Eulogy
Horne Ing (son)
Entered June 18, 2021
Our Mother was born on the 15th of March 1931 – this incidentally corresponds to the 27th day of the 1st month of year 4629, according to the Chinese calendar. She passed away peacefully on the 9th of June last week, after a mercifully short illness.
Mom met Dad in high school in China. They were married in the summer of 1949 just prior to the communist take-over of mainland China. They would have celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary this year.
Their first child (Rose) was born in China. Due to the unrest and danger in communist China, Mom suggested that they should leave China for the safety of Canada, following in the footsteps of each of their fathers. With this difficult decision, Dad left Mom and Rose with relatives in China. Mom joined Dad three years later in Canada, in the fall of 1953.
I was born in 1954 – we all lived with my Grandparents (my Dad’s parents) on Dundas Street East for the first year.
After securing loans from family and friends, my parents bought an old farmhouse on Eglinton Avenue West near Keele Street. They renovated the building and opened up a laundry, washing clothes for other people. My other Grandfather - Mom’s dad - was already in the laundry business.
More children were welcomed into the family. Pearl in 1956. May in 1957. Gordon in 1959.
My parents moved up to dry cleaning of clothes when they purchased a building on St. Clair Avenue West in 1964 – they expanded this into a thriving wholesale business.
After this, my parents opened up a restaurant in China Town on Spadina Avenue around 1973.
They ostensibly “retired” 5 years later, but then opened up, of all things, a hair salon for a number of years.
My parents epitomized the immigrant family work ethic – they worked long hours to build up their businesses. My Mom was always the “face” of the business. She managed the front counters of the businesses. With her limited English, she welcomed all clients and patrons. She had a smile for everyone.
We, as a family, always lived upstairs in the buildings where the businesses were housed. Mom was always there when we came home from school. We all had chores and jobs in the family business. My parents were always busy, but there was always time for family meals at night.
I remember the times we spent up in our cottage in Muskoka. My parents would work until store closing on Saturday. We would then drive up to the cottage that evening. We would wake up Sunday morning to mow the grass and do other chores. However, there was always time to sit in the sun, to sit on the dock, to swim, to fish, to go out on the boat. I remember the massive bon fires (in an oil drum) to burn leaves in the fall. We would all head back to Toronto Sunday night after a dinner treat of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think those KFC dinners were one of the rare times when we did not have a home-cooked meal.
In recent years, Mom’s health declined. Her memory suffered, but she remembered us all till the end. She had back fractures and severe pain and eventually needed more care in a long term care facility. In the nursing home, the nurses always commented on her quick smile and warm personality. They nicknamed her “I love you” because she always said “I love you” to them. Mom seemed to thrive initially in the nursing home environment, with all the opportunities to socialize with other people.
Mom was one of the earliest cases of COVID-19 back in April of last year. Fortunately, after much worry, concern and dread on our part, she remained asymptomatic throughout. We felt she had dodged another bullet.
The past year has been very difficult with COVID-19. We were not allowed to visit Mom due to the pandemic restrictions. However, we were able to have weekly Zoom meetings with Mom in the nursing home. The Zoom meetings were difficult at times – it is not the same as seeing someone in person. I think Mom was confused with all of the pictures (multiple screens) of each of us on her computer at the nursing home. We eventually discovered that she would calm down when we showed her baby pictures of her grandchildren. Her face would light up when she saw baby Audrey – her great-granddaughter.
Mom’s health failed suddenly last week. She was admitted into hospital. We were allowed to visit in the hospital to say good-bye. I do not know if Mom knew we were there. We spoke to her. We held her hand. She had long episodes of not breathing. Each time, I would hold my own breath with her and wondered whether this was her last breath. It was then that the magnitude of our pending loss struck me.
Our Mom was always there. We may have taken her for granted at times through the years. Mom was the “glue” for our family – she tried to please all of us. She wanted us all to be happy and to get along.
Mom – rest in peace. We all love you. We are all getting along. We will always feel you in our hearts.
