The rest of the world may end not with a bang but a whimper, but I'm different.

I think I say this every year, but I can’t believe it’s only been 5 years since I last saw my mom.
It feels like a lifetime, like the time I spent with her while growing up was from a past life.

I’ve heard that every time you remember something, the memory changes a little as you add your own imagination to it. To me, that seems like a terrible thing because it’d mean every time I remember something about my mother, my memory of her would shift a little and it would get further and further away from the reality of how she really was like. At the same time, how could I stop thinking about her? That’d be equally as terrible.

I suppose I think a lot about useless things like that. Maybe I don’t need to think so deeply about it. But I was always a sentimental child, and as I’ve written somewhere else before, I’m a person with a lot of regrets.

I think it’s okay to regret things, even if it makes me sad sometimes. If anything, it helps me make wiser decisions now and hopefully avoid more regrets in the future. It helps me treasure the people around me now, and focus on being happy now so that I’ll have good memories of my time now later on.

I say that, but I also feel that I’m not doing enough. I asked myself earlier this week, “What have I done since the last time I made an entry like this?” I’m not too sure. I had a career change, I moved house, and I made new friends. But it’s all me, me, me. That’s not enough.

I have to live a life fulfilling enough for more than just myself. For my mother, who wasn’t able to live past 46, and still spent half of her life raising me, often on her own. For my grandma and grandpa, who have taken care of me since I was little, and even now care about me above anything else in the world. For my other family and relatives, who have me on the back of their minds. I need to live a life that makes all the love that my mom and family have given to me worth it.

To be honest, all I wanted when I was younger was to be normal. I didn’t have many friends when I was little, and my family wasn’t exactly the happiest family. I just wanted to be like everyone else, to not have to hide things that other people weren’t experiencing.

But now, I don’t want to be normal anymore. I said the same thing last year. Being normal is easy. Being normal would subdue all the love, kindness, and experiences I’ve received from the people who have devoted a large part of their lives to taking care of me. And for what? For me to just be alive and focus on making myself happy? 

I once shared some of my experiences with a teacher whom I was close with. I told her it was too bad she was never able to meet my mom and see how characteristic of a woman she had been. And my teacher said to me, “Vinci, even without meeting her, I know what your mom was like, because I can see her through you.”

I went home and cried that night, because I realized, then, that I really needed to become a better person.

The only way I can give back to the people who have loved me is to become someone who is deserving of their love.

It’s more difficult of a task than it seems because I don’t even like myself. How can I accept myself enough to be able to accept other people’s love, and pass that on to others?

I guess it’ll be a lifelong task. I'd better get started.

Thanks, Mommy, for giving me life. I’ll make sure it was worth it.

Gather ye rosebuds.

Sometimes I lose track of how many years it’s been -- but it’s only been four years. I graduated university in 2011, but my mother passed away just before that in 2010. It’s hard to believe it hasn't been an eternity since she was here.

My hope was that, every year, when I write an entry on December 6, I would find myself a little more grown up and a little wiser. Perhaps with some interesting anecdotes or enlightening experiences to share. Or maybe someday, I would be happy or busy enough with my life that I don’t need to write something like this. Instead, I just find myself feeling the same -- sometimes happy, sometimes sad -- just one year later, typing away at the screen.

Maybe it’s still too early. I still cry sometimes, when I’m alone. I see children with their parents, and I tear up. I watch movies with people at the hospital, and I want to cry. I listen to my friends talk about their parents, and I feel genuinely happy for them -- but also an uncontrollable pang of sadness. I have a really good day -- then I pick up her picture when I get home and cry because I wish my mother could see me now. Or better yet, I wish I could have given her some of my time.

I always think that I need twice the amount of energy, twice the amount of experience, and twice the amount of fulfillment in my life, to make up for the life lost that should have been my mother’s. I should be writing the book I’ve always wanted to, I should be becoming someone famous, or I should at least be making my way to "the top" as an ambitious career woman. But I’m not, and at most I guess I’m just a normal 25-year-old who doesn't know what to do with her normal life.

I don’t want to be normal. Being average is one of my worst fears. Born in an average family, go to an average school, get average grades and make average friends, get an average job, live an average lifespan -- and die. It sounds so futile and so terrible to me.

But I know already, I know, my family is not an average family. My mother was not an average person. My grandparents didn’t raise me in an average way -- they raised me with immeasurable love. 

