The holidays

The holidays are the hardest, as they say...

They really are. At dinner, though my uncle and his family put me in the middle of the dinning table, though there was a tableful of food, I felt saddened by the familiar feeling of family around me. The familiarity of my cousins asking questions a child would ask of his dad, who is the hero and great encyclopedia of knowledge and the world, beginning with the phrase: "Papa, why....?"... The familiarity of my cousins helping their mum (my aunt) in the kitchen... The familiarity of a family gathered around a table and sharing a wholesome meal and stories over the past year... It is beautiful to have family, beautiful to be a part of a family.

Yes, I am fortunate to be invited into my uncle's home and to be welcomed as a member of the family. But there are instances and moments when memories of mum and dad come back to sadden me and force tears out of my eyes... I felt so heavy and out place at dinner, as if I were intruding in my the precious reunion of my uncle and his family. I felt like a stranger, someone they welcome with such warmth but who is so reserved and who obviously looks like he has something on his mind (as I found out recently, a friend described me oh-so-unsympathetically as "the elephant in the room"... The mine of sadness and glumness nobody wants to approach or deal with).

Taiwanese music played in the background, further adding to the feelings of nostalgia and loss. I struggled hard to contain my tears, to not think of mum and dad, and not to think of the way we were, the family feasts I used to prepare during the new year period...

I called a number of people back home, starting with my bother. I've not been able to reach him since that day he went to pay respects to our parents. I don't know anything about what happened that day except that he went there and the ceremony went well... He said he has been busy, and was in the middle of something. The lunar new year holiday is a time to get together and visit relatives and friends. He sounded like he wanted to go quickly, and the conversation soon turned into money and how busy he's been taking care of things back home.

Next I called my aunt (day's older sister), and my grandma (mum's stepmum). With both I chatted a while and drowned in the familiarity of their voices. They were most caring and encouraging, both telling me how they feel for me and what I must be going through now. They worry about me, especially as I'm all alone now. They told me again and again to visit, to call more often and to not be distant. They also reminded me to walk out of the pain and mourning, to move forward to greater and more positive things.

I listened to their voices, to such familiar voices, to their words of concern and encouragements. They are all I have now, the living connections to my late parents...
I could not but tear...

The holidays are the most difficult.

They really are...

Dream: dad...

I've not dreamt of dad in ages. I just saw him, during a nap, and the sight made me cry...

He was sitting at a desk, all by himself, all alone. There was a dim light, and he had a thick jacket on. I approached him, and he looked so changed. His face so thin, his face so glum with sadness.

I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn't say. Contrary to other dreams, he spoke in this one. I proposed that we go out for a walk, but he didn't want to. He only sat there sad and shaking his head. I've not seen him like this ever, not even when he was alive.

He obviously looked very depressed, very down, but I couldn't help him. I tried to take his hand, but as soon as I reached for his hand, I woke up crying...

Could it be that my own moods and depression is affecting dad? Could it e that he is greatly saddened that I am like this, in this terrible state of mind, and he is appearing to tell me something...?

In Vancouver

It crossed my mind yesterday evening as I was riding the skytrain to my relative's place how many times I've been to Vancouver. Firs trip was early 2009, and since then at least twice a year, often to transit. This must be almost the tenth trip to the area...

I arrived at my relative's place, had dinner and spent time with my cousins, just chatting and catching up. They're younger by a decade or so, so what we could talk about is limited. I'm like the older brother they look up to, turn to for advice. And one of my cousins recalled a trip I took him on back in 2009 with fondness. How he enjoyed the entire experience, the foods we ate, the stay at the hostel, the long long walk on the beach.

I looked at the pictures I happened to have on my laptop. How beautiful that trip was, how "innocent" and fresh-minded I was back then. Don't we always have that tendency to feel like life was easier "back then when...."?

"But I remember you were troubled then..." My cousin reminded me. What about? Mum's health perhaps. Feeling lost and confused perhaps, close to a year after arriving in Canada. He thanked me for visiting him so often over the past four years, for helping him establish himself in this foreign land when his parents were not around.

It is hard seeing my cousins and being in their family home. Though welcoming, and though they're family, I feel like I'm out of place and intruding. This is a feeling that will come back to haunt me for a while, I know... Family is so important to me. And I have lost the core of the family I know, I know. And I need to learn to live with that.

I met up with a good friend for brunch. Last time we met, we had a nice long bike ride together. There was a bit of affection sitting on a beach for hours, but I pulled away because my ex gave me signals that he wanted to be with me, and reassured me he was taking steps to make it happen.

