Sabrina Popo wasn’t like other grandmas. She was my grandma. She lived on her own and juggled a heavy social rotation of dim sum, senior ballroom dancing, and mahjong with her girl friends. I’d have to be penciled in to her busy calendar if I wanted to get time with her.

Despite spending the last forty-five years in America, Sabrina Popo didn’t need to learn English, since she lived in the mostly Chinese community of San Gabriel. But there were moments she’d surprise me with words like “se-do-be-ley”—her Canton­ese pronunciation of strawberry —and “Roshi,” her attempt at my childhood dog’s name, Yoshi.

Sabrina Popo loved pretty things: powdery-pink garden roses, pretty people, perfect skin, and pretty people with perfect skin. I’d catch her wearing an oversized visor, like an Asian Darth Vader, while watering her garden. Normally, she cared too much about what she was wearing in public, but if it meant protecting her porcelain skin, all was fair game. She’d pick me up from school in a car with murdered-out tinted windows blacking out the sun, while wearing long white gloves to her elbows. She al­ways looked twenty years younger than her actual age, and had marriage proposals from a different old man every few months. She was graceful with a hint of humility and elegant with a heap of vanity, and we loved her for it.

During the Lunar New Year, Sabrina Popo’s house would be adorned with bowls of kumquats and mandarin oranges, choco­late gold coins, sesame seed brittle, and white chunks of candied winter melon that she’d saved just for me.

The withdrawal of affection that defined both my parents’ childhoods was a common story in Chinese culture….Tough love was the only love.

Steph and I would recite every Cantonese proverb we’d mem­orized that year, trying to impress the adults enough to collect as many red envelopes of lucky money as we could.

“Sum seung si sing 心想事成,” we’d say, saving the best for last.

“Sum seung si sing 心想事成,” Sabrina Popo would repeat as she handed me a red envelope with both hands and a wink. May all your wishes come true.