I called my grandmother today. I had to ask her a question, but mostly, I just wanted to talk to her. To let her know I was still here. 

A little while before, I'd been reading the book "Five Smooth Stones" on the bus. For a paragraph or two, the narrator transitioned from being the young protagonist to his grandfather instead. The man who'd raised him. Alone in a house that used to have two inhabitants, the old man talks to the cat and chastises himself for feeling lonely.

The way he spoke, sharply to himself, reminded me of my grandmother. She is, after all, a compact Japanese woman whose short responses have always been commonplace and who scoffs at the thought of needing someone to keep her company. 

So, when I got home after grabbing a bite of pizza at a neighborhood spot (Giorgios), I gave her a call—dialing one of the few numbers I know by heart.

Surprisingly, it was not her voice that I was met with on the other end. Instead, a different yet just as familiar tone met my ears. It was the answering machine and the cracking voice on the other end was that of my grandpa.

He'd passed away years before. And yet, there he was talking to me. 

For a moment, I was frozen with my phone in my hand, pressed against my ear. Unsure how I felt.

"Hello," he said, "you've called the McKillops at 946-****"

and then the punchline...

"please tell me why."

BEEP

I laughed out loud. I couldn't help it. It was so perfect. So typical of the man I'd grown up knowing. Seemingly fragile, always working on a crossword puzzle or watching a show in his little back room in a Honolulu apartment. And then, just like that, a bizarre zinger. Shocking you.

I remember once, I was staying over at my grandparents' apartment. As with most Japanese/early mid-century households, the husband wasn't ever expected to take care of any of the domestic duties. That's how it was at my grandparents' house. My grandma did everything, fussed over us grandchildren, while my grandpa minded his own business.

But for some reason, during this visit, my grandma was out. 

I remember my grandpa came into the living room where I was watching TV and asked if I was hungry. I said yes (when was I not?). Then, he'd rummaged around in the kitchen and a while later, brought a pot out to where I was sitting. He set it down in front of me and went back to his little back room. 

I opened it, curious to see what my grandpa had brought me to snack on. 

Inside, I found a pea. A single pea. One tiny green circle in that huge metal pot. 

I don't remember what happened after that... if he brought me something real to eat after the joke was over or if my grandma came home and made me a dish I was used to (rice with shoyu and vienna sausages because, yes, I was a SAVAGE). Either way, that memory has always stuck with me and I often wonder if some of my humor, my strange little quirks, come from that man.

After hearing the answering machine tonight, I have to think so. 

Strangely enough, before the call, as I was walking with co-workers after our meal at Giorgios Pizzaria. We stopped in front of a new store on Clement street called "Treasure Hunters." It's filled with strange knick-knacks, tropical clutter, weird hats, etc.

I, of course, was fascinated. 

My co-workers did not share my intrigue for the strange delights inside. I then thought about my other grandfather (my mom's dad) and how he would have loved this store. How my brother and I had grown up going to garage sales and rummaging around in the alleys of San Diego's Mission Beach neighborhood for broken toys that he would fix up for us and other strange treasures. 

I started talking about him to my co-workers. With pride, I relayed how he ran this successful nuts and bolts business. So successful, in fact, that people would come to meet him. BUT once there, they would hurry inside to inform the workers that a homeless man was meandering around outside ... only to be informed that that was the owner himself. My Papa Mel. He was more of a character from a book than a real person but his effect on me and who I am today is more real than I can express. 

My mom's mom was no less impressive. She instilled in me the fact that women can be independent and successful (long before I even knew what the word Feminism meant). In college, I inherited her Ford F-250 truck. I can still remember the looks I got when 1. I had to climb into the truck to get behind the wheel and 2. told everyone that it was actually my grandmother's. She was a true dichotomy. A bad ass woman who wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty, haul a load of junk to the dump, but who also never left the house without doing her hair, makeup, and selecting just the right ensemble. 

Now, as I sit here writing all of this, the same fear that struck me when first my grandfather, then grandmother, then my other grandfather passed away: How would anyone ever truly know me without knowing them? 

I am so incredibly lucky to have known my grandparents (and great-grandparents for that matter). They were characters, and let me tell you, they weren't always the easiest people to handle (but I suppose no one great ever is).

For better and for worse, they have shaped me into who and what I am today. It's truly incredible how much of yourself can actually belong to someone else.

I often worry that without having met the woman who once yelled at my brother for not driving fast enough on his brand-new four-wheeler (only to get on it herself and immediately crash it into a wall of rocks), you can't understand my occasional recklessness. Or, without having met the man who welcomed his grandchildren with two miniature boxes that contained only two pieces of their favorite candy, you can't fathom the depths of my love for recess pieces. Or, without having met the man who created his own fastener museum, you can't truly empathize with my need to produce handcrafted goods despite the fact that I have no talent.

All of this makes me want to take everyone and anyone to meet the tough woman who still lives in that Honolulu apartment. The woman who taught me that breaking the rules can be fun (as long as they're only small rules and no one is harmed. Aka it's okay to eat chocolate in the pool now and again). I want anyone I even begin to let in to meet the woman who sang The King and I to me as I fell asleep as a child and who introduced me to Troop Beverly Hills; the woman who had a life before me, but who was so wrapped into my own from the moment I was born, that I have only ever seen as my grandma.

It's mindblowing to me that there may come a day that I fall in love and even have children (though there's quite a bit of doubt in that though) and that they might never know any of these people. These people who have made me who I am and who are as much a part of me as I am of myself.