_________________________________________________________________
Galen Watts (grandson)
Entered June 18, 2021
Grandmother’s Eulogy
I think I speak for the other grandchildren—Kelsey, Matthew, Sonja, Ali, and Fei—when I say we didn’t know our grandmother as well as we’d like to. The barriers that separated she and us were enormous. She was a new immigrant, brought up in a culture and period that is difficult for us to fathom, let alone identify with, who never really learned the language of her new country; whereas we are third-generation Canadians, born and bred in the West, for whom Chinese language and culture are, for the most part, deeply foreign. It is this cultural and generational chasm that ensured a degree of incomprehension between us. I tend to think, we remained, in important ways, strangers to her—and she to us.
And yet, despite these formidable barriers, I think we managed, often in the most ordinary or mundane of moments, to see and feel the deep love she had for us.
As the other grandchildren and I would likely agree, these moments so often involve food. I have countless memories of Chinese banquets where, after just finishing a plate full of dinner and letting out a groan of both satisfaction and slight pain, Po po—or “Ngan ngan,” as Matthew and Sonja would call her—would look at me, pause, smile, and then begin to fill my plate with yet another serving. “You have more,” she would say almost matter-of-fact-ly. To me, this was her way of having a bit of fun. And I suspect she thought so too.
When you think about it, that one of the primary ways we connected with our grandmother was over food, really isn’t that surprising. We didn’t speak the same language. We shared different social customs. We saw the world very differently. But food offers a universal medium of communication; it transcends cultural and generational differences, tapping into something profoundly human. So, feeding us was our grandmother’s way of communicating with us, of showing affection, of sharing her love.
Another way our grandmother became recognizable to us was through her incandescent smile. Po po had a wonderful way of welcoming you into a room. Her whole face would light up and she would belt out your name, “Matthew!” “Kelsey!” “Sonja!” She made you feel attended to, she made you feel seen. I want to add, I think this is a trait she passed down to her daughters and granddaughters in full. There is something radiant about the Ing-women’s smile – they all partake of the wonderful expressiveness of grandmother Ing.
I have fond memories of Po po at annual reunions, when the whole family would get together at someone’s house – be it for Christmas, Chinese New Year, or someone’s birthday. She and grandfather would always arrive first, long before everyone else. They would then station themselves on the couch in the living room, as if ensuring that they wouldn’t miss out on any of the action to come.
Of course, once everyone had arrived, and they were surrounded by family, grandmother always played the observer far more than the participant. Though she sat amidst us, she couldn’t take part in the conversation; her limited English prevented it. For this reason, as a child, I questioned what value she could derive from these events. Unable to participate in the conversation, incapable of understanding most of what was being said around her, I wondered to myself: how could she enjoy this?
Today I have a very different view. I see now that, while she may not have joined in the conversation, grandmother was nevertheless very much present, looking over us all, and taking in the sight of the family gathering that she and grandfather’s collective years of hard labour had made possible.
I now imagine her thinking to herself during these events, this is what it was all for – those long days at the dry cleaners, the endless stress and struggle of having to raise five children on little money and even less security, and the feeling of alienation that must have been an everyday experience for her living in this foreign land. I see now that grandmother didn’t need to partake in the conversation to enjoy it. Merely bearing witness to the conversation, knowing her deeds were what made it possible, was enough.
When I was much younger I also ignorantly assumed that grandmother’s limited English skills reflected a lack of general understanding, or—I am ashamed to admit—a lack of intelligence. But now, I realize just how mistaken I was. Po po faced trials and tribulations that I will never have to – getting along in a new country where you are considered an outsider and few are willing to lend you a hand, enduring racism and sexism so often that it becomes a fact of the universe, balancing commitments to family while also trying to put food on the table. It doesn’t just take intelligence to get through these hardships – it takes grit, resilience, and an abiding inner strength.
