In July of 2015, I started interviewing my grandmother about her life and childhood using questions from The Legacy Project. In his retirement, my grandfather has been working on a number of books of his own so I figured she should have one too! We had six sessions ranging from 3 to 4 hours each to go over the list of questions, and we only got through about one-third. The stories were fun - so lighthearted and unique yet familiar, many of which probably would never have surfaced in conversations between us otherwise, without the prompts. I transcribed everything in the moment as she told me about her childhood and young adult life growing up in a number of countries and cities, then meeting and marrying my grandfather. We paused in October 2015 when they took a trip to the Philippines, and at that point we still had not reached past her early 20's.
As I reread the materials, I realized that according to her birth year, her 80th birthday was almost going to be upon us. Rather than gathering more text, I decided it would be a great surprise to run with what we had thus far and have a book ready in time for her birthday in February. January and February of 2016 were two months of intense editing, formatting, layout and design. I was going to ask a friend who does illustrations to draw several for the book, then I realized I could have my grandmother's youngest granddaughter draw them instead, for yet a more personal connection. On short notice, she drew eight fantastic illustrations which can be found throughout the book.
To read or order the book, please visit: http://otuaco.org/littlewaves.html - Enjoy!
Table of Contents.
Letter from dad: Patrick Pichi Sun.
Drawing from granddaughter via the prompt: "Ah Ma in college holding a cross or rosary."
Others include:
Ah Ma as a little girl on a ship.
Ah Ma as a little girl reading.
Ah Ma as a waitress in a dining hall when she was a teenager.
Ah Ma playing tennis when she was a teenager.
Ah Ma getting married to Angkong at a church.
