On the 11th of June we lost my wife’s wonderful grandmother. She was my 3rd grandmother. As my grandparents were in India I only got to see them in 5 – 7-year increments. With the recent loss of Po Po, I actually miss them all more now. Jun Sau Lee lived for 86 years. An educated woman (from a time when many women of her background didn’t have the opportunity), she left China with her husband Gilbert to start a new life here in America. They worked and sacrificed and gave their 5 daughters a better life than the one they had.

Click here to read her obituary.

I want to tell you about my relationship with Po Po. I dated and married her oldest granddaughter. It didn’t matter to her that I wasn’t Chinese. In fact, a few years later she started saying that somehow an Indian would marry into the family as some sort of karmic repayment for the treatment she received from an Indian doctor in Hong Kong when she was pregnant and carrying my future mother-in-law. On our wedding day, Po Po gave me a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek and in her broken English she said loudly “My new grandson!” She was an amazing cook who would not let me leave her home without eating. It didn’t matter if I’d just come from a meal with my parents or if I had eaten somewhere else. She was very sweet to me, and her generosity was beyond anything I deserved. For a while we would come home with 2 bags of homemade pork buns – 1 for me because she knew I didn’t like the meat as sweet as everyone else did. Earlier this year I had a sore throat and she said I should suck on pieces of ginger. She said she’d give me some. What she gave me was a bag full of ginger the size of my fist! These are just a few small examples. We didn’t communicate much verbally due to language – but somehow affection and respect where transmitted.

I will never forget the generosity, acceptance, warmth, and affection that she showed me. Rest in peace Po Po.