannot capture my love for you. Thank you for your love. Thank you for our love. Thank you for us. Thank you for YOU.
Thank you for opening your heart to give my heart a place to rest when I needed it. And for teaching me all you knew about love in those hugs. Your love is still my resting place. THANK YOU!
With a big heart-to-heart-hug,
An-na