How foolish I was, now looking back. How fooled I was, being so blindingly faithful and trusting of my ex and his promises, and yet letting opportunities pass me by. Why do I let this happen to me, why do I continue to let someone in my life who many people have told me is driven by only self interests and will do anything and say anything to make you believe he's genuine and sincere?

It hit me when recently a mutual friend mentioned to me perhaps my ex is still hanging around and trying to keep me close because he feels so guilty to just leave me as I was losing my mum. All the while, he's out there enjoying his relationship, trying to placate me and keep me on the side as the best friend and confidante, but not realising how much damage he is doing and how his indecisiveness and false promises are undermining my trust and our friendship.

As we chatted over brunch, my friend here in vancouver revealed since we last met he found someone with whom he could really relate to. He told me how they met, how they could be doing the simplest things and yet still feel so special and such affection. I tried to keep a straight face, tried to look happy for him (I am, genuinely I am...) . But again it's hard to be faced with the fact that all around me people seem to have found someone they can be intimate with, someone they can confide and be true with. It's depressing that its soon valentines day, and again I am single. How ridiculous and foolish I was to even buy my ex a heart-shaped box of chocolates back December, so blind and crazy to believe in the fantasy that he loves me still and is working on being with me.

I walked around a mall, and suddenly felt so empty again. The holidays are never easy for me, and is even harder this year with mum's absence and loss of the one true friend (my ex) I (thought) i) have ever had. Maybe I should be grateful for all the things I have in life, for all the little things I take for granted.

But for once, for once I want to be reminded what it's like to love someone, what it's like to receive love and affection. For once, now more than ever before, I wish to close my eyes while lying in someone's arms and imagine that I am safe and secure.

For once, more than ever before, how I wish I could wake up and see a smile, feel the warmth of another body next to mine.

6 February

6 February

I dozed on and off since I got on the plane. So tired I am, exhausted after having only slept two hours (actually less...) last night.

I had a vigil... Lit a candle and places it before a picture of mum and dad. It was a picture taken professionally over a decade ago. I remember that day vividly, how we all met up after dad finished work and gathered at a nice steak restaurant. After dinner, we've me across this photography parlour, and as we were all dressed up that night, someone (was it mum or dad...?) suggested we take a family portrait together. It would be our only one. And at the same time, mum and dad took a picture, just the two of them, mum holding onto dad's arm.

I sat and meditated for a while before the little make-shift shrine. My friend dropped by, as he remembered the significance of the day, he wanted to be there, even though I was agitated and wanted more to be alone. In my mind I wondered what his intentions were, why he was even with me at such an intense and melancholic occasion when he could elsewhere... Why was he even spending time with me when often he just ends up crying as if I depress him and am the source of all the pain and unhappiness in the world... It's all so personal, the memories still all so fresh after five years.

As the clock ticked toward 2.21pm in Taiwan, I felt the memories return... All of us gathered at dad's bedside. Beeping of a heart monitor. Dad's breath heaving. Me kneeling by his bedside, holding his hand, his arm. Me whispering to him, reminding him to let go, to take it easy. There was sobbing in the background. A nurse was called when the beeping of the machinery decelerated. Mum and brother stood a few steps behind me, away from the bed, stricken with grief. Who would have thought, that day would be the beginning of several years of struggle against illness and death?

My friend and I sat down, at a moment when I felt comfortable to sit down. He asked what word came to mind when I think of dad. I didn't know. But I could see his face, I could see his smiling face, the dark shade of his skin, the thick black hair he still had at age sixty (even though he was ever so conscious of every little strand of white hair and used to spend hours trimming them away in with two small mirrors...)

Then a word did come to mind. Not exactly a nice word, but it was what I felt described dad in the last few years of his life, at least in relation to me and the rest of the family: distant. He isolated himself from everyone, led a solitary life, and lived in a separate apartment for years prior to retirement. We would never know whether he was truly solitary, or, as speculated he had someone else or perhaps another family. But he was truly a distant figure, who appeared very rarely, yet was always still so wiling and able to provide for us the children and support us through university.

I spoke about perhaps dad's proudest moment, looked into the distance and at nothingness an just narrated what came to mind. My friend sat and listened and cried. Perhaps there is something therapeutic in just being allowed to talk, and just having someone listen. Just listening without commentary from someone who doesn't really know what it's like, what if feels like to lose a parent.
It was helpful, and so unlike the ways my friends have snubbed me with cliche comments whenever I start to talk about how difficult and fresh mum's passing has been...

