Over the years, whenever I pictured my paternal grandmother, Daw Shwe, it was always in wistful dreamlike hues. Daw Shwe, which translates to Lady Gold, showed me what it meant to be a devout Buddhist. I remember holding her hand as we picked button mushrooms in a dewy field, early in the cool morning before the tropical sun became fierce. In my memory, it’s just the two of us in a luminous green field, bending and picking, moving in harmonious unison, collecting tender mushrooms that would later form part of a delicious meal. Every morning, monks in saffron colored robes came to our village home, where Daw Shwe helped me place some rice, or perhaps a ripe banana or mango in the monk's begging bowl. She explained that they ate only once a day, at noon, whatever was in their bowl, nothing more. At dusk, we’d place an offering of food or a small gift on the altar of the nats, animistic nature spirits, to appease their mischievous inclinations or to gain favor. I also remember visiting the Shwe Dagon pagoda daily, always with my hand in hers. We’d leave our thong sandals outside the entrance, pour water over the Buddha statues, and climb the steps, a seemingly endless stairway to heaven, to place fresh flowers at the golden Buddha’s feet. Grandmother Daw Shwe was the central character in my dreamscapes of a Buddhist past, untouched by discord.
My paternal grandmother Daw Shwe
My maternal grandmother Louise, in contrast, seemed to me cold and distant, even though I spent much more time with her than with Daw Shwe. Grandma Louise lived mostly with us (my parents, siblings and me), in Burma and in the U.S., until her death in 1981. I was 22 when she died from lung cancer, a difficult death in the sense that she was not at peace, holding tight to her fear of living, fear of dying. After her cancer diagnosis she lived in a state of dread and hopelessness.
We moved in with my grandparents immediately upon our arrival in the U.S. in 1966, to a third floor triple decker on Comstock Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island. Like my grandmother, my grandfather was also emotionally cool, but with a dash of melancholy. I don’t remember them ever being verbally or physically affectionate with each other or with us grandkids. They were not ungenerous or knowingly unkind. But they could be indiscriminately cruel in speech, lashing out when irritated. My grandmother in particular could be judgmental and biting in her remarks while my grandfather defaulted to anticipating impending catastrophe. I could see that my mother was especially hurt when they diminished her feelings with callous chiding. Yet I never thought they were bad people. I sensed instead that they were fragile, flawed in a way I didn't/couldn't understand at the time.
My mother wanted us, her children, to know her parents, grandma in particular. This was never stated openly but I remember her arranging outings for my grandma and me. One time, when I was about 9, grandma agreed to take me clothes shopping. We walked through January slush to the bus stop at the end of our street, bound for downtown Providence, our feet gelid in thin galoshes meant for rain, not ice (we were new immigrants from the tropics, after all). At Lerner's, I settled on a red top in a bubbly synthetic fabric popular at the time. I chose it intentionally from the sale rack, a modest choice, so grandma wouldn't have to spend too much. After shopping, we had lunch at the Woolworth’s counter. Grandma was dutifully attentive but I could sense she was distracted in a way that prevented us from becoming affectionate or close.
After a couple of years of living with my grandparents, which was never meant to be permanent, my parents bought a house in the suburbs. My parents, brother, sister and I piled into our 1966 Chevy Impala and moved just 15 minutes away. Around that time, my mother invited grandma to come over for the purpose of teaching me how to sew. It was just grandma and me, no one else was home when we began our lesson on basic stitches. Grandma was an excellent seamstress and a respected teacher, having taught kindergarten in Burma for many years. While I practiced my blanket stitch, grandma silently paced the length of our ranch style house. The pacing made me uneasy and I started counting the number of times she walked back and forth, over 100! And she was so quiet as she paced, eyes downcast, her mind distant. My grandmother's behavior remained a mystery to me for many years. It was easier to think of her as simply cold.
More recently, I’ve pieced together grandma's story from what my mother has told me. Louise Valentine Kirwan was born on June 3, 1910, the only child of a Burmese mother, Daw Shin Dwe of Mergui, an island archipelago located along the southernmost coast of Burma, and an Irish father, James Kirwan of Galway.
Village in Mergui Archipelago
James was working as an engineer in Burma, contracting public works projects. It's unclear what lead to his murder when Louise was just four years old. In the aftermath of this tragedy, James’s mother arrived in Burma with the intention of adopting Louise and taking her back to Ireland. She wanted Louise to be raised Christian in Ireland, not Buddhist in Burma but Daw Shin Dwe insisted Louise remain in Burma. The grandmother acquiesced with one caveat: that Louise be placed in a Catholic orphanage in Rangoon, to ensure a Christian upbringing. And so in the wake of a tragedy another tragedy ensued when Louise was sent to live in an orphanage at the age of 4 and where she lived until she was 17. During that time, she rarely saw her mother, who did not have the means to make the trip from Mergui. And in those days, it would have been a long and dangerous journey, especially if a woman was traveling alone. Lonely and terrified, separated from her mother, Louise found some comfort from her "big sisters" at the orphanage. When she was still quite small, Louise developed trachoma, an eye infection, a global health problem at the time. Left untreated, the disease causes blindness. Louise was subjected repeatedly to grattage, a treatment predating effective antibiotics, in which the eyelids are everted and manually scraped. She would have been awake and immobilized, either held or strapped down.
Grandma married at a very young age, perhaps 19 or 20, soon after leaving the orphanage. She had been working for a year or so when she met Samuel Ling, a successful accountant. Samuel was born in Southern China. As a child, he and his family had crossed the border into Burma, seeking economic opportunity in the British colony's booming labor market, and eventually establishing themselves in the Chinese merchant community.
Later, during the Japanese occupation of Burma during WWII, Louise and Samuel would become protectors to their four young children and extended family, traversing Burma for three years as refugees in search of safety. They lost their home and loved ones, saw death all around, lived in fear of bombings, disease and exposure. They survived but as many as 250,000 Burmese civilians did not.
An understanding of the effects of war and colonialism has allowed me to better understand Grandma Louise. At least now I can honor her with love and compassion in a way that I could not while she was alive. May the memory of my grandmother, Louise Valentine Ling, be for a blessing.
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