And this is the frustrating part for me. How can I show, with my life, that all of this is not average? How can I turn the trivial thing that is my life, into something that isn’t fruitless? I don’t want a lot of money or luxury, or unnecessary fame. I just want to feel like I’m glad to be alive, and when I die, to feel glad to have lived.

I want to become the positive existence that I pretend to be. But, I also want to stay my sad self when I'm by myself, because I feel that if I cease to be sad it would mean forgetting my mom.

I just want her to be alive. But she's not, and I am.

What am I to do?

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying.

And then it was the third year.

Today's rather uneventful day marked my mother's third death anniversary. "It's been three years already", or "It's been only three years since", I still can't make up my mind between the two.

This year, I am writing from the comfort of my latest home in Tokyo, Japan. It may seem to you like December 6 has become "that time to write another depressing post" for me, but that is, in fact, not true at all in terms of how I view this day. I think it's simply that today is the one day in which I feel I can let myself dwell a little more on my grief. Today isn't the day when I write a post "in memory of my mother"; every day, I live in memory of my mother. But if there's going to be any day, it's today for trying to put some of my thoughts into words, because that is what I most regret not doing before, and one of my hardest lessons learnt from my mother's passing.

Grief doesn't gradually disappear or subside. It's always here, tucked away in this corner or that corner inside. It's like trying to hold back an ocean with its waves beating against you constantly. As probably everyone who has ever lost anyone says, you just learn to live with loss, because it's never going to go away. "Time heals all wounds", but loss isn't a wound. It's just… a void.

Of course, there's Tennyson who very romantically states, "It is better to have love and lost, than never to have loved at all."

But, oh, losing is so, so difficult.

It's one of those phrases that you repeat to yourself, hoping that if you repeat it enough times, you'll finally start to believe it. Love gives you so many good memories, and it teaches you kindness and adds perspective and flavour to your life. Certainly, it is a very good and essential part of life. But coming across too much flavour changes your tastes, and with experiencing love, you also learn what it means to lose it, to feel the lack, and the bitterness and resentment on the flip side of it. There were so many days before when I couldn't stand being in society, because I didn't want to see how things could still function without my mom's existence. They sound like two completely irrelevant issues, but are nevertheless among the mass of feelings that grew inside me since my mom became bedridden, even before her death.

The half year from summer and winter of 2010 has been, inarguably, the worst time in my life yet. I suppose one thing to admit (or reiterate, as I basically said the same thing two years ago) is that loss is, in many ways, much more easier to deal with than seeing the prolonged suffering of a loved one. So many times, it hurt me to see people with the privilege to live their lives normally. It made me angry to ride the bus and watch old couples on their way home from a nice walk around town, or perhaps from their daily trip to the grocery store. Naturally, it was even more frustrating when I came across old people who, incidentally, had terrible attitudes. I would think to myself, "Why is this person--so completely undeserving and non-contributive to society--alive and well up until an old age, while my mother--beautiful, strong, and brilliant--was literally rotting away at her still young age, suffering and confined in front of the same white wall everyday?"

My mother has and would have continued to accomplish so much, and would have kept making the world a little brighter everyday, if only she didn't die. Clearly I have no evidence, but I'd like to imagine that she would have made a much more positive impact on the world than some other people, who are still living now, would ever make. It sounds awfully judgmental (or just plain awful) of me to say such a thing, and it is. But everything in life is subjective; objectivity may, perhaps, just be subjectivity in a humble disguise.

Since I was little, for one reason or another, I've always known and accepted the fact that life is unfair. It just is; there's no use making a big fuss about it. It's simply the truth. Saying that doesn't make me a negative person, however. On the contrary, knowing that life is going to be unfair no matter what I do, I live with the philosophy that that fact is not going to change, so I might as well think positively rather than the opposite. It's basically just about the only choice I do have.

I wonder if my mother ever had these kinds of bitter thoughts. She never seemed passive aggressive like how I am. She went through so much in her life, and how I wish the world knew even half of how she lived her rocky life with such finesse. I don't feel ashamed at all about feeling bitter. But I wonder if my mother, with a similarly difficult life, had similar thoughts too and just dealt with it much more gracefully than I ever have.

I can only spend the rest of my life pursuing the grace she had exhibited, so subtle that I was only able to notice after she was gone.

I miss and love you, Mommy.

