Family Stories: My Grandparents, things even I never knew about them

This family story is about my grandparents on my mom's side (her parents), and how they met.(:


My grandpa was an energetic, clever and smart person, who risked things occasionally.  For college final exams, he studied the night before the exams, and still managed to pass.  He was an engineer who never took no for an answer if he believed it. He loved to go out and socialize with friends. My grandma was his opposite; she was quiet, knew manners, raised her family with family values, and cared about her family all the time, and gave her full effort to her two children. Her children were her whole world. She was a outstanding, diligent, hard-working woman, who worked her hardest, to be able to get a job at a pretty good hospital, as a nurse.  


She worked there with my mom's aunt, who thought that my grandma and grandpa were worth introducing to each other, since she felt like she was a woman who was special and seemed compatible with her brother, so she talked to my grandpa about it. He walked there, and as my mom says, "he must've worked on something very hard that morning..." and he pretended to visit my grandaunt, and met my grandma while he was there. They chatted for a while, and decided to leave to go back to work. As soon as he walked to the gates of the hospital, he felt something wrong with his lungs, and his lung collapsed.

He managed to calmly walk back to the hospital, and as soon as he got to the room where my grandma treated patients, he collapsed right in front of her door. "Of course, the hero saved the beauty, but in this case, she saved him"(my mom:). She saved him from many situations, even after they married.

When he was caught trying to escape from China, he was forced to an isolated area, with hopes that isolation and hard work would be the way to correct his thinking. She moved there with him, and became doctor in the village, and acted as a midwife to a lot of families.  Because she was the nurse, and the people of the village highly appreciated her, they gave my grandpa not as intensive labor, and he managed to stay inside of the house most of the time. She therefore "saved" him from all the hard work, that was forced on the many people that were forced to work in difficult jobs in crops.

After all the experiences that they had with each other, they learned to understand the other better, and when their children were born, they continued to pass on their cunning and clever genes to the next generation, and built a strong family together, despite hardships they had (many people lived on a small food supply, food was distributed strictly, and if they finished the amount they received, they wouldn't get anymore, and starved.).



My mom has told me this story a few times, well only parts of it. Mostly just the part about my grandpa meeting my mom at the hospital, calmly walking back, collapsing at her door (I actually thought it was at her feet, but I stand corrected), and her saving his life. Other details, like my great-aunt working there (one of my favorite cousin's grandma), and about my grandpa being exiled for trying to escape China, and what my grandma did, to join him in the village as a doctor and midwife. I never knew that my grandpa was an engineer (even though I grew up with him under the same roof), and never known my grandmother, but I knew she was a nurse. I never forgot about my grandpa procrastinating his studying for his finals, and still managing to pass, and my mom tells me not to follow his example, and to actually study for college finals, instead of procrastinating, because if I procrastinate, I most definitely wouldn't do as well as my grandpa did.


From this, I realize that my personality is like my grandma and grandpa. I like to risk things sometimes, but in the past, I used to not be as big of a risk taker as I am now. It probably isn't that good that I take risks so much, since I won't be very likely to succeed at taking a risk like studying for college finals, or any finals for that matter the night before the final. And like my grandpa, I can be stubborn, and stick firmly to whatever I believe in, but oftentimes, it's not necessarily something that I believe in, but if I see something that I think looks nice or I like, even if I am presented with other options, I most often do not change my mind, and stick with whatever caught my eye first. I like my grandpa too, like to socialize, but at times, I am also like my grandma, and prefer being alone, in silence (with a book or quiet music). If I want to, I work my hardest like my grandma was known to do, and am able to succeed if I really do try hard enough, and put my full, honest effort into it. 


In some ways, I can kind of see my brother and I both reflected as my grandparents. Some characteristics, he  is like my grandpa, others like my grandma.  Others, the opposites, connect me to my grandparents. My brother, if he's really willing to learn about something, or to try to do something, he can do it, like my grandma, and me at times. My brother can also be very clever and social at times, always getting into a group, often becoming the center of attention, while I prefer standing along the sidelines, watching and observing. 


When I was younger, I went to these after school programs, and all the people who worked there to watch the children remembered me for my energy and outgoingness, but after my brother started going there, they no longer knew me as Amber. I became "Robert's sister." If he ever saw me when he was at the program, he would always yell to me, bragging to the people around him how I was his sister. Now that I think about it, I feel like after my brother was born, I became less "out there" with my defiant attitude, and stopped arguing with others to get what I wanted, I just let things slide, and go as they did, whether I liked it or not, and didn't do much to change it. I became more like my grandma, thoughtful and quiet.