Earlier this year, I heard a story on public radio about from every pregnancy, children's cells live on in their mother, protecting her. I think it is the best and most incredible science story that I've ever heard. Rarely does Science affirm Mothers' intuitive knowledge and solace her loss.
Yesterday at a child's birthday party, I met an elder who was admiring one of my memorial tattoos dedicated to my father who died when I was 12. This wisewoman shared with me her stories of loss and giving the incredible gift of Love which is to be with someone when they die. She then went on to share her experiences of babyloss; her two sons who died at birth. She still felt their presence with her as divine beings.
I told her about the science discovery of our children's continuing presence in mothers to give her solace. I related how a Viet shaman (who is also scientifically trained as a psychologist) once told me "Spirit is the ancestor of Science." What the soul knows intuitively, science will spend decades studying and trying to "prove". Now, through science we can take someone's voice, project into outer space to a satellite and relay it back again to earth to a recipient through a cell phone device. Shamans have been doing that for thousands of years to the disbelief of Science.
Science is not objective; it has an objective rooted in a Western way of knowing (Cartesian logic). There are many other ways of knowing which Science can only fumble at comprehending as a blind person feeling an elephant's trunk. Scientists can never get to the Truth of a Mother's Love; a microscope will never reveal the spirit.
This research only demonstrates what mothers have always known to be true: All of our children are with us always as we are with them. We transcend. Love is.
For Dafina, Uyen, myself, and all mothers who have been through joy and sorrow...
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
goddess of grief
[N.B. I originally wrote & posted this poem for a dear and lovely friend of mine many moons ago. After standing at the threshold of Life and Death and losing mine own, I (re)view it anew with raw eyes and a womb that weeps blood. This poem has since been published in SQUAT! Birth Journal Spring 2013 http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/536994]
wind water earth fire
blood salt tears
hands cupped to receive
tasting of the bitter
salted with loss
sorrow for what was
and glimpsed could-have-been’s
of a vanished future
of a seed within
ageless from the beginning of Self
dandelion filament
borne off to the elements
wind water earth fire
blood salt tears
moon wanes in grief
womb betrayed
bereft and laid bare to the core
wind water earth fire
blood salt tears
a Mother’s wisdom borne
intuitive
a Mother’s power borne
betwixt Life and Death
a Mother’s Love borne
infinite
forgiving
wind water earth fire
blood salt tears
hands cupped to receive
cleansing breath
cleansing blood salt tears
hallowed for blessings to come
for 10
wind water earth fire
blood salt tears
hands cupped to receive
tasting of the bitter
salted with loss
sorrow for what was
and glimpsed could-have-been’s
of a vanished future
of a seed within
ageless from the beginning of Self
dandelion filament
borne off to the elements
wind water earth fire
blood salt tears
moon wanes in grief
womb betrayed
bereft and laid bare to the core
wind water earth fire
blood salt tears
a Mother’s wisdom borne
intuitive
a Mother’s power borne
betwixt Life and Death
a Mother’s Love borne
infinite
forgiving
wind water earth fire
blood salt tears
hands cupped to receive
cleansing breath
cleansing blood salt tears
hallowed for blessings to come
for 10
Friday, August 26, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
salty memories
saliva, tears, breasts swell by reflex
mothersmilkmotherslove retained
holding breath against the pain
but breath, like tearsmilklove comes anyways
for naima, beloved child embraced by her ancestors
saliva, tears, breasts swell by reflex
mothersmilkmotherslove retained
holding breath against the pain
but breath, like tearsmilklove comes anyways
for naima, beloved child embraced by her ancestors
Saturday, December 18, 2010
wretched of the earth
My ong ngoai passed away very early this morning. He had a heart attack at home, called all his daughters, and accompanied by my youngest uncle and my mother, he died without prolonged suffering. One of his last wishes because he had already a lifetime of suffering. His heart was broken after my ba ngoai died two years ago. The had been married over 60 years.
He was a good man who lived through a lot of hardship. Born a Catholic peasant in 1925 in a tiny hamlet called Lien Thuy under French colonization, though he was chau dich ton--the patrilineal heir, the firstborn son beget of the firstborn son beget of the village chief and so on and so forth, he tilled the catholic-ceded land land under peonage to his own grandparents for his disowned father's gambling debts; his mother left him at age 7 and a baby brother behind to become a wet nurse in the big city Ha Noi. He minded the water buffalo, ploughed & harvested the rice paddies and fished in Ha Long Bay and learned to be self-sufficient though unloved. He never gave up the hope and faith that his father's family would love him and perhaps even restore him to his rightful place.