(Past memorable entries regarding my mother: 2010, 2011, early 2013)

Beauty and Sadness

Image borrowed from iStockphoto via smithsonianmag.com
Those who have read Beauty and Sadness will understand why I picked a picture of a Japanese rock garden.

Today, I finished reading Kawabata Yasunari's Beauty and Sadness (美しさと哀しみと) and it was truly a wonderful read. I started reading it a year ago but had stopped halfway, and I recently decided to read it again from the beginning. I realize most readers of Kawabata start with his most famous work Snow Country (雪国), but for some reason I picked up this one instead and it is the only work of Kawabata's that I've read so far. I don't normally do book reviews, but I'd just like to mention that I really enjoyed the atmosphere, the pacing, and the gentle writing style of this novel. It's very suitable for a cold, winter day (I'm certain that it was also a cold, winter day when I decided to buy this book last year). I'm looking forward to reading his other works.

Beauty and Sadness follows the aftermath of a love affair between a young girl, Otoko, and a married man, Oki, in post-war Tokyo. Over twenty years after the affair, Otoko has become a painter in Kyoto and lives there with her young protegee Keiko. Oki makes a visit to Kyoto one day, and the story begins from there as Keiko becomes growingly jealous with the lingering of Otoko's past.

I wanted to mention this book because I felt that it really resonates with my current perception of time, and the concept of holding on to a memory. It portrays the flow of time as slowly and inevitably eroding away our youth, yet without an overwhelmingly heavy sense of melancholy.

Lately, I've been thinking of my mom a lot. I've visited the place where she's laid to rest three times since I came back to Vancouver, and maybe these visits have contributed to my thinking about her. I miss her terribly. So terribly. I heard somewhere that a girl needs her mother increasingly more as she grows up, and perhaps that is the case with how I'm feeling now. There are so many things I'd like to ask and discuss with her, about life, about love, about happiness, about heartbreak, about doubts, about being strong, about everything.

I wish so very much that I had gotten to know her better. I wish I had asked her more about her own past, her personality, her opinions; what it was like for her to grow up and how she had managed to make her way to living the way that she did. I suppose it was harder for my child self to picture her mother as a three, four dimensional existence with depth outside of the figure of a "mother". I remember all the times she asked to sit and talk with me on the bed at night, but of which I had refused. All the years that I was mentally absent in her presence, and the following years in which I was physically absent. I have too many regrets.

So as if to make up for all those opportunities lost, in the often times that I think about her now, I seem to paint my own picture of how my mother was when she was alive. I don't necessarily glorify the dead; unfortunately, my mother and I also had many disagreements back then and I don't omit the faults from my memory. But I try to relive our conversations in my head, and bring to mind memories of the way she did things, or peculiarities, habits, hobbies, expressions. Things that I had never took special notice of, but are somehow unconsciously stored somewhere within my memory today.

But memories are strange things. Maybe they tell about the past just as much as they tell about the person remembering. Yes, my mom was a brilliantly energetic, cheerful, and strong person. Yes, I loved her very much and I still do. But perhaps, somewhere inside me is a desperate hope that somehow, some of the qualities and innocence that I assign to the memory of my mother are reflective in myself and now linger in me as well. That, somehow, the beautiful and tragic heroine who encounters an unfortunate fate completely out of her control is not my mother, but really me. Maybe part of the reason why I find sharing my feelings of losing my mother so difficult, is because I'm also afraid that my bitterness and self-pity will also seep through into my words as I voice them. Maybe why I want to talk to my mother and ask her so much, is because I want someone else to explain myself to me.

This could just be one of my ridiculous conclusions that I've come to from thinking too much. Of course my memories of the times with my mom are factual, and the personality and character that I remember her by are also very real and hopefully not very far at all from the truth. But in the end, memories are not the actual thing, and should not be confused as such. My love for my mom and my memories of her, ultimately, can only amount to but a very small and distorted piece of the weight, depth, and meaning of my mother's existence. The full magnitude of my feelings on this is hard for me to put into words, even in writing.

Thus, I think this passage from Beauty and Sadness appropriately sums it up:

    "It was out of longing that Otoko had painted her mother as young and beautiful, but perhaps there was an element of self-love there as well. Their natural resemblance could hardly account for it. Perhaps she was actually portraying herself.

    Otoko still loved Oki, her baby, and her mother, but could these loves have gone unchanged from the time when they were a tangible reality to her? Could not something of these very loves have been subtly transformed into self-love? Of course she would not be aware of it. She had been parted from her baby and her mother by death, and from Oki by a final separation, and these three still lived within her.

