“Babushka,” by Jessica Li, is an interesting, meaningful story about a girl whose father’s mother (the girl’s babushka) has died, and she has to go to the funeral. However, she cannot really remember her grandmother, and that distances her from the other funeral attendees. She hears a man, one who is not related to any of them, say, “It doesn’t matter.” The words, while not meant to relate to the situation, resonate with her. She wants to agree with the man, to believe that it doesn’t matter that she feels like she cannot relate to her relatives, even though she knows it does.
The story is not really about grief or loss, but about memory, or, rather, wishing you could remember something. The narrator can remember some things about her enigmatic ancestor, but she has trouble speaking the language her relatives speak with ease, and she really doesn’t know what to say to those who do remember the woman well. She feels different, separate. She tries to make herself believe that this loss, and this separation, doesn’t matter. She knows it would be easier if it didn’t matter. However, as a human, she wants to be able to grieve with the others. She knows that it really does matter. This story in particular struck me because I lost my grandmother, my oma from Germany, at a young age. I don’t remember her well at all, but I often wish I did, and I know that it matters. I can’t speak German. I am not like the rest of her family. I can relate to the narrator of this story in the way that I, too, feel separate.