As he grew of age, he was conscripted as coolie labor to the colonial Army and learned to build bridges and to hate the French. He had an customary arranged marriage with my ba ngoai. In his teens, he survived the Japanese invasion and their torching of the granaries and their deliberate famine that took 2 million lives. When armistice was declared, he joined the Viet Minh to prevent the French from regaining colonial power. And when it became clear that religion and Communism would never reconcile, he left behind his what ought o have been his ancestral lands, uprooted his family--ba co|his mother, ba ngoai, my eldest aunty and mother--to enter the South where he tried to find a small piece of earth to call his own. Roaming through the Mekong for many years, they finally settled in Quy Nhon in the Central region where my parents grew up.
My ong ba ngoai, my parents & siblings (& me in the womb), 4 aunties, 3 uncles, all left Viet Nam to join my oldest aunty in Honolulu where land was scarce to be had and jobs even scarcer. My grandparents, 3 of my aunties and 3 uncles tried to make a go of it in Missouri but the winters and the chicken factory were misery.
We were all reunited in San Diego; we all lived together until I was 12. I still mark time not by years but what street we lived on--Reynard then Ohio (ong ba, aunties, & uncles on Whitmen) then Auburn (then ong ba and 2 youngest uncles on Alta Dena), then mom & us separately Oro Vista, and finally Jason; for peasant stock, we were awfully nomadic.
I learned so many things from my ong ba ngoai. My ba ngoai of unconditional maternal love, spoke the love language of food. My ong ngoai though had only his stories of loss and perseverance to give to us grandkids, and at Tet, his handmade banh chung and his sesame candy gooey and almost scalding. I am one of the only grandkids who is fluent enough and was around enough to have listened to his stories. Ong ngoai secretly loved my siblings and I best he once told me years ago because he said, my mother suffered the most from my father's heroism and fate; and perhaps too, because we were his only full Viet grandkids and he had not the prospect of a chau dich ton|patrilineal heir to carry on the Phamily name and to remember his legacy. He taught me to be proud of being Viet; that was my first day of kindergarten when we lived on Reynard Way, when I came home proclaiming I was American, he took me by the hand, squatted down beside me, and told me that to Americans, I would always have yellow skin, black hair and eyes. I would always be Viet.
I learned to love tools and making things from watching him make banh chung|pork sticky rice cake every Tet, building non-permitted additions to our rented houses (Ohio & Auburn and later their house on 54th), and making flapping wooden angel harnesses from scraps of wood and cloth for the Christmas pageant (Auburn Dr).
I don't grieve very well. I tattoo.
I lost my father when I was too young to understand and taboo to speak of it. And so, I write. I feel so bereft to have lost my roots in this world. There were so many more things I wanted to learn from them, about them. And with the narcissism of youth and American-ness, I marked not the time until too late.
My grandfather wore 3 piece suits, fedoras and pocket watches, loved cognac and good food, made the best banh chung and keo me every Tet up until very recently, and lived to play with his great-grandchildren. In his elder years, he learned to forgive (not the French nor Japanese) but certainly his paternal family, and to love. He still dreamed I think of water buffaloes and rice paddies (and thit cay on occasion) but he and my grandmother had their garden, family, and Church. And now he has peace and rejoined my ba ngoai in the either.
An era has passed. I am disconsolate, desiring what is in the past, a byproduct perhaps of being partly raised by my grandparents. I feel in this modern society we lose our rituals and I feel it the most with death. We've lost our rituals of death and honoring our loved ones by being with them as they die and our hands that loved them so well, preparing them for their final resting place. I am bracing myself for the artifice of mortuary preparation and the dullness of performance.
He was a good man who lived through a lot of hardship. Born a Catholic peasant in 1925 in a tiny hamlet called Lien Thuy under French colonization, though he was chau dich ton--the patrilineal heir, the firstborn son beget of the firstborn son beget of the village chief and so on and so forth, he tilled the catholic-ceded land land under peonage to his own grandparents for his disowned father's gambling debts; his mother left him at age 7 and a baby brother behind to become a wet nurse in the big city Ha Noi. He minded the water buffalo, ploughed & harvested the rice paddies and fished in Ha Long Bay and learned to be self-sufficient though unloved. He never gave up the hope and faith that his father's family would love him and perhaps even restore him to his rightful place.