    Yet Otoko alone gave them this life. Her image of Oki flowed along with her through time, and perhaps her memories of their love affair had been dyed by the color of her love for herself, had even been transformed. It had never occurred to her that bygone memories are merely phantoms and apparitions. Perhaps it was to be expected that a woman who had lived alone for two decades without love or marriage should indulge herself in memories of a sad love, and that her indulgence should take on the color of self-love."

It may also be worthwhile to mention that, incidentally, this book was first published in 1964, the year my mother was born.

The first death anniversary and the confessions of an ex-mechanical object.

Today is the first death anniversary of my mom.

One year later, I am sitting at a Starbucks cafe, suspended five stories in the air in the middle of Causeway Bay in Hong Kong. I am enjoying a chicken mushroom pie and a nice cup of hot coffee.



Exactly one year ago at exactly this time, I was in a stuffy hospital room suspended 11 stories in the air in the middle of downtown Vancouver, staring at the body of my mother who had just passed a few hours before.



I don't have anything profound to say, nor did I spend the past year searching for the purpose of life though I do wonder about it everyday--then again, I always have. No, I just kept on living. I know that for some people, to just keep on living requires a huge amount of effort everyday and it is a struggle for them to decide whether to live or die today. But I don't feel that way at all. It requires nothing for me to keep on living; I just do, and I feel okay with that.



Originally, I was going to go to the mountain peak today and stay there for the entire day, trying to find some solitude in the colder mountain air. I thought, if I felt like bursting into tears at anytime today, at least on the mountain I could always run and sob while hiding in a bush or something. But I ended up getting up at three in the afternoon, getting dressed and riding the train in a daze. And of course I would end up at a Starbucks. I still hate capitalism and all that stuff I preach about everyday, but I really like how Starbucks looks practically the same in every country. I just need some kind of regularity in my life, you know? It's soothing. I'm grateful even if the coffee is watery and horrible.

I have never really talked with anybody about my experiences during the week at the hospital with my mom, or even about how I had been feeling over the following months. For the friends that saw me at my mother's funeral or at her cremation, I'm glad you were able to think of me as a strong person for not crying during my long speech at the funeral, or my lack of hesitation in pressing the button on the cremation furnace. But most of the time, I don't think it was because I'm particularly strong or anything like that.

I was relieved more than anything else.

No one can understand the agonizing half year that had passed before my mom died. Getting off work everyday in the summer to visit the hospital, and then crying behind my sunglasses on the bus ride home. Having nothing to say to my mom after she was transferred home since she could rarely use her voice anymore, then going upstairs at night and leaving her downstairs in her bed in the family room, only to sob into my covers about her in another room. Watching her sleep when she could manage to despite the pain, and then seeing her cry out even in her dreams. Seeing her stare at the same white wall of our house everyday.



Then, I went back to school in September because she had expressed that I should go. She was supposed to have a year more to live, the doctor had said so. I will graduate, and spend all my time with her after. I swore I would do that. But time was so painfully, painfully slow.



I remember writing a horribly corny yet also my most emotional letter to my mom on my last night in Vancouver.  I remember tearing my eyes away from her to step out the door to head to the airport. Feeling like screaming and jumping off the plane 'cause I was still wondering if this was the right thing to do. Sitting in silence at my apartment in Montreal and knowing that my mom was hurting with every tick of the clock. Stepping out into the hall away from my birthday party to call my mom, and then after hanging up, wanting to just run away because no one should really be laughing right now.

Receiving the call on the last day of November about my mom while I was doing my homework, and then sitting on the floor, unmoving, for a long time. Being angry at the five hour flight back to Vancouver for being so slow and expensive. Seeing my mom at the brink of death yet smiling, while I couldn't bring myself to smile right away. Feeling the presence of death hover over everybody I met the following few days, seeing both men and women cry. The fear of stepping out of the hospital room when I didn't know if that would be the last time I would ever see her alive. Sobbing, sobbing, sobbing outside the room.



Then she passed away six days after I returned to Vancouver. I was back at home to get some sleep for the night, when the phone rang and it was confirmed that my mom has passed away. And it was over. Her pain was over. And that was what mattered most to me.



Compared to that, the time after my mom's death was so, so much easier to pass.

That is my explanation for why I seemed "okay" to everyone. I was more than okay, I was much better than before my mom passed away. There, I said it.