It also takes social smarts—and I see now that grandmother had these in abundance. She had a keen ability to tap into people’s psychology to get what she wanted. She had a knack for bending people’s wills to align with her own. Of course, some might see this as manipulative. But the fact is, for her, it was probably a necessary survival skill.
I have vivid memories from those family reunions of grandmother, seated on the couch, shrewdly delegating tasks to us—both her children and grandchildren—all the while acting aloof. Reflecting on these occasions, I now think Po po was far savvier, and much more aware, than I ever gave her credit for. What I took to be obliviousness may have actually been a role she’d perfected. As the matriarch of the family, she obviously came to see herself as a kind of manager – one whose role was to get family members to cooperate, take care of one another, and ultimately to get along, even if we didn’t want to. So, what looked to me, as a child, like a lack of awareness may have been a conscious attempt to act like she knew little, while secretly running the entire show.
I should say, these realizations that I’m describing didn’t come to me until the last few years of Po po’s life. An interesting fact about my relationship to grandmother—and I think this is equally true for the other grandchildren—is that it was only upon her entering a nursing home that we got to know her at any depth. Perhaps it was the sense of vulnerability produced by her injury, perhaps it was the result of being separated from grandfather, or maybe it was that she now had to figure out a way to cope in a new environment – whatever the cause, a more open, communicative, and expressive Po po emerged during this period of her life.
All of the grandchildren who had the chance to, have lovely memories of visiting her at one of the various nursing homes she lived in, and exchanging more words with her in the span of thirty minutes than we’d ever shared prior. Matthew recalls the pride grandmother took in being able to rehearse all of our birthdays from memory, and the way she would show him off to the nursing staff. Kelsey also recalls being shown off, as well as being offered snacks (which—let’s be honest—were usually one of the things on grandmother’s lunch tray that she didn’t want to eat). While Sonja remembers how excited grandmother was every time she’d pay a visit – along with the extreme interest she took in who Sonja was dating.
For a time, Chantel and I paid regular visits to grandmother in Vermont Square. Our visits always followed the same hilarious routine: we would arrive to find her sitting in front of the TV, watching a riveting episode of CP24. When she would see us, her face would light up, and she would call out our names. “Galen! Chantel!” She would then announce to anyone in sight who we were – “My Grandson! His wife!” Next, we would take a trip down the elevator because Po po always wanted to go outside for some air. Yet, on countless occasions, as soon as we would get out the door, she would scream, “Too cold!” and immediately instruct us to take her back inside. We would then end up sitting on the first floor, staring out the window, and attempting—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—to overcome the language barrier between us.
What I loved about these visits is that I saw a side of grandmother that I’d never seen before – what I like to imagine she may have been like when she was a girl back in China: extremely social, kind-hearted, funny, and a little bit mischievous. In these moments, I felt like I was really seeing her.
Of course, I could be wrong. As I said earlier, I tend to think our grandmother will always remain a stranger to me—at least in certain respects. But either way, I am incredibly grateful to have shared those moments with her, to have had the opportunity to just be with her, and so, in some small way, to repay the insurmountable debt I feel I owe her for the life I lead today. And I know the other grandchildren feel the same way.
Grandmother lived the classic immigrant success story: arrive with little to nothing in your pocket, start a family, work hard day and night so that you can give your children and grandchildren the kind of life that you were, for reasons that were beyond your control, unable to live. Of course, no life is perfect, and all stories come with both lows and highs, but it remains amazing to me just how much she and grandfather were able to achieve when the odds were so stacked against them. For this, I will forever remain in awe. I honestly don’t know how they did it.
Although I wish I had more time to get to know grandmother better, I also recognize that she lived a long and full life, and that, given the barriers that separated us, the limits on our ability to comprehend one another were pretty set in stone. Still, what I—along with the other grandchildren—remain certain of, is just how much she loved us, how much she wanted us to thrive, and that she would have done anything for us.
This is something I hope I never forget about her – that she had an undying love for her family. This is, in the end, what made her truly great.
May she rest in peace.
