Post 4/12

Obaachan.

This is the Japanese word for grandmother. And this is what I call my grandma. Obaachan.

My Obaachan is one of my favourite people on this planet. I have been so blessed to have such a silly, tenacious, young-at-heart person in my life. She's Japanese Canadian, and she carries all the trauma that comes along with that.

She was the youngest of eight children born to immigrant parents who arrived in Canada just before World War Two. She was interned with her whole family at an extremely young age. They were held in horse stables in downtown Vancouver for over six months and then shipped to the colder regions of the country, everything taken from them. In Canada, none of the Japanese families got their belongings or their homes back. They weren't allowed to use cars. The atrocities go on and on.

She says it wasn't too traumatizing for her because she was so young. But it was deeply traumatizing for her siblings. There was a lot of shame. They lived in horse stables. They used troughs as toilets. The men in the family never spoke about what happened to them. But they carried anger their whole lives.

The kind of anger that has nowhere to go because no one ever gave it language or justice.

On top of this, our family holds mental health struggles, addiction, hoarding tendencies, depression, and anxiety across generations. This is generational trauma. And what I've described is only the tip of the iceberg.

And yet. My Obaachan is, like me, deeply sensitive in a family that was rarely gentle with sensitivity. She has always had a silly side that I find genuinely inspiring. She knows far more than she ever lets on. She is cheeky as all hell and has a sense of humour that could light up a room. I love making her laugh. I also let her cry, because I think she needed someone who would.

A few months ago I said to her, "I'm really sorry this must be so hard for you, losing your hearing. You can't join conversations or connect as easily with everyone." She looked at me, shrugged, and gave me the cheekiest grin. "I have selective hearing, so it's not a problem." I said, "Whaaaat?!" and she looked at me and said, "hat did you say?" smiled again, and went right back to relaxing.

What a boss.

My Obaachan held trauma and grief in her heart her whole life and gave it back as love, tenfold. She volunteered at the hospital. She made prayer shawls for people in hospice. She gave her time, freely and consistently, to make other people's lives better. My Ojiisan, my grandfather, is of Russian Canadian descent, hence how I look. He always had a good job, was smart with money, and gave them a life that allowed for travel, home ownership, and taking care of family. Her life, as she got older, was genuinely beautiful.

But I could always tell she held everything. The beauty and the grief, side by side, carried quietly.

I really resonate with my Japanese lineage. They are, I am convinced, descendants of angels. My Japanese family is uncharacteristically kind. Even the ones with egos are still compassionate and caring. The women especially: wise, funny, creative, open, and oriented always toward kindness. My Auntie Eiko went through more tragedy than most people could survive and came out of it like the Oracle in the Matrix, sounding like her too. My Auntie Kimiko carries the same energy. Against all odds, they radiate. I don't fully know how to put into words how much I love this side of my family, how much they mean to me, how extraordinary I genuinely think they are.

I want you to hold that image of her as you read what comes next. Because these two things existed at the same time, in the same childhood, in the same world. The love of my Obaachan. And everything else.

My life felt very scary for a long time.

One thing about an autistic body that I think is deeply underplayed in the community is how much physical pain it carries. I call it the pain body, and others do too. Our nervous systems are overloaded by design, and that's before you add trauma into the mix. Before you add violence.

I have been hit with hands, wooden spoons, random objects, and belts. I've been grabbed, pulled, and silenced. I was around a lot of people who used fear as a control tactic. I've been around drugs, murderers, rapists, and addicts. Unsafe people. And with a nervous system like mine, one encounter with that kind of energy is a challenge. My whole childhood was full of it.

And through all of it, somewhere in the same universe, my Obaachan existed. Soft. Unwavering. Choosing love every single time. At least from my perspective, and that's what I am talking about here.

The difference between me and someone who could have gone in a very different direction, I believe, is my neurodivergence. I think I have a deeper love for people and a lower bar to forgiveness. I find my way back to love every time. But that is also, without question, because of her.

Despite everything she went through and all the pain she was surrounded by, she knew how to regulate and how to be kind. She was patient. She was loving. I have never once questioned the love of my Obaachan and Ojiisan. They gave it freely and unconditionally, every time, without exception.

I was surrounded by so much that felt like cruelty, cruelty that came from dysregulation and pain that had nowhere else to go. And there she was, in just as much pain, maybe more, and she was soft. Spicy and cheeky and silly, absolutely. But soft. She always reminded me that age is just a number, that you don't get old because of years, you get old because of attitude.

To me, an angel is a person who could choose anger, hate, or resentment, and chooses love instead. Not to condone what happened. Just to refuse to let it harden them.

That is my Auntie Kimiko. That is my Auntie Eiko. That is my Obaachan.

They don't know, and they could never know how much they saved me. How much knowing I had them there was a tether to safety that I needed so much.

I am so grateful to have had that modelled to me, because I was living on the opposite end of the spectrum. And this pain body of mine got to be held and loved and taken care of, sometimes. And what that did for my soul is, I think, the main reason I get to have the life I have now. I don't go into resentment. I lean into love. I lean into joy, into showing up for the people I care about, into having hard conversations and committing deeply to my relationships.

I'm only as functional as I am because I am Japanese. Because if I was just the white side, I'd be fucked.

Sorry for swearing Obaachan. I love you so much.

Much love,

Kat