As he grew of age, he was conscripted as coolie labor to the colonial Army and learned to build bridges and to hate the French. He had an customary arranged marriage with my ba ngoai. In his teens, he survived the Japanese invasion and their torching of the granaries and their deliberate famine that took 2 million lives. When armistice was declared, he joined the Viet Minh to prevent the French from regaining colonial power. And when it became clear that religion and Communism would never reconcile, he left behind his what ought o have been his ancestral lands, uprooted his family--ba co|his mother, ba ngoai, my eldest aunty and mother--to enter the South where he tried to find a small piece of earth to call his own. Roaming through the Mekong for many years, they finally settled in Quy Nhon in the Central region where my parents grew up.
My ong ba ngoai, my parents & siblings (& me in the womb), 4 aunties, 3 uncles, all left Viet Nam to join my oldest aunty in Honolulu where land was scarce to be had and jobs even scarcer. My grandparents, 3 of my aunties and 3 uncles tried to make a go of it in Missouri but the winters and the chicken factory were misery.
We were all reunited in San Diego; we all lived together until I was 12. I still mark time not by years but what street we lived on--Reynard then Ohio (ong ba, aunties, & uncles on Whitmen) then Auburn (then ong ba and 2 youngest uncles on Alta Dena), then mom & us separately Oro Vista, and finally Jason; for peasant stock, we were awfully nomadic.
I learned so many things from my ong ba ngoai. My ba ngoai of unconditional maternal love, spoke the love language of food. My ong ngoai though had only his stories of loss and perseverance to give to us grandkids, and at Tet, his handmade banh chung and his sesame candy gooey and almost scalding. I am one of the only grandkids who is fluent enough and was around enough to have listened to his stories. Ong ngoai secretly loved my siblings and I best he once told me years ago because he said, my mother suffered the most from my father's heroism and fate; and perhaps too, because we were his only full Viet grandkids and he had not the prospect of a chau dich ton|patrilineal heir to carry on the Phamily name and to remember his legacy. He taught me to be proud of being Viet; that was my first day of kindergarten when we lived on Reynard Way, when I came home proclaiming I was American, he took me by the hand, squatted down beside me, and told me that to Americans, I would always have yellow skin, black hair and eyes. I would always be Viet.
I learned to love tools and making things from watching him make banh chung|pork sticky rice cake every Tet, building non-permitted additions to our rented houses (Ohio & Auburn and later their house on 54th), and making flapping wooden angel harnesses from scraps of wood and cloth for the Christmas pageant (Auburn Dr).
I don't grieve very well. I tattoo.
I lost my father when I was too young to understand and taboo to speak of it. And so, I write. I feel so bereft to have lost my roots in this world. There were so many more things I wanted to learn from them, about them. And with the narcissism of youth and American-ness, I marked not the time until too late.
My grandfather wore 3 piece suits, fedoras and pocket watches, loved cognac and good food, made the best banh chung and keo me every Tet up until very recently, and lived to play with his great-grandchildren. In his elder years, he learned to forgive (not the French nor Japanese) but certainly his paternal family, and to love. He still dreamed I think of water buffaloes and rice paddies (and thit cay on occasion) but he and my grandmother had their garden, family, and Church. And now he has peace and rejoined my ba ngoai in the either.
An era has passed. I am disconsolate, desiring what is in the past, a byproduct perhaps of being partly raised by my grandparents. I feel in this modern society we lose our rituals and I feel it the most with death. We've lost our rituals of death and honoring our loved ones by being with them as they die and our hands that loved them so well, preparing them for their final resting place. I am bracing myself for the artifice of mortuary preparation and the dullness of performance.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Dead Dad's Club
I once caught this scene from Grey's Anatomy, that struck me with its truth:
For so many decades, I have lived with death and loss and I am ever so very sorry to welcome anyone to one of life's fundamental rites of passage.Christina: There's a club. The Dead Dad's club, and you can't be in it till you're in it. You can try to understand, you can sympathize but until you feel that loss.... My Dad died when I was nine. George, I'm really sorry you had to join the club.
George: I don't know how to exist in a world where my Dad doesn't.
Christina: Yeah, that never really changes.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
lessons in grieving...
a few months ago, as i mentioned in a previous blog, a friend of ours committed suicide. grief at the depths of his despair left me bereft of words to describe the sorrow i felt for him and his family, at the secret burden he bore; one that so often robs men of their words to speak, cuts them off from emotional contact, and denies them access to their humanity. later i came across a community call for advice from what i realized was his mother-in-law who had a strained relationship with her daughter as a result of her disapproval of her daughter's mate and felt at a loss as how to support her in her grieving. i felt moved to speak... there were word limit constraints so i ended up writing in three parts and deleting a significant portion of my own self context, including how my sister's experience with loss and grieving informed the second portion.