I don't think it's disrespectful of me at all to say it, and I think my mom would understand. To me, her death was the start of something, my time finally starting to move again. Still painful, but at least each tick didn't echo in my ears with impending doom anymore.



And then came the post-death business. In my honest opinion, funerals and other ceremonial processions are purely for the living. I didn't care as much as most people think I should have because, honestly, this does nothing for my mom. She is dead. And hopefully much happier.

No, it's for the people still living. To remember her, to put things to a close in the minds of friends and family. So why hesitate in pressing the button to cremate her when her body (that was so beautiful while still alive) was just getting uglier by the hour? They applied make-up to her face horribly anyway; that lip gloss they put on her was appalling, and she would have never used that colour of blush. And they refrigerated her, for goodness' sakes, how could they do that to my mom who was so full of warmth and laughter? The clothes I picked out for her body would have looked better if she was standing and moving, but she wasn't, so they were of no use. Just burn them already. During the funeral, I said what would put people's minds to ease, of memories of my mom and to calm their worries for me. Clearly I was faring better than the people who attended, so I could at least reassure my mom's friends. Why would I put all the tear-filled things I wanted to say in my speech, when the only person who I really wanted to talk to then was my mom?



So those are my thoughts. I am often told even by my closest friends that I very rarely talk about my feelings, that they want to help and would "if only I opened up more". But it's hard to do, you know? I will talk to you when I have something to say to you. Otherwise, what I want to say is probably not for your ears. That is my personality.

I should add that I love my friends very much and I am grateful for all the people around me who constantly show me kindness. That is a different matter. I am only saying all this in regards to why I am so bad at "sharing my feelings".



But I think that, one year later, I do want to share something today.

I write an e-diary separate from this blog, and I wrote a few entries a year ago when all of this was happening. I think I'd like to share them today in hopes that you, dear reader, will forgive me for not being able to express myself during the times that people do expect me to. And to reassure you that I do, indeed, have feelings. Thank goodness you're not reading the blog of a mechanical object, right? Congratulations.

I am half-saying that to myself.


============

November 30, 2010 at 19:17

I just got a call from my dad. He said my mom was just hospitalized and may have only a day or two left. He told me to get on the soonest flight back to Vancouver.

I don't know what to do. I mean, I just booked my flight for 8am tomorrow (fastest route already), but yeah. I don't know.

I just finished a music assignment, it's due tomorrow. I have a Japanese essay due on Thursday. I have a research project due Friday. I have exams in the next two weeks.

My mom is going to die.

And I'm just sitting here.

Anyway I have to pack.

December 05, 2010 at 20:38

I've been spending my days at the hospital whenever I'm not sleeping at home.

It's been tough. But my mom's condition varies drastically from day to day, and going to the hospital early in the morning, staying in her room for hours and coming back at night has become a routine for me already.

The first day was a miracle; the day I came back, she was so awake and our family gathered in the room and we talked about funerary proceedings and all that business. Everything was sorted out, and I think everyone said what they wanted to say to her. She couldn't talk much as usual, her voice hoarse like a whisper and every word sounded laboured (and probably was), but she talked for hours until late into the evening, which was amazing.

The next day, she was in so much pain. It's become a rule now that you can't be sad in front of my mom... no crying. We also don't allow visitors anymore; my mom has a lot of friends, but, you know how seeing a patient sometimes is more for the not-sick rather than the patient themself? Having my mom see other people sad just makes her sad, and she already has enough physical pain to deal with. But sometimes, tears would just stream from my eyes, out of my control, because her pain was so great that we couldn't move her, her fingers and feet rotting black from no circulation, her rear end also starting to deteriorate so it hurt no matter how she sat or laid down... I'm sure that if she could and had a voice, she would have been screaming her lungs out. It broke my heart over and over again to see her like that. She was receiving painkiller needles in her arm every hour or two, it was insane.

The third day, she slept almost all day, She finally opened her eyes in the evening, but didn't respond, her eyelids hanging half closed and unfocused.

The fourth day, yesterday, she responded even less and was often moody and ill tempered, which is completely understandable if you're in pain. She slept half the time, but she ate something. I fed her soup at lunch time and plain congee at night.

