I’m one of rare cases where three of my grandparents are still alive and kicking. Two of them are over 90 and the other is almost 90. At my age (late 30s), it’s surprisingly uncommon, the rapidly ageing Korean society notwithstanding. My maternal grandfather, the only one who passed away, could have been alive too had it not been for the complications from multiple surgeries he’d gone through. Due to the pain he suffered from the damaged nerves caused during an operation to remove a few bullets from his lower back (remnants of his fighting in the Korean war), he turned to unregulated medicine that was supposed to get rid of pain like magic. This resulted in perforated intestines, for which he had to go under the knife again and again, and ended up with a pipe that connected his rectum and an external bag attached at the end of the pipe. Other than that, he didn’t have any major illness, so I don’t see why he wouldn’t have lived until he was over 90 also. But sadly, the condition he was in towards the end just wasn’t conducive to longevity.
My living grandparents are not just alive but unbelievably healthy. My paternal grandfather goes all the way to Jongro, Seoul from his suburban home three days a week to play go with his friends. It’d take me a similar amount of time to travel there as it does him, but I doubt I could manage it physically, nor do I want to do so three times a week. Brawn has never been my strength, and after living in a rural city for several years, I’ve grown to dislike overcrowded big cities.
As for my grannies, the paternal one was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in her late 60s and has been shaking her head for as long as I remember, but she’s still doing very well. The maternal one fell down and broke her leg a couple of years ago, but because her children took excellent care of her, not only did she recover fully but got even healthier than before.
So it’s safe to say that I have super longevity genes installed in my DNA. It wouldn’t surprise me if my grandparents lived up to or even over 100 (they’re quite willing to do so as well) and my parents, 110. And I’ll probably live for well over 120. I guess it’s a blessing not everyone can inherit from their grandparents even if they wish. Many of those my age or even younger have already lost the majority of their grandparents, if not all of them. The upside of having long-lived grandparents, however, ends right there in my case—it’s purely biological and nothing more. Because not only do they have nothing to offer in all other aspects but have proven to be rather troublesome.
I haven’t interacted with any of my grandparents for quite a while now. It’s been at least several years since I last talked with my paternal grandparents. With my maternal granny, I never visit her any more even though I live right across from where she does. There’s a word that perfectly describes my maternal granny: ornery. She’s very demanding, quick-tempered, and never thankful about anything whatsoever since she always takes things for granted. She’s got a notorious tongue that criticises, nitpicks and complains all the time. I suspect that she’s gone senile because, on top of all of the above, she’s been such a drama queen, causing feuds amongst her children by means of constant badmouthing and slandering. The main victim of her calumny has been my mum, the only child who’s been living right next to granny to look after her, plus me and dad. You see, there’s a reason why wise people advise against living with or moving near one’s parent(s) to look after them in their old age. More often than not, it’s those children who do so that are damned by both their parent(s) and siblings.
Initially, my mum stopped visiting granny or picking up her calls after granny took her anger out on mum when my big uncle showed up at a jesa without his wife. To granny, her daughter-in-law’s one-time absence at a jesa was unacceptable. Since she was little, mum had always been granny’s primary target of criticism and punishment, even for the faults of her siblings, simply because she’s the first-born. She’d put up with it all her life without protest since it was the default for her. Then at the age of 65, she finally decided for the first time that she couldn’t and wouldn’t take it any more. So after the day of jesa, she didn’t see granny for 9 months, but with a deeply discomposed conscience.
Then the leg-breaking incident happened, and obviously it was mum who handled the situation, which involved not only paramedics but firefighters and police officers as they had to break into immobile granny’s apartment. During granny’s hospitalisation, the five siblings discussed what to do about granny after her release from the hospital. Whenever they video called as a group, my aunts, especially the younger one, were hostile towards mum, accusing her of having done nothing for granny. After being at granny’s beck and call 24/7 for several years, my family was completely baffled by this. It turned out that granny had painted my family as some kind of scroungers mooching off her to her other children. Granny goes to a senior care centre every day except for Sundays, on which we had to take her to a restaurant for lunch as she wished. Mum and granny took turns paying for lunch, which I reckon was a fair arrangement. This, however, was twisted into an abominable act of ripping off granny in her retelling to her other children, since, in her book, mum should’ve paid for everything. For my family, it was a triply upsetting accusation because, one, taking her out to lunch was a dutiful task rather than a pleasant regular outing for us; two, we spent money for it; and three, our effort was rewarded only with denigration from granny and her other children.
Granny occasionally gave me 50,000 won when I was half trying to find a job (I’ll be publishing another instalment about my job hunt experience soon). This was later turned into a fable where she gave me 5,000,000 won (yes, 100 times more than what she actually gave me). The even more ridiculous part of this fictitious tale was that I didn’t even thank her. … For the money she never gave me. So basically, I was framed and branded by my own granny as an ungrateful leech.
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