-----------------------------------
i write as a fatherless daughter, a mother, and as a person who mourns. first of all, don't let fear of the emotional history/baggage between the two of you become a barrier. more than ever, your daughter needs the unconditional Love and support from those around her, especially her mother. be loving, BE Love. now is the time to let go of your fear, pride/ego and past hurts, and heal your relationship. forgiveness paves the path to healing. in your heart, forgive her for her life-choices that she made without your approval that somehow wronged you and you must forgive her husband for ''what he put her through'', and she in turn will come to forgive you for your judgemental disapproval, past slights, and your lack of unconditional love. whatever you may have thought of him, your daughter and her children LOVE him. is it any surprise that they ''choose'' to be close to his family who can share in that Love, can share in their mutual sorrow, and cherish memories of him? it is not really even a ''choice'' of his family over you, it really is not about you at all. by even thinking of it as a choice, you show that you have closed off your heart and mind to him and by extension her & the children. you made it into a choice, and in doing so, you made that choice for her. feeling hurt or excluded because she is close to his family is about your ego and projecting your needs onto her life, and only pushes her further away. love is infinite. she can be close to his family and close to you, if only you allow it. whatever you may have thought of him, he suffered an unfathomable mental illness one that drove him to end his own life. lingering on your perceptions of the past, on ''how he treated her,'' your bias against him, is not constructive, is not loving, and will only serve to distance you from your daughter and your grandchildren, who are after all, a part of him. if you can forgive him, let go of your need to ''approve'', and pray that his spirit is now mended, that he is free from the suffering & torment that drove him to take his own life, and open yourself to sympathy for him, then you can be present in unconditional Love with your daughter. while you may never understand or feel the depth of her loss & sorrow, you can still feel hurt for her and be empathetic and be a part of her life and her healing journey. you have that choice to make.
second, when people are grieving, many friends make offers of ''call if you need anything''. rarely does the bereaved person call; they don't want to impose or be a burden. they are mired in their grief and don't have the wherewithall to realize they need help, much less ask for it. it's much better to offer some concrete acts of kindness and create space for an opening or opportunity to share. if someone says, ''i'm going to stop by tonight at 5pm with dinner. i can stay if you need to talk, but don't feel pressured.'' or, ''i'm free to come on thursday from 2-4pm to clean your bathroom, do laundry, etc. will that work for you?'' or, ''let me take the kids to a movie on saturday'' then arrange for someone else to be with the person during that time so they're not alone. most people want to be helpful, but just don't know how to go about it. someone who is going through tragedy or even a new mom or a sick friend hates the idea of being a burden. they don't want to make any decisions. as their house is being foreclosed, she is likely struggling financially which is stressful on top of dealing with her grief and being a parent. if you are not able to help them financially or she is unwilling to accept that help, buy them groceries, that is one practical way to ease her stress. there are no hard & fast should and should nots in the tangled emotional issues surrounding their foreclosure situation. rather than offer advice either way, you could try facilitating her decisionmaking by asking her open-ended questions instead. trust her to make the best decisions for herself and her family.
third, grief has no language & children in particular don’t innately have the tools or means to articulate their own grief. as adults, we need to guide them & give them safe spaces to share their feelings. with their father suffering mental illness you want to give them better tools for emotional health. you don’t mention gender & that can also impact the way children express/repress sadness. girls in particular may emulate their mother. children should be allowed to witness their parent & elders grieving & crying, so that they can feel free and safe to be present in their own emotions & to share their own sorrow as well. for a boy, encourage him to express his emotions & to cry when he feels sad because social pressure on males to repress emotions played a role in their father’s depression. don’t underestimate the value of touch. just being held while you are sad is healing. you could trying giving the children a cathartic ritual to creatively express their grief. they could write a letter to their father. you could then make a copy of the letter (saving one copy for for them to revisit & reflect on) & give them the choice of how they would like to send it to their loved one; the child chooses the element that speaks to their own spirit—via the ocean, on the tail of a kite, in a small bonfire, left under a rock or in a tree, at the gravesite, or read out loud in a prayer. if the child is not able to articulate their grief, they could also create something by hand with whatever medium feels comfortable. even for an adult, this little ritual helps to give closure to the raw emotions that the healing may begin. know that grief is a profound emotion that cannot be denied, it leaves a palpable mark on one’s souls. they will live with this loss for their whole lifetimes. your daughter & grandchildren will always feel their loss, every day, every moment, at all life’s rites of passage & meaningful events, they will taste the bittersweet, even as they may also partake in life’s joys. tears of joy & tears of sorrow will be one and the same. there is no contradiction in that. patiently listen to their expressions of grief without judgement or hurry, hold the space for them, hold them, offer them the love and security that they may reflect on their sorrow and move forward in their life.
don't let fear stay your hand or bind your tongue. pause, breathe, open your inner eye, listen to your heart (not your ego) & be love.
