#34

I was a disrespectful teenager and used to treat my Nainai (paternal grandma in Mandarin) badly. We had a dog called Yaya; it was a yorkshire, said to be the smallest breed in the world. Maybe because Nainai was senile, she would pass food to a full but begging Yaya while eating. The doctor said if this goes on, Yaya wouldn't be able to walk. He was so fat, his stomach was half his body. Not long after, Yaya died of kidney disease. I blamed her. I hated her. I would ignore her, even glare at her, or say nasty things to her. I was awful and treated her as an enemy. I just didn't know better. I remember her sitting at our home balcony with her legs raised, crying because I was so mean. Soon, I went to university. One day my mother called and said Nainai was not doing well. She’d eaten some expired food and went to hospital. I went back and held her hand, didn't say much, just asked her to get well. She passed away shortly after. I wasn't too sad, just a little when I would think of her in a sick state. 

A few months later, I dreamt that I was at an ATM machine and saw her in my peripheral vision. The first words out of her mouth were, “Do you all not love me?" I wasn’t the only one who had been nasty to her; my family members didn’t like that she played mahjong and smoked. I immediately replied, "No, we all love you very much." We then sat on some stairs and chatted with her. I was watching from a third perspective. We chatted so happily. I woke up and lost my mind. 

It was a trauma to my heart. I consider myself someone with a slower reaction. It was only recently when I made this sculpture that I healed. The process helped me with what my heart could not accept. I thought of her as I was making it. Most things I make are deliberately imperfect. Wanting to use natural material, I tore up bark and found it was held by this shape. The physical frame that emerges in this sculpture and others made me realise I have an inner frame that functions like a limit to push past. 

Yumi, Taiwan
@kaomin_studio

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