—
My grandma Stefka passed away on December 27th 2022.
In her younger life, she was a woman who liked to be heard and to leave her mark on the world. She would have liked for me to share as much about her as I can.
Dear reader — thanks for tuning in. I hope you enjoy!
It’s 8:37 PM PST on Monday, December 26th. I’ve just gotten home from a long weekend of skiing at Kirkwood with friends.
My mom calls from Bulgaria. It is very early in the morning for her on the 27th. I already know what to expect as she sniffles.
“The hospital called me. Your grandma Петка passed away.”
The call is brief. Four minutes. She has to go to the hospital.
I walk over and tell my dad who’s in the other room. He closes his laptop. He comes over and hugs me, also briefly.
“Your mom’s тегло (burden) is over.”
I don’t know what to say. So I don’t say anything. That part is still true days later.
I tell a few of my friends via text, and I send my mom a long message consoling her. She’s the one in the heat of the action, while I am a world away.
Grandma-grandson duo… #
It is safe to say that my grandma and I have been through more together than a typical grandson-grandma duo.
When I was born, my mom and I went to live in my grandparents’ flat in Ruse, Bulgaria for the first few years of my life. As an only child of an only child of immensely competent and caring grandparents who had recently retired (read: now had plenty of time), I got a lot of attention in that household.
It was the most convenient place for me to be — one where I would be well taken care of, and experience unconditional love.
Even into my adolescence, after I had moved to California to go to school in the Bay Area, I would spend summers back home in Ruse. Most often, I would go back in June and only come back to California in August for the new school year.
In those days, when I got to Ruse, I was home. I felt at ease there. I was always fed, taught — as both my grandparents were educators, and surrounded by loved ones.
At the airport in Bulgaria, I would cry every single year. To be honest, I cried because I knew that a whole year would pass before I could be with my beloved grandparents again (it was way too long) and as a kid, I was scared they would be gone by the next summer.
When I got back to California on the other hand, I felt there was an ineffable emptiness to the place. The popcorn ceiling in our Santa Clara apartment was not home. I missed the comforting wallpaper print on the walls of my room in Ruse and the snacks and TV channels and family members that abound.
Doing the math, my grandma and I must have spent more than 2600 days under the same roof, which unquestionably puts her in the top three people I’ve spent the longest time co-habituating with.
Speckles of memories… #
My grandma loved to tell the story of my first birthday celebration. While others in the house were getting ready for guests, she insisted that I have a photoshoot. She would emphasize that she grabbed me and took me to a local photo with my cake. Those photos are still in her apartment – among thousands of others, across dozens of albums.
Her name was Stefka — Stefka Koseva Marinova neé Ilieva — but somehow I started calling her Petka when I was little and the name stuck. Baba Petka was her name after awhile and I have the proud distinction of giving it to her.
We spent every summer in the seaside cottage my grandparents had bought in the 1970s. On the way to the Black Sea, my grandma would sit in the front of the car with my grandpa while my mom and I sat in the back. I remember singing songs and eating dried bread (which was good for grandma’s stomach). I also remember picking “buzzi” which were some blueberry-like fruits, also for stomach reasons.
My grandma wanted to together with her family more than anything. My great-grandparents lived across town in Ruse and we would visit them almost every day. They lived in a quaint but very central neighborhood, and I enjoyed going out with the other kids from the neighborhood and being around more family.
When my great-grandpa passed away in 2006, that threw her off balance. In subsequent summers, she would cry often and ask why he had left her. His loss was the first permanent fissure in her large support system.
After I moved to California, I could expect a letter multiple times per year from my grandma. On more special occasions, she would send me a Mickey Mouse magazine — a comic book which I loved to read — in order for me to practice my Bulgarian reading skills.
When we were together, she would dedicate herself to teaching me how to write in Bulgarian, too. She would dictate sentences to me and correct my spelling and grammar. It is a skill I still have to this day thanks in large part to her efforts.
Related to being together, I would ask, “Do you like America?” “No, it took my kids from me,” she would say right away. I think even in her old age she was quick witted and would come up with well thought out answers to any sort of question I could think up. “I want everyone [you, your dad, etc.] to come back to Ruse,” she would continue.
She was a woman who loved socializing and community (at least until my grandpa passed away in 2012 — more on that later).