-----------------------------------
i write as a fatherless daughter, a mother, and as a person who mourns. first of all, don't let fear of the emotional history/baggage between the two of you become a barrier. more than ever, your daughter needs the unconditional Love and support from those around her, especially her mother. be loving, BE Love. now is the time to let go of your fear, pride/ego and past hurts, and heal your relationship. forgiveness paves the path to healing. in your heart, forgive her for her life-choices that she made without your approval that somehow wronged you and you must forgive her husband for ''what he put her through'', and she in turn will come to forgive you for your judgemental disapproval, past slights, and your lack of unconditional love. whatever you may have thought of him, your daughter and her children LOVE him. is it any surprise that they ''choose'' to be close to his family who can share in that Love, can share in their mutual sorrow, and cherish memories of him? it is not really even a ''choice'' of his family over you, it really is not about you at all. by even thinking of it as a choice, you show that you have closed off your heart and mind to him and by extension her & the children. you made it into a choice, and in doing so, you made that choice for her. feeling hurt or excluded because she is close to his family is about your ego and projecting your needs onto her life, and only pushes her further away. love is infinite. she can be close to his family and close to you, if only you allow it. whatever you may have thought of him, he suffered an unfathomable mental illness one that drove him to end his own life. lingering on your perceptions of the past, on ''how he treated her,'' your bias against him, is not constructive, is not loving, and will only serve to distance you from your daughter and your grandchildren, who are after all, a part of him. if you can forgive him, let go of your need to ''approve'', and pray that his spirit is now mended, that he is free from the suffering & torment that drove him to take his own life, and open yourself to sympathy for him, then you can be present in unconditional Love with your daughter. while you may never understand or feel the depth of her loss & sorrow, you can still feel hurt for her and be empathetic and be a part of her life and her healing journey. you have that choice to make.
second, when people are grieving, many friends make offers of ''call if you need anything''. rarely does the bereaved person call; they don't want to impose or be a burden. they are mired in their grief and don't have the wherewithall to realize they need help, much less ask for it. it's much better to offer some concrete acts of kindness and create space for an opening or opportunity to share. if someone says, ''i'm going to stop by tonight at 5pm with dinner. i can stay if you need to talk, but don't feel pressured.'' or, ''i'm free to come on thursday from 2-4pm to clean your bathroom, do laundry, etc. will that work for you?'' or, ''let me take the kids to a movie on saturday'' then arrange for someone else to be with the person during that time so they're not alone. most people want to be helpful, but just don't know how to go about it. someone who is going through tragedy or even a new mom or a sick friend hates the idea of being a burden. they don't want to make any decisions. as their house is being foreclosed, she is likely struggling financially which is stressful on top of dealing with her grief and being a parent. if you are not able to help them financially or she is unwilling to accept that help, buy them groceries, that is one practical way to ease her stress. there are no hard & fast should and should nots in the tangled emotional issues surrounding their foreclosure situation. rather than offer advice either way, you could try facilitating her decisionmaking by asking her open-ended questions instead. trust her to make the best decisions for herself and her family.
