Letter to ancestors

I went into the store and was embarrassed to ask for what I wanted. "A pack of Marlboro Light..."
I was embarrassed to be associated with the terrible stigma (at least according to me...) of "smoker". I actually wanted to tell the convenience store kid "It's not for me!" But probably the guy will think of me strange. Wouldn't you when someone comes to buy a pack of cigarettes at eleven in the evening and say it's not for him?

It really wasn't for me, but for my ancestors and for my dad. In around two weeks is Tombsweeping Festival, the day when we commemorate the deceased (there are a number of these days throughout the lunar calendar...). As we want to beat the crowds (it gets really crazy and crowded...), I asked my sister-in-law to come up with my nephew, and tomorrow we'll go to dad's resting place early in the morning. My aunt helped to buy a lot of prepared dishes, so all I have to do is cook some rice and pack everything in the morning, and I'd be ready to leave.

Besides the packet of cigarettes (really, not for me!!), I included a letter I handwrote. A letter to my ancestors and dad asking for their forgiveness that mum cannot be there again (she could not be there on Lunar New Year's Eve, because she just left the hospital) as she is now in hospital again. I'm sure they would not mind, but still I wanted to write to them and tell them that from now on, mum probably cannot prepare elaborate feasts and offerings on special occasions. She is simply too frail and too ill to get up and have to cook and travel an hour and a half away and perform a whole ceremony of offerings. In my letter, I wrote as long as I live, I will take over the task of making offerings, and I promise to do that at least twice a year, wherever I may be. (In fact, I have been doing that for the last two years, so I hope my ancestors will be used to my cooking!)

In my letter I also asked for the ancestors' protection, something I will again pray for tomorrow when I am standing before the ancestral plaque. "Take care of mum, may her remaining days be happy and free from bodily and mental pains... And if she should go, dad please guide her and allow her to steadily, steadily leave this world..."

How desperate I have become... But at a time when there is nothing else to cling onto, when all hope and prayer to some supreme force in the universe seem senseless, traditions and prayers to those long gone are all I have.

Dearest Dad...

Dearest Dad, 

I know it's strange to be writing to you on a blog entry. But it seems nowadays you are the closest to me, even though you are no longer with me. I see you every day, I see you smile and look at me every day...

Look at me writing to you, crying, pleading for help! I promised myself I would not do so when you passed away. I promised myself to be strong, to make you proud, and now I feel like I am disappointing you so...Dad, you heard what mum just said about the portrait she wants for her funeral... Dad, you heard about how mum just wants it all to be  "simple"... Dad, you heard the discussions and rows we have been having over the past few days. I know, perhaps I should not be rude to mum, perhaps I should give her some space and just let her be... But how can I not feel anxious and worried when I see my own dear mother withdraw more and more and become so helpless it seems?

Dad, do you not see the tears that are falling so heavily now after more than two months of holding them in? Whatever I do, whatever I say, somehow it ends with mum reacting angrily back. Is it her illness talking? Is it her physical discomfort and mental pain that is making her so bitter and so angry? I am forcing her to do thing she does not want, she says, making her even more ill than she already is. Is it really my tone of voice? Is it really my impatience and simmering frustrations that are making me be or sound so very unkind to her? Is it my own inability to finally be confronted with symptoms of her gradual physical decline and imminent demise that I am getting angry and angrier? Why do I become so speechless and so deeply, deeply hurt when mum shouts back at me...? Am I really getting on her nerves, confining her personal space and freedom? All I