Today, she recognized me in the morning as usual, and I know because when I came in, I said, "Hi Mommy!" and kissed her, and she had weakly moved her lips against my cheek which I assume is a kiss. Then she went back to sleep. But in the afternoon, she woke up again... and at first my dad would talk to her as usual. She's become less and less comprehensible throughout the week because of her voice and because she's been so heavily medicated... but this afternoon, she started talking to herself.

She talked to herself in hoarse, whispery gibberish for four hours or so. I left earlier this evening, but I called my dad after and he said they injected something so her nerves would stop jumping (her body's been twitching from the meds for the past two days) and she's finally stopped talking to invisible people and sleeping. I don't think she recognized me anymore, I was completely ignored when I said goodbye to her today.

But I am so proud of my mom. They stopped dialysis because this was the best way for her to spend the last of her days, which would be the most painless way possible (even though it's still incredibly painful). The doctor, seeing her condition, had said she would last maybe two days. Today was Day 6. She is such a fighter, and back when her mind was still aware, she was already ready to leave this world.

She said a lot of things that hurt me inside. She told me I was a good girl, but she kept telling me I was spending so much, and that even though I called her this semester, I never called her before and she said that there was a time when I was rude and she was so unhappy that I didn't call and talk to her more often. Everything she told me... I had already been torturing myself with these past few months. The big question: why didn't I talk to my mom more when I could? I was such a terrible daughter. I loved her so much but I never bothered to show it, hiding behind the excuse that "I'm not the type to show affection". Isn't that just a weakness?

I don't know if I've ever repeated "I'm sorry" in my head so many times while being with someone. I'm sorry Mom, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't do all those things in the past. I'm sorry you have to be like this. I'm sorry I can't do anything for you right now. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

But I've also never repeated "I love you" so many times to anyone before. The day she was knocked out the entire day, I whispered in her ear some of the things I probably wouldn't have said if she was awake. The next day, she mouthed to me that she knew I was beside her all day the day before, so I wonder if some of the things I said got across. The times I told her that I loved her a lot when she was awake, she always whispered back when she could, I love you too.

There are many doctors that see her from different departments. One of the main doctors had checked on her while she was sleeping, and I believe he was the one who had suggested stopping dialysis so we can let her pass away in the least painful way. And after looking at my mom, he told me, "This is the right thing to do." Even though that may be true, in my opinion too, I wonder. Does a doctor have the right to say that about anything, to anyone?

Another doctor talked to my mom briefly on the first day when my mom could still talk somewhat, and during the conversation, she turned to me and said, "Your mom is so beautiful." I think that was the most passionate moment of my life where I wanted to scream, Yes! YES, she is!

There is so much that happened, so many brief moments, so many fleeting feelings as well as ones that will linger for the rest of my life. I can't possibly describe the experience these few days, and I will never be able to. But I think we've been really blessed that we were given that one day when she was awake and could talk, and most of the things that were hanging heavy in everyone's hearts were resolved and put to a closure. As painful as it is, it's a rare opportunity that we can have this time to say goodbye.

It's not over yet, but there's already so much that I've learned. There were many nights where when I left the hospital, I would burst into tears in the hallway. Also one of my first times crying in front of anybody--but I found that, at that point when i did cry in front of people, that I didn't care anymore. There are more important things in life than keeping one's dignity during a hard time.

Oh yes, and I had announced that I wanted to be the one to press the button when my mom gets cremated. It will be traumatizing, I have absolutely no doubt about that, but you know... I rather myself suffer than anyone else. This isn't an act of bravery or selflessness or anything, it's for myself. Seeing others suffer is ten times, a hundred times worse than having to deal with your own pain. It's for myself. I don't want to see anyone else suffer anymore.

December 08, 2010 at 13:25

General gist of things at the moment.

My mom passed away at around 2:30am on Monday morning. We stayed at her bedside for a couple of hours after that. The one thing I learned: bodies grow cold very, very fast.

We went out for dinner that night, it was quite a feast.

We did miscellaneous funeral preparations over the past few days. Yesterday, I picked out a flower arrangement at the florist to lay over the casket. It'll be wrapped with a ribbon that has "To be reunited in heaven, from Vinci" on it.

My mom will be cremated on Friday morning, and I will be pressing the button.

Her funeral will be on Saturday morning at our church; I'll be doing a short speech there. Assuming I'll be able to. Then we will be putting her urn and everything else at the cemetery in the afternoon.

And then things will finally progress. Maybe.

But everything is a maybe at this point in time.

The Daughter's Lament in the Summertime.

It has been 9 months since my mother passed away.