third, grief has no language & children in particular don’t innately have the tools or means to articulate their own grief. as adults, we need to guide them & give them safe spaces to share their feelings. with their father suffering mental illness you want to give them better tools for emotional health. you don’t mention gender & that can also impact the way children express/repress sadness. girls in particular may emulate their mother. children should be allowed to witness their parent & elders grieving & crying, so that they can feel free and safe to be present in their own emotions & to share their own sorrow as well. for a boy, encourage him to express his emotions & to cry when he feels sad because social pressure on males to repress emotions played a role in their father’s depression. don’t underestimate the value of touch. just being held while you are sad is healing. you could trying giving the children a cathartic ritual to creatively express their grief. they could write a letter to their father. you could then make a copy of the letter (saving one copy for for them to revisit & reflect on) & give them the choice of how they would like to send it to their loved one; the child chooses the element that speaks to their own spirit—via the ocean, on the tail of a kite, in a small bonfire, left under a rock or in a tree, at the gravesite, or read out loud in a prayer. if the child is not able to articulate their grief, they could also create something by hand with whatever medium feels comfortable. even for an adult, this little ritual helps to give closure to the raw emotions that the healing may begin. know that grief is a profound emotion that cannot be denied, it leaves a palpable mark on one’s souls. they will live with this loss for their whole lifetimes. your daughter & grandchildren will always feel their loss, every day, every moment, at all life’s rites of passage & meaningful events, they will taste the bittersweet, even as they may also partake in life’s joys. tears of joy & tears of sorrow will be one and the same. there is no contradiction in that. patiently listen to their expressions of grief without judgement or hurry, hold the space for them, hold them, offer them the love and security that they may reflect on their sorrow and move forward in their life.
don't let fear stay your hand or bind your tongue. pause, breathe, open your inner eye, listen to your heart (not your ego) & be love.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Friday, September 7, 2007
the color of grief
colorless filament in solitudeenigmatic wellspring depths
ombre crossover among the ebon
coarsened through time
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
little musings
today was rough.
i was vomiting bile from the time i got up and couldn't keep anything down. midwife thinks its morning sickness. i'm a little disgruntled and grumpy by the idea that somehow morning sickness could skip over the entire first trimester and pimp-slap me in my 4th month. i now appreciate how easy i had it and how it could make a woman reconsider having another child.
since it was my last day in the office before my mini-break to see family in San Diego, i had to drag myself in and do payroll (i hope staff appreciates their paycheck!) and all the time-sensitive tasks for the 30th Anniversary Gala at my social justice day-job of which i am the chair having been nominated & voted in by default of being the only non-busy person at the time and virtue of the fact that i had recently put together my wedding (a fulltime job in and of itself), and am the first to volunteer to plan all the office parties, and was therefore the "ideal event planner". i have to fundraise $60K gross. we're about $4k along with less than two months to go. i'm only slightly nervous.
so i held it together for the first hour of a morning program staff meeting i had forgotten about and then passed out on the sofa nearby, absorbing the rest of the meeting via osmosis. i managed to get most everything followed up & in motion with a slurry of emails and headed home early afternoon.
i think either it was the lack of vegetables this weekend since i was at 2 BBQs and hooters (who knew it was so family-friendly. the kids practically outnumbered the adults!). or perhaps its the psycho-somatic thing i've heard about, how emotional well-being impacts your health particularly when you are so pregnant-sensitive and is particularly connected with morning sickness.
today was also my dad's solar death anniversary. twenty years.
it just sorrows me that he'll know know his grandchild in this life. never hứng or cuddle or mock bite or gently tease til bé shrieks with delight. of course my stepdad will be there for bé
and be all those things for her/him. he loves babies unreservedly. and he is a responsible, kind, loving and generous person. they only time i didnt get along with him was those rebellious teenage years. if anything T. is similar to him, a Southerner, though T's a light-skinded one. what they say about marrying your father... my sis and i both married Snakes, like our stepdad. i don't lack for loving Asian men in my life and i'm not playing out my father issues in my relationships unlike say AmyTan kinds of Asian-American women.
and still... i miss Ba, his voice, the distinctive malarial timbre of his cough, the raspiness of his facial hair and how he would tickle me with it, the sound of his laughter, his genuine amusement at my small defiances, his smell, his hugs and kisses soothing me. all the ephemeralia that i can no longer recall, dimmed by time's passage.
here comes the bile again
fallin on my head like a memory
raining on my head like a new emotion
i was vomiting bile from the time i got up and couldn't keep anything down. midwife thinks its morning sickness. i'm a little disgruntled and grumpy by the idea that somehow morning sickness could skip over the entire first trimester and pimp-slap me in my 4th month. i now appreciate how easy i had it and how it could make a woman reconsider having another child.
since it was my last day in the office before my mini-break to see family in San Diego, i had to drag myself in and do payroll (i hope staff appreciates their paycheck!) and all the time-sensitive tasks for the 30th Anniversary Gala at my social justice day-job of which i am the chair having been nominated & voted in by default of being the only non-busy person at the time and virtue of the fact that i had recently put together my wedding (a fulltime job in and of itself), and am the first to volunteer to plan all the office parties, and was therefore the "ideal event planner". i have to fundraise $60K gross. we're about $4k along with less than two months to go. i'm only slightly nervous.