She was the cashier of our apartment building, Perla, which meant that each month she went door-to-door to all 75 units and collected the Bulgarian equivalent on an HOA. She poured her heart into that job. I remember witnessing her spending long nights dealing with the building’s affairs.
In a prior life, she had been a teacher at the local tekhnikum (a prestigious high school specializing in subjects related to the design and manufacturing of machinery) for many years and had an extensive network of students who loved and supported her; she would take great pride in having taught the mayor of Ruse and many others.
Because of her broad network, she was always looking to help people by making connections — when someone needed a doctor or a tutor or a ride to nearby Bucharest, she would know who to call.
For the same reason, going out on walks with my grandma was struggle in the before days. While attempting to walk across town, we would stop every block or two when we encountered a new friend or colleague, or student of hers that she would need to catch up with.
My grandma was an optimist. “Grandma, your teeth are going bad.” “I will fix them,” she told me this summer. I wondered when. “Titko, come back. Be here,” she would plead. I wondered how. Even as she lay dying, my mom said she asked if she would be home for New Year’s Eve. She always looked for the path forward.
My mom told me that forty people went to the funeral — which is quite a lot for an elderly person, especially one that has been reclusive for more than a decade now. It is a testament to the mark she left on her city and community.
After my grandpa passed… #
My grandpa passed away in 2012 and it very clearly divided my grandma’s life into a before and after period. In the months that followed, she would go on to lose nearly half her body weight — dropping down to less than 40 kg — and fall into a deep psychosis.
When I walked up to her flat to visit that summer, she would say silly things like — “you’re not my grandson, you’re someone pretending to be my grandson.” Although it was a bit unsettling, I never once felt unsafe. She was still my grandma and I knew that she was a good and kind person. The years after would see her slowly recover from the shock.
That summer of 2012 was the craziest and most traumatizing I can remember. I arrived in Bulgaria a few months after my grandpa had passed. The atmosphere at home was grim and wild things kept happening one after another — my grandma got locked in a bathroom in the middle of the night (due to a technical malfunction of the door) and a friend came to help us cut down the bathroom door to get her out. My great-grandma who had been living in our flat went to sleep one night after becoming distressed and didn’t wake up for weeks before she eventually passed. And the summer ended with having to send my grandma to the local psychiatric ward for a month-long rehabilitation.
Going for a walk around my grandma’s neighborhood, Vazrazhdane (meaning Revival) — Ruse, 2017
For many years after my grandpa passed, my grandma neither smiled nor cried. Sometime around 2019 that started to change and by 2022, I felt that she had gotten back to her normal level of emotionality. In 2022 especially, she would smile when we were together and speak on all subjects. I had this sense that she was back to her normal, but now older, self.
In the years after 2012, the woman who had been a social butterfly, meeting dozens of people each and every day, completely retreated into her home and would not reach out to anyone but my mom (and me) for a decade. During that time, my mom became her primary caretaker. My mom moved back to Bulgaria and would visit California only once per year.
My grandma would ask me often (especially recently), “when will you bring home a girlfriend?” to which I would sometimes ask her back, “where’s your boyfriend?” The last time I asked, she explained that her boyfriend — my grandpa – had already died. It was cheeky and another example of her willingness to touch all subjects and think on her feet.
Before I knew her… #
I met my grandma somewhere near the very end of the middle of her life story. While I sometimes lament that the latter years of her life were not great (as often happens when one gets old and frail and loses much of what they hold most dear), I take solace in that the earlier ones – much of which I did not get to witness — were good in a way that I can only admire.
My grandma grew up in Ruse, my hometown which I have written about extensively here, as part of a large extended family. Her parents had a house near the Center of the city which was adjacent to the houses of one of my great grandma’s sisters (of which she had seven, so you can understand where the large family comes from).
Her parents, Kosyo and Yordanka, were kind people who both lived past ninety. My great grandpa Kosyo was an orphan, a veteran who had fought in WWII in Serbia, a proud chess player (fun fact: the 2006 world champion in chess was from Ruse and my great-grandpa had played with him), and continued to do handy work (like fixing the roof of his house and climbing his trees to pick fruit or trim branches) well into his 80’s. My great grandma was a home-maker with a mild temper who would cook delicious meals.