The sun shines bright, and the world is as noisy as ever.

Maybe you should have just named me Cordelia. But I'm glad you didn't.

April 25th.

Today would have been my mother's birthday. She would have turned 47.

April 25 was one of the first dates I ever learned to remember. I remember when I was little, I asked my mom one year how old she was, but I had already forgotten when her birthday came around again the following year and she had refused to tell me her age again. Of course, eventually I just remembered her year of birth and calculated from that whenever I lost count. I teased her when she hit 40. And then I stopped writing or mentioning her age, even though I would secretly tell my friends because then they would be impressed at how young my mom was.

I also made her a card every year, and she would stick them on the wall, just above her bedpost, or on her bedroom door. I had a phase during my early teenage years when I really liked to do amateur graphic design, so I would make tacky graphics on Adobe Photoshop and print them out for her... she liked those too. After I went to university, her birthday would always fall in between my final exam period, but I would still go shopping for her birthday present without fail.

It's a special feeling, shopping for your mother. There really are limited ways you can give back to your mother for all that she's done. Shopping for her gift always served as a kind of activity in which I could reflect on how thankful I was to her, and how I really can't give back anything that would be enough to match what she's given me all these years. That is, life itself, and unconditional love.

Facebook decided to remind me that it was my mother's birthday today, too. Seeing her name on the side bar after midnight, I clicked on it. I was one of those kids that kind of enjoyed having their parent on Facebook--I thought having a mom that knew how to use the computer and even had Facebook was pretty cool. Even though she never really used it. Her profile today is the same as always, void of activity except for me and my aunt wishing her a happy birthday every year. In 2009, I sent her "lots of love". In 2010, I asked her if she was using the bag I gave her--ah, that's right, I sent her a handbag by mail for her birthday last year.

I don't know why I do this to myself, looking to breaking my own heart over and over again, doing stuff like looking at her Facebook page, at our past messages to each other, our emails... it's a shame we don't really have pictures together. It's probably my fault. I was a rebel child until the end, reluctant to even say "I love you" most of the time. Even though I did love her so very much... I just couldn't put it into words. Why is it always so hard to say what you mean?

When she lay in bed at the hospital during the last few days of her life... I kept telling her, I love you, I love you, I love you. As if I could make up for all those times that I didn't say it to her. For all those times she wanted to hear it, but I had foolishly valued my own pride over a few very simple but powerful words. If perchance she had been happy to hear those words from me towards the end of her life... why had I not given her many more days of happiness before that, when I could have easily done so?

Only my mother would ever forgive someone as twisted and ugly as I am. And so she did, many, many times.

But this kind of unconditional relationship doesn't exist anymore for me, not in this world. I am only left with memories of such an incomparable love, and all I can do now is to keep these memories close. It breaks my heart every time I think of it and regret continues to tear at me (as it should), but I don't ever want to forget. I mustn't forget. I can only remember.

April 25, in remembrance of my beloved mother. Happy Birthday, Mommy.

I love you.

If only looks were everything, then my mother would have had it all.

My mom passed away yesterday, December 6th, 2010, at about 2:30 in the morning.

It's been a long time, but she was finally relieved of her suffering and welcomed back to where she was always meant to be: a far better place than here on earth.

I was looking through old albums last night--a very typical post-death activity, no doubt--and it's always strange to see people you've always considered "old" since the time you were born... young, and realize that, that's right, they had an entire lifetime behind them too. The archetype of a "mother" seems so timeless that it's hard for someone young like me to imagine my mom in any other role.

But I think what's especially interesting is that my mom's face (biological thanks to my grandma) never really changed. 20 years later, she still looked pretty much the same... until the last year when she lost all of that. But maybe it's convenient at least for me that I'll always have the same face in my memory, her forever youthful and cheerful expression, an immortal image of a woman who wasn't as immortal as I had thought after all.

Still, my mother was so beautiful. She will always be beautiful to me.




The moral of this entry? Let's see. That we'll all eventually die, I suppose.

I know this has become the cliche thing to ponder about, the repetitive theme of too many pieces of literature, the conclusion that all science points to. We know that people die, that there are seasons, there are generations, there are civilizations. We have evidence of it in history and we hear about it everyday. We know it as a fact.

But we will never, ever be able to understand it. We have no idea what it means to live and die--and to no surprise; after all, who has lived and died before and come back to tell the tale?

All I know is that my mother is so very beautiful.