so i held it together for the first hour of a morning program staff meeting i had forgotten about and then passed out on the sofa nearby, absorbing the rest of the meeting via osmosis. i managed to get most everything followed up & in motion with a slurry of emails and headed home early afternoon.
i think either it was the lack of vegetables this weekend since i was at 2 BBQs and hooters (who knew it was so family-friendly. the kids practically outnumbered the adults!). or perhaps its the psycho-somatic thing i've heard about, how emotional well-being impacts your health particularly when you are so pregnant-sensitive and is particularly connected with morning sickness.
today was also my dad's solar death anniversary. twenty years.
it just sorrows me that he'll know know his grandchild in this life. never hứng or cuddle or mock bite or gently tease til bé shrieks with delight. of course my stepdad will be there for bé
and be all those things for her/him. he loves babies unreservedly. and he is a responsible, kind, loving and generous person. they only time i didnt get along with him was those rebellious teenage years. if anything T. is similar to him, a Southerner, though T's a light-skinded one. what they say about marrying your father... my sis and i both married Snakes, like our stepdad. i don't lack for loving Asian men in my life and i'm not playing out my father issues in my relationships unlike say AmyTan kinds of Asian-American women.
and still... i miss Ba, his voice, the distinctive malarial timbre of his cough, the raspiness of his facial hair and how he would tickle me with it, the sound of his laughter, his genuine amusement at my small defiances, his smell, his hugs and kisses soothing me. all the ephemeralia that i can no longer recall, dimmed by time's passage.
here comes the bile again
fallin on my head like a memory
raining on my head like a new emotion
Thursday, May 17, 2007
melancholia 45 rpm
treading foggy liminal space
returning to the land of the living
from dwelling in the valley of death's shadow
emerging, blinkblinking at the intense luminescence of life--
eyes shaded against the glare
shielding those who would fall into their shadowed chasm.
going about the rhythm of living
like a flintknapped needle
dropped in mid-song
tracing the worn spiral grooves on a vintage record
muffled and hollow echoing of remembered voices
revolving inwards
dis-syncopated
returning to the land of the living
from dwelling in the valley of death's shadow
emerging, blinkblinking at the intense luminescence of life--
eyes shaded against the glare
shielding those who would fall into their shadowed chasm.
going about the rhythm of living
like a flintknapped needle
dropped in mid-song
tracing the worn spiral grooves on a vintage record
muffled and hollow echoing of remembered voices
revolving inwards
dis-syncopated
Sunday, March 11, 2007
on grief
anyone who thinks that grief gets easier with time is a liar, a fool, or an innocent. a little bit of each, i suppose.
we bereaved, we go on living. grief lives below the surface of our skin, circulating in our heart's blood, coiled in our viscera, where we draw breath, guileless, wordless, bereft, desolate.
grief ebbs and it flows.
grief is inconsolable.
yes, with time's passage, it diminishes, worndown by the exigencies of surviving/living. the infinite healing wisdom of the body only allows us to remember only as much pain as we can bear and no more; for the remembering of the vast depths of intensity would surely destroy us in the process. those who do ptsd flashback to cyclically re-live the trauma are forevermore broken by its intensity, ambling about existence crippled by chasmic despair. they are damaged souls mired in the past. and society, the living, abandon them to their suffering in the mental institutions and streets.
for we who survive with grief intact, what never fades, what shadows all life experiences is that very loss. the loss haunts us. the palpable lack of our loved one. all of life's meaningful passages and blessings incomplete without her/his tangible presence. we bereaved are presented with the prospect of our lives gaping before us and forevermore, our loved one will not share it with us. all of life's joy is that much sharper for it, tinged with a keening, lifelong heartache.
we grieve for a vanished future.
last year, we sat all three of us--melinh, tuyen and me--sharing a mortuary pew, sisters in sorrow, connected by our grief, disconsolate, fatherless daughters, mourning for a bittersweet morrow without them. time will not ease our loss; it will only bring more granular days without them.
and little annabelle grace. she would be 20 days old today. never to draw her first startled breath. never to suckle at her mother's breast. never to coo in delight. grow chubby, and make up her own gurgling language. never to have her woes comforted. never to learn mischief from and confide in aunty lani. never to bask in love's growth. no verbose ointments of sentiment and good intentions can salve this.
we mourn for ourselves.
it doesnt get easier. it never gets better. we just go on.