She went to an all-women’s high school which was in the same building as the Mathematics Gymnasium in Ruse (now the best high school in the city). There, she graduated at the top of her class and was admitted to study Law at Sofia University. However, her parents urged her to stay back in Ruse, in part to save money, and in part to be closer to home. Ruse didn’t have a law specialty, so it was decided that she would study mechanics and machinery instead.
My grandma had a brother, Radoslav, who was ten years younger than her. Quite early on in his life, he moved to the Czech Republic, married a tall blonde Slovak woman, had two beautiful daughters, built multiple houses, started a successful business, and enjoyed lavish vacations to Thailand and the United States among others. Every summer, my grand uncle would drive out to Ruse in his BMW and his family would spend a few days with us, bringing gifts and telling stories of their year.
My grandma, just like my grandpa, mom, and dad, attended the University of Ruse, which is conveniently across the street from our flat. There, she met my grandpa, Hristo, a man from the nearby town of Pavlikeni who was three years older and would eventually become a professor at the same institution. One time, I stumbled upon a love note that my grandpa had written her — “to always be with you” it ended. That promise turned out to be true — as they were inseparable until his passing.
My grandma had my mom relatively young (at least for my standards — as I’m now significantly older than she was with zero babies on the horizon) at the age of twenty three. My mom’s name, Elena, was the same as my grandpa’s mom’s.
My mom and grandma in portrait — Ruse, 1970’s
- Just a few years after my mom was born, my grandma encountered a big life hurdle — there was a tumor on her hamstring. After getting some initial treatment in the local hospital, the tumor began to swell to many times its previous size, becoming as big as an orange. The situation looked dire. Her family (my great-grandpa, grandpa, etc.) took her to a hospital in Sofia, where one senior doctor recommended that she have her leg amputated. Another junior doctor objected, and advised that they try a less invasive method to remove the tumor. However, he could not sway the senior doctor’s opinion. In a crazy twist of fate, the senior doctor died before the operation could happen, and the junior doctor took over. They removed most of the tumor but left the part that was closest to her nerve, under the belief that it would not be malignant. That must have been the late 1960s. Fortunately, her leg was fully functional and she had a very cool scar along the length of her hamstring to show for the operation.
The Yuri Gagarin High School where my grandma taught for three decades as it looked in those days
My grandma’s story from the 1970s to the 2000s was one of relative peace and prosperity for three decades. She worked at the technikum, while my grandpa worked at the university. Their flat was conveniently located between both workplaces. Ruse was a proud and vibrant city. My mom grew up well-mannered and beautiful. The family had many relatives scattered throughout the city and my great-grandparents’ house was always open to them. They enjoyed having a flat close to work and a house on the other side of the city center, where they grew tomatoes, cherries, and apricots in the yard. The family spent summers in the seaside village with the rest of the extended family. Everyone was healthy.
The backdrop of her peace and prosperity was a tumultuous time for Bulgaria in general. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Socialism in Bulgaria was failing and the new order was struggling to take off. Because of her being relatively young and having an abundance of friends and family around, it didn’t matter so much, I think. It was still a happy time.
At some point in 1995, I showed up and surely my grandma was proud, happy, and relieved to be a grandma. I was the latest addition to the big family, showing up near the end of a great 25+ year run for the family.
A bit more than five years later, my mom and I left Bulgaria for the first time, to go temporarily live in Japan. That was the first time my mom and grandma would live far apart.
How she passed… #
It was Thanksgiving 2022. I was in Hawaii and called my mom to wish her the best for the holiday. At that time, I saw my grandma on video chat and was concerned. She looked a bit pale and didn’t say anything, just waved.
Over the proceeding weeks, I would call often. My grandma was having some mysterious health issues — most notably, she was nauseous and would vomit her food out a few hours (or a day) after eating it. She didn’t seem critically ill, but the vomiting was concerning, and she was hungry as a result. “I don’t need to go to the hospital,” I would hear her say, followed by “give me some food” in the background of my daily video calls with mom.
After this went on for a few weeks, my mom and a close friend (who is herself a surgeon) took her to the local hospital. The day after grandma was admitted, the friend texted me saying “your grandma is quite well.” It seemed to be a minor issue that the hospital staff would handle.
