A (Little Bit of) Personal History

It's been a long couple of weeks, and I am still somewhat delirious from a sleep cycle that's been thrown seriously out of whack. Tomorrow I will issue 3 audit reports and an agreed-upon procedures report ON TIME, so it will all have been worth it. I'm glad that I can at least have some time at the end of the day to do a little blogging to decompress before I get some sleep (and I'm actually going to get 4 hours!!).


Over the past few days, I've wondered about why I continue in this particular line of work. It's can be pretty tedious and frustrating at times, perhaps more so than other professional work. First thing that came to mind is that this work maybe isn't so bad and I should quit my whining because much of my pain is self-inflicted...I could be delegating better or not putzing around so much on the weekends and getting in more work than I do. Second thing that I realized is that regardless of what career I have, I think I will always push myself beyond what I thought were my limits. Since my caffeine pills had kicked in, my brain then went through (at warp speed) all the various reasons why I could be like this - 1) I'm competitive so I want to see if I can outlast everyone else? (since I'm the only manager 3 left in the office, I guess I win?); 2) parental guilt...as in, my parents had it a lot worse, so I need to suck it up and put in as much effort as I can so that someday I can support them; or maybe 3) I have an addictive personality, so frequent and repetitive summation of numbers to me is like crack to Whitney Houston.


Finally, after the caffeine-induced heart palpitations subsided (yes, according to Beney and Wikipedia, there is such a thing as caffeine intoxication!), and after spotting a well-placed ad for a geneology website, I realized that I am just a product of my ancestors. It's in my blood to work. I'm just lucky I get to do my work in a climate-controlled facility with running water (oh wait, I work in Baltimore...). This idea of heritage got me thinking about my grandparents, whom I have to admit I haven't really thought of much outside of the holidays. For a couple of people who didn't speak any English, never made it past the eighth grade in China, and lived apart for 10+ years, they did a hell of a good job keeping their family together and raising 5 kids.


And this ultimately led me to look up the article that The Washington Post ran on my grandpa shortly after he passed away almost 5 years ago. Some of the details are a little off, but the gist of the stories are true, and the picture of my grandpa standing in front of a stove is something that brings back a LOT of memories. That man was in the kitchen a LOT. Some of my earliest memories are of playing with dough and rolling out dumpling wrappers with grandpa instructing.


It's interesting to read that article now, 5 years later. It definitely gives some background as to why I'm such a big supporter of the US military (but especially the Navy) and why I am slightly obsessive about dumplings and believe that only my blood relatives can make good ones (my dad learned from the best - his mom and his father-in-law). But most importantly, I like the way the reporter describes my grandparents. As a 5 year old, I certainly didn't appreciate the fact that my grandparents worked for decades and could have been enjoying a quiet, relaxing retirement but were instead looking after their rambunctuous 5 year old grandson (my cousin, David, and I were born on the exact same day and year), and their angelic, albeit porky granddaughter (yours truly). Yet, they looked after us for years, without complaint or financial incentive or even a thank you from us grandkids.


They were still looking out for us even when they were very, very old and ill. Grandma called every single day just to say hello and to hear our voices. Grandpa actually literally held on until he saw all of his grandkids before he passed.

That summer, I was working on the audit at Children's when I got a call from my sis asking if I was going to see grandpa in the hospital. At first, I was ticked that I didn't know that grandpa was even in the hospital, but then again, he had been admitted quite a few times in the previous months, so maybe it wasn't such a big deal. Since Washington Adventist was only about 15 min. away, I told her I'd meet her there right after work. When I got there and went to the information desk to figure out what room he was in, they directed me to the ICU. That wasn't good. When I got to the ICU waiting area and saw a couple of my aunts and uncles and cousins, that was REALLY not good. My family didn't (and still doesn't) get together much outside of holidays, weddings, kids' birthdays, or deaths. Mel and I went with Mom to grandpa's room and he was hooked up to all manner of IV's and monitors. Mel immediately started bawling, and I got a little freaked out as a result. Mom, though, is a cool customer and held it together. We said hello to grandpa, and the only movement that occurred was rapid blinking and a squeeze of his hand. He was so weak and so filled with tubes that he couldn't speak or do much else. I can't remember what Mel or Mom said, but waited until they left and then told him in Chinese that I loved him and would come back and visit him tomorrow. We returned home after that and had finished up dinner about an hour later. I'm a slow eater, so everyone else had cleared out of the kitchen when I picked up my plate to take it to the sink. The phone rang and my dad answered from another room. I heard my sister scream and I knew that grandpa was gone. Mel was in tears, and pretty soon I was too. My mom later told us that grandpa had actually passed about 15 minutes after we left his room. My aunts, uncles and cousins had all gone in to see him before, so Mel, mom, and I were the last ones there. He had literally held on to make sure we were all ok before he left.

So, what does all of this rambling personal history have to do with all-nighters, putting up with tedious work, and berating myself for not working even more? Simple. It's in my blood.