we bereaved, we go on living. grief lives below the surface of our skin, circulating in our heart's blood, coiled in our viscera, where we draw breath, guileless, wordless, bereft, desolate.
grief ebbs and it flows.
grief is inconsolable.
yes, with time's passage, it diminishes, worndown by the exigencies of surviving/living. the infinite healing wisdom of the body only allows us to remember only as much pain as we can bear and no more; for the remembering of the vast depths of intensity would surely destroy us in the process. those who do ptsd flashback to cyclically re-live the trauma are forevermore broken by its intensity, ambling about existence crippled by chasmic despair. they are damaged souls mired in the past. and society, the living, abandon them to their suffering in the mental institutions and streets.
for we who survive with grief intact, what never fades, what shadows all life experiences is that very loss. the loss haunts us. the palpable lack of our loved one. all of life's meaningful passages and blessings incomplete without her/his tangible presence. we bereaved are presented with the prospect of our lives gaping before us and forevermore, our loved one will not share it with us. all of life's joy is that much sharper for it, tinged with a keening, lifelong heartache.
we grieve for a vanished future.
last year, we sat all three of us--melinh, tuyen and me--sharing a mortuary pew, sisters in sorrow, connected by our grief, disconsolate, fatherless daughters, mourning for a bittersweet morrow without them. time will not ease our loss; it will only bring more granular days without them.
and little annabelle grace. she would be 20 days old today. never to draw her first startled breath. never to suckle at her mother's breast. never to coo in delight. grow chubby, and make up her own gurgling language. never to have her woes comforted. never to learn mischief from and confide in aunty lani. never to bask in love's growth. no verbose ointments of sentiment and good intentions can salve this.
we mourn for ourselves.
it doesnt get easier. it never gets better. we just go on.
Friday, February 23, 2007
anaphylactic sorrow
unsought lessons come in all human experiences. i am learning so much from my brother-in-law and sister about how to grieve. as children, we were never allowed to grieve; we had truths hidden from us until we were grown. to spare us the hurt of our father's disappearance and the discovery of his assasination-execution-murder. and yet somehow, two decades later, our sublimated cicatrice is a still weeping wound veiled by raw dermis. anaphylactic sorrow. throats, heart, spirit constricted, stifled.
and here i bear witness to their sorrow. open to their pain, open to their loved ones. and i bear witness to Death through the eyes of a child. my niece's heartbreak, her honest longing. when did i lose that ability to weep unabashedly, that innocence to be vulnerable?
and here i bear witness to their sorrow. open to their pain, open to their loved ones. and i bear witness to Death through the eyes of a child. my niece's heartbreak, her honest longing. when did i lose that ability to weep unabashedly, that innocence to be vulnerable?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Anabelle Grace
my sister birthed anabelle grace in the wee hours on feb 20th at 36 weeks (one month early). anabelle wasn't breathing and had no heartbeat. the neonatologist was able to resuscitate her after 20 minutes and lifeflighted her to NICU at the children's hospital nearby.
life's serendipity
what a mysterious sequence of events. just days before my sis received a late term diagnosis of polyhydramnios, transferred care provider from midwife to ob/gyn, due to mistaken referral missed the perinatologist appointment, and waters broke on the day of her specialist appointment, all events that prefigured emergency C-section on the horizon contrary to her nautral birth plan. and yet the way the universe unfolded, my sister had an easy recovery after blessedly delivering naturally with her midwife present after all, no perineal tears, an unmedicated vaginal delivery of a breech even as they were prepping her for an emergency C. because of the quick recovery from natural birth she was able to check out of the hospital in the afternoon to be with anabelle and her husband in a matter of hours rather than days if she had a cesarean birth or medicated birth. i flew in to san diego to be with them, our parents, our aunties and family friends.
how to express our heartbreak and struggling to breathe and grieve as our loss washes over us in waves of sorrow. four-and-a-half year old lily struggles with the meaning of Death. oh she misses her baby sister and wants God to make anabelle better and give her back to us...
life's serendipity
grace
anabelle had birdswing eyes like her mother and her big sister lily. the same round round face and apple cheeks. she also had many congenital complications and down's syndrome. she was beautiful. in the afternoon, after no brain activity, they took her off life support. in the bosom of her mother, her big sister lily and her father, surrounded by all her loved ones, anabelle grace died.how to express our heartbreak and struggling to breathe and grieve as our loss washes over us in waves of sorrow. four-and-a-half year old lily struggles with the meaning of Death. oh she misses her baby sister and wants God to make anabelle better and give her back to us...
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