Lulu Wang, Call Me

Sometimes, when I see someone post about their grandparent passing away on Instagram, I get mad at them. Well, not them specifically. But mad that they liked their grandparent enough and had enough biographical info to write a sappy Instagram post, and that I don’t. I want everyone to feel bad for me that I’m down to one living grandparent, and he lives on the other side of the world, and I’m nervous to talk to him because we didn’t tell him that his son, my father, died three years ago. It wasn’t my call, but it doesn’t feel like my news to break to him either.

I opted not to see my dad’s body when he died. I just dropped my uncle off at the funeral home. And now sometimes I wonder if it would all feel more real if I had seen his lifeless corpse for a minute.

There’s no easy way to post on Instagram or even tell someone that my dad died and I didn’t even like him, or that my uncle decided he didn’t want their parents to know because they’re old and Chinese people think that bad news can impact old people’s health (maybe it does), and so we did a reverse The Farewell. I’m not sure if I believe in an afterlife, but there is something darkly hilarious to me thinking about how my grandma died two years ago, and for her to roll up and discover her son is just already up or down there. I don’t think I even know my grandparents’ names, and it feels a little late to ask. I just call them waigong, nainai, yeye.

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