A child has two choices when presented with a snow-white beard: run her sticky, apple-juicy fingers through the soft cotton loveliness, or bury her face in the center and pretend she is a bird nesting in creamy clouds. I opt for the second so that I can make peeping noises, flap my elbows, and be probably (and proudly!) the most annoying six-year-old you’ve ever met. But Bapa doesn’t mind. He lets me get as close to his face as I like. “All up in my grill,” as he says. He doesn’t even flinch when I stick my tongue out to lick him. To Bapa, I could never be gross. And he, with his pure mind and perfect cascade of white hair, gross? Impossible.
I grow older. A little less annoying. Bapa shows me how to make pies so gracefully that not a single white hair gets caught in the dough, dough that smells like the breath of God. I roll my eyes and say the lesson is pointless, that I will never have hair as beautiful as his nor make pies as tasty. I will never get old, never get wrinkles – I will have my mother’s black Korean hair until the day I die, which is never because I will invent a way for people to stay young forever, especially bapas. My black hair will sneak into the blackberry filling and no one will notice. Bapa says words belonging to a man with a snowy beard, something about life being beautiful because of its brevity. I crinkle my nose, dunk my hands in the leftover jelly filling, and opt for the first choice. Bapa’s deep belly laughter echoes off the ovens, where the pies turn gold.
  • • •
Years fall from Bapa like an avalanche. His beard, which tumbles to his navel, is stained with vomit. I’m reminded of a sacred river defaced by an oil spill. I hold his sticky hands and feel that it is I who has lived three-quarters of a century, and he the child. The doctors are perplexed: it’s some cursed trifecta of stroke, unknown neurodegenerative disease, and muscular dystrophy. Where is Bapa? He reeks of regurgitated Jell-O, his jaw crooked and glued to his lolling tongue so that no wisdom can escape, only spittle. I can’t help but feel disgusted.
Disgust is a feeling I’m familiar with: I’m in sixth grade, and I have learned that I’m Asian and therefore yellow “like pee,” the boys at school tell me. No one cares about my bapa or his sickly Irish blood, as if he’s already dead and doesn’t matter anymore. The endless jeers at school are followed by an empty, silent house: my parents aren’t speaking, and my brother, who always knew how to make us laugh, has left. No matter how hard I try to fill the void, I can’t shake the feeling of never being enough.
  • • •
I knead dough until my hands blister. I read in an article that certain smells can bring back memories for folks like my bapa, so I bake pies and bring them to the hospital, where I waft them in front of Bapa and pray they were made with enough grace to override the stench of vomit-beard.
Nothing, for weeks.
Then, “Jool-ya.”
I drop the pie plate, and my ankles are dappled in glass. “Bapa?”
“Julia muuuuh!”
My cheeks ignite. I am angry. I am angry because I am not Julia.
“No, Bapa,” I plead gently. “Clara. Cl-air-uh. Like ‘clarinet,’ which is the sound of your singing voice, Bapa. Or like ‘clear.’” Clear like your skin. I can see your teeth through your cheeks and your blood pumping through your veins as slow as slugs, Bapa, I want to say, but I don’t.
“Julia?”
It can’t be helped: I become Bapa’s Julia. At first, I hate being called the name of some unknown woman from Bapa’s past. I am alive. I am real. Why does Bapa want her and not me?
But I find Julia becomes a part of Clara and makes her stronger. Julia can bake pies endlessly, eloquently, without burning dough or shedding hairs. Julia can kiss a bony face and wipe up vomit and never cry. During the day, Julia can go to school and reach beyond her pain to find friends and research she loves. At night, she can shovel driveways to help pay for her brother’s college, although she hates snow because it reminds her of what Bapa lost. Julia gives me resilience and equilibrium, wraps me in the tough crust that holds the silly me, the sweet part that still bounces with vibrant, childish vigor, together. She constantly shapes me into someone who can cope with suffering calmly and with indestructible hope: I am no longer fragile and ignorant of pain. I dream of infinite ways to bring hope to the critically ill and extend lifetimes as far as possible, but Julia reminds me of the preciousness of life and makes real the words I once, only vaguely, heard my bapa say.