I have spent many summer vacations with grandma Lee. One summer, she had made us chilled rice balls. It was so good that my cousin Martin and I finished the whole pot and asked for more. She cleared off the table and taught us how to make it. Martin and I realized that we should make more to avoid another shortage. We got to rolling, ball after ball. After we had made enough grandma told us to stop. We, of course, didn't. We had made way more than what we could eat, one bigger than the next. We made one that was the size of a baseball. Grandma finally shooed us off the table and told us that we'll have to finish everything we made. We didn't know it yet but grandma had a lesson planned.
She cooked all the rice balls we had made. The first few bowls went by fast. Pretty soon we were stuffed. We thought we had finished everything until she brought out more. And more. Finally, we gave up, we were ready to admit defeat. She didn't scold us though. She laughed instead. ...and brought out the baseball size rice ball.
Grandma was 102 when she passed away this Tuesday. In the picture, as with all her meals, she's eating fruit before her meal. Her visitors were likely to receive scarfs she's knitted. I have a few of these. You can often find her silvery hair intertwined with the wool.
