How do you miss what you never knew?

Sometimes, on occasion, I become intensely curious about my ancestry and my parents' history. What were they like, as children? What was their childhood like? What kind of people were my grandfathers?

The other day, I took my grandma to the Outpatient Center and waited with her for an eye surgery. As we waited, I began to ask her questions, growing more and more curious as I went, unearthing things that I'd never really questioned before while within access. I didn't learn everything there was to know, but I think I learned a bit, which I will share with you now. My mom was a cute kid. My uncle was a naughty child, which I can completely relate to the grown man that I know of today. There is no doubt in my mind that, as children, my mother was good and my uncle was mischievous. My grandma related a story about him climbing up something to eat a bunch of bananas his father had bought. My great-grandmother was from China. When they left Cambodia, they went to Vietnam, and then there was a split: my mother and my father met in a refugee camp and went to... Thailand? My grandmother and my uncle went to the Philippines. I think they were there for three years. During this time, they learned English, with intent to migrate to the U.S.

I also learned that my uncle had had a girlfriend at the time who was migrating to Australia (or had migrated?) and wanted my family to go, but my uncle said no, we're going to the U.S. Their other options were France and China, but my great-grandma had come from China, and it was a bitter life for her. So China was out, and France was bad, and U.S. was the land of opportunity. So they came to the U.S. Imagine! I might've been a citizen of Australia, or France, or China, instead of the U.S. of A.

I'm glad they picked America.

I asked more questions, mostly about my grandmother's husband, my grandfather, whom I never had the pleasure to meet. He died in a car accident, long before I was born. He was well-loved, and it was a painful event when he died. I forgot to ask how old they were when it happened. My grandma was seventeen when she had my mom, who is three years older than my uncle. My grandpa worked by collecting money in a newspaper office. Payments, I think. My great-grandfather worked in something related to growing bananas-- I think the concept is a plantain worker, though I can't be certain. He might've been a farm owner.

Inevitably, I still have questions, but they're not the kind you can ask out loud. What would life have been like, if my maternal grandfather had survived? Would my father be different, if he had joined hands with my mother and, having lost his own father, had a new father figure? Mostly I wonder about this man I never knew. I wonder how different I would be. What would life have been like, growing up with his guidance, his friendship, his love? What kind of person would I be, having had his influence? His wisdom and friendly demeanor? Because my grandmother depicts him as the kind of guy who could talk to anyone, easily, and from the type of people that consists of my grandma, her daughter, and her son, I can find that so, so readily believable, so easy to sink into, that I wish I had known this grandfather. I wish my mother and her brother had had more time with him. I wish he were still here so he could grow old with my grandmother, who is only 70, which makes her a very young grandma. It seems unfair that she should have had to spend so long without her loved one, having found him once in this lifetime.

I think maybe we all could've used an influence like you in our lives. I think we would've been different, if you'd been around. I think we take family for granted. And so, it is with this regret that has not come to me in my life until now, at the age of 22, that I must understand: we simply did not have had the opportunity to get to know one another. I can see why people like the idea of heaven, because it lets them hope that their loved one is smiling down on them from above. I don't know what I believe in, Grandpa, so I can't dutifully tell myself that you are smiling down on me from the clouds in the sky. But I hope, for all intents and purposes, that you rest in peace. May you bear the knowledge that you and your wife raised two fine children, who grew up to bear their own children, who would've loved you no matter what. And I'm sorry to have missed the opportunity. I'd like to think that I would've admired you, perhaps been annoyed with you at times as all people are with others in their lives, but I would've loved you and I would've known you. I wonder what kind of a grandfather you would've been. Maybe you would've been senile and vacant and not know me. Maybe you would've been friendly, or calm, or a pillar of strength. Maybe wise words of advice would've tumbled out of you effortlessly, because you would've happened to be that kind of person. Maybe your quiet love would've guided us through hard times. Or maybe you would've been loud and thrown tantrums and been irrational.

But somehow, I don't think that's it. I think you would've been the perfect grandfather.