A Familial Stranger

In the 1980s, following the Cambodian Genocide, my grandma Simone and my mother Sara (Socheata) were living in separate refugee camps in Thailand— unaware the other was living. After my grandma was sponsored to live in Rochester, New York, she heard from extended family that my mom survived, and arranged for them to be reunited. Once in America, my mother couldn’t recognize my grandma at the airport, having been separated since she was five-years-old. While my mom went through high school and college, they navigated a new life and culture as familial strangers. Their relationship came to a pause when my mom refused to be in an arranged marriage with an older Cambodian-Chinese doctor, running away to Rhode Island the night before her wedding. The next day, my grandma and my American step-grandfather were married instead.

After three years, their relationship healed when my mom got engaged on her own accord to my American father. Since then, my grandma has lived in Hilton, a rural town in Upstate New York with my step-grandpa who, I learned as a teenager, is abusive towards her. Despite being disowned by his family, he refuses to move with her to Rhode Island and let her be with my mom, my sister and I. Subjected to a third wave of separation from her only living child, my grandma navigates loneliness, and mental and physical illness while upholding her role as an American housewife; cooking, cleaning and caring for her ailing husband. This summer, I visited my grandma’s home for the first time since I was fourteen; observing her, the house, and her use of gardening as medicine.