Confessions of a disconnected grandchild

We went to the hospital today to visit my grandmother. She's got a broken wrist from a fall and they're keeping her under observation to be sure nothing else was knocked out of place. But one look at her expression tells you she's heartsick over much else that the doctors can't fix.

She's in the same hospital where she was warded something like fifteen years ago, for a broken hip that left her with a limp she still bears today. The hospital's cleaner, or maybe it's had a fresh coat of paint, and the wards seem brighter. My grandmother seems smaller, shrunken and sadder.

It was mostly my father and my aunt who spoke to her. My brother and I, crippled by language deficiencies, stood silently, smilingly by. It was liberating in that we couldn't resort to the usual platitudes of "how are you", "take care" and "rest well", knowing they would sound flatter than usual, given my grandmother's limited English. But language was just an excuse; it masked the even more embarrassing truth that we had nothing to say to her. Terz --- blessed with the right language, the right timing --- had a more meaningful interview with her earlier this year than I've ever derived from our awkward exchanges.

So I got to leave the hospital with the guilt of having made a token gesture, yi si (to show its meaning, rather than to do something out of genuine feeling), which was yet preferable to the guilt of not having visited at all.