As the situation unfolded, the hospital staff found that she had something blocking her pylorus, the opening from her stomach to her duodenum, which explained the vomiting. It had to be surgically removed. It would be an open surgery.
From here, everything happened very quickly. The surgery happened on the 22nd. My mom updated me that it was completed and the doctors claimed that it was successful. On the 25th, I called my mom for Christmas and the tone had changed. She could see that my grandma was not recovering properly in the hospital. She was fading out. My grandma told my mom that she is going to die. Less than two days later, she did.
The surgeons had found a tumor (unclear yet if it was malignant as the biopsy did not arrive before she passed) in her duodenum which was blocking food from exiting the stomach. I can take solace in knowing that she was never in pain and continued to have a good spirit and appetite until nearly the very end.
While my grandma had grown quite weak, I feel that the level of care in Ruse was insufficient. It shouldn’t be the case that so soon after surgery, patients pass. This is one of the ways many in which Bulgaria fails its elderly — post-operative mortality differs by literal orders of magnitude from country to country.
More recent memories… #
My grandma was a warm and welcoming woman. Before my grandpa passed, there were always guests in our living room. I would wake up and hear a murmur from the other room and wonder — who will it be today? I would enter the room to find some mysterious new guests along with cookies, coffee, and other treats laid out.
After my grandpa passed, whenever I’d visit, she’d want me to stay in her room with her for as long as possible. On the few occasions when I got a hotel, she would ask me why and then negotiate for me to come back the next day.
I would joke with her a bit, too. She stayed in a tiny bed, certainly smaller than twin sized. “Grandma, if you want me to stay here so much, can I just stay in your bed?” I would ask. She would reply, without a hint of delay, “yes.”
My grandma cared. She always cared about whether I am warm and fed. She would ask me to dry my hair when she saw me shower. She would make sure I did sufficiently by touching my hair.
I enjoyed sending her and my mom holiday cards and birthday wishes. Two years ago, I sent flowers to be delivered to her flat for her birthday and that shocked her. Last year, I was able to be there in person for her April birthday and delivered flowers and cake by hand. It was a very special moment — our first birthday in person in over twenty years.
This past summer was also the first time in a long time that I would go outside with her — just the two of us. We walked around her apartment building and neighborhood and she would tell me stories of my great grandpa and my grandpa and mom — stories of a world that was so far gone.
This past summer, I was recording her on my phone and she asked, “who are you calling?” I told her I am recording her and she looked distressed — “stop that, look how ugly I am!” I told her not to worry (she was cute) and to say something — “I love you, Titko” (Titko is my equivalent of the nickname Petka) she said unprompted, and I told her I love her too.
Some fleeting thoughts… #
As I write this post, it’s New Year’s Eve in California. Another year is tumbling by. I wish time would stop for awhile.
There was a whole mini-universe around my family in Ruse — the cousins, the relationships, the personal tragedies and the triumphs, the aunts, and uncles, and grandmas.
With the passing and aging of many of those relatives, that universe is fading (or at least expanding, as universes do) bit by bit.
From my generation, all the cousins are now living across Europe — in Denmark, Austria, Czechia, Germany. The ones that are still in Bulgaria live in Sofia. Ruse was the nexus for that part of my family, but it’s unlikely any of us in our generation will be back.
Another philosophical avenue of thought — is life long?
If you ask me on any given Saturday, I wouldn’t have a good answer for you. But times like this make you reflect on how life is more short than it is long.
It is especially short when you measure it in significant moments.
My grandma was of my closest family members but I could only spend a few real moments with her over the years — a walk here, a shared dessert there, a few birthdays in person over two decades.
Twenty five years of shared experiences boil down to a handful of significant moments, and that’s all we get.
Even the long stretches, the decades of peace and prosperity or what have you, are a flash in the pan in the grand scheme of things. They come one time, and then they are gone, never to repeat.
I have never been particularly religious, but I do think of a certain David Foster Wallace quote these days…
The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship […] is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
It makes me aspire to be a bit more spiritual — to see the world through a different lens.
Relatedly (but loosely), I have loved the genre of movies such as Cloud Atlas, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Rick and Morty, which portray the universe as this infinite thing in which everything that can happen does.
And I know that if there’s anything more than meets the eye in this life, in an infinite universe, we will meet again.
You, me, her, all of us.