Dad's proudest moment was the few months he spent in New York as a trainee. He lived with a distant relative, who owned an ice cream parlour, out in Flushing Meadows, Queens. There's a picture of dad lying on the floor next to a transparent glass table, and spread on the table were bills of American dollars. He had such pride in his eyes, in his smile. He managed to save so much money in those few months in the US. I was not around yet, and he and mum had just started a new family. Those were the hey years of our family, when mum and dad worked hard to solidify a foundation for a better life for the two children they were to eventually have.

When the time closed on that moment, I could not stop tearing. Those last few moments with dad were so calm and gentle back then, but now, five years later, so painful to remember. How did I manage to stay so strong? How did I manage to be so collected? Why am I so weak now, so broken and in pieces and torn by memories of loss, breakup, feelings of abandonment and loneliness, and haunted by traumas of my childhood?

Perhaps I never had time to grief, properly grieve day's passing, my friend suggested. Perhaps, I do not know. For immediately after dad passed, mum's treatments for cancer increases in frequency and reoccurred occurred every single year. Did I really have time to grieve, to live my life, to pick up the pieces, to salvage all the memories and belongings before mum's illness and needs took over?

At 2.21pm local time, with my fingers I snubbed out the flame.

Five years

I tried to get ahold of my sister-in-law, but I could not. In the end, I left messages on her phone. "Please tell mum and dad I'm sorry I can't be there..."

They are now on their way to mum and dad's resting place. Even typing that feels so strange. Before it was just dad's resting place... mum is there resting too. It's their resting place...

I know the route there almost off by heart, know that building, the altar, the deities and where dad's remains are kept... I know where mum's remains are kept... I'm not there, for the first time in five years, I am not there to worship dad (and for the first time, mum...)  It feels so sour, and is very difficult

Five years since dad passed away. So much has happened. Too much... Two people who are so dear, so centre to my life, gone...

And I am the one left on this world, let to still stand, left to fight and find my way in life, at this moment more than ever before, feeling crippled and exhausted to even breathe...

Morning after

310113.0234

I feel so groggy. Went to bed close to one, and just as I was about to fall asleep, I woke up again. I could not sleep till four hours or so later. And had to get up three hours or so later...

So tired, so tortured. My body and mind cannot take this much longer. How long can I go through this vicious cycle of sleeplessness and lying in bed with running thoughts and commentary? When I lie there, it's just images and the past that accompany me deep into the night. They keep me awake, they accompany me yet also make me feel ever so lonely, because next to me the bed is empty. Where is the person who said he'd be there for me? Where is the person when I need someone the most? Jealousy took over... Here I am going through the most difficult period of my time, mourning the loss of my mother and a dear friend, and perhaps my friend is sleeping soundly with another body next to him...

These days I'm scared, so scared at night.
And what is scarier than being afraid of yourself? Being afraid of what you might do to yourself...? Being unafraid of what people might think or how much they might hurt if you were to one day disappear...? I have not really entertained these vile thoughts. Not until now...

What's wrong? Nothing feels right. But things are just the way they are. Why should anything feel any less or more different?

Bike tensions

It's a bike. The bike I bought last year for my birthday as I prepared for a round-the-island trip. Remember I biked some 130km or so till my knee began acting up? I had to stop and put the bike in the basement of my brother's mother-in-law's. I remember at the time I was called irresponsible for just leaving things here and there. But at the time I didn't know I could not go home to sort out my belongings due to a entry embargo.

I asked my brother the other day to help me get the bike to mum's place so that it can be shipped together with the all the cargo bound for Canada. He said it shouldn't be a problem, and I advised him to just get a transport company to send it to mum's place.

Today he called and sounded irate. He wants to transport the bike by car as he's planning to drive up. He wants to take the bike apart. Where is the instruction manual? Where is the protective bag? What do you mean you dont know where things are? It was six months ago! How much has happened since?
How do I do this? You know how much I have to take care of here?

I don't. I don't know how things are or how stressed he may be. Maybe it's really so much work... Taking care of the baby, wife, arranging for the house to be rented out, arranging for the goods at home to be picked up, arranging to clear out everything at home.... Maybe it's too much, and it doesn't help I'm not there to help.

I just told him to forget about it. I was close to crying. If its really so much hassle, I'll do it myself. I'll just haul it on the plane next time I go back. It'll be a lot o effort and painstaking, but it beats asking for help.

He hung up the phone. I swallowed my frustrations and anger, and my tears.

Great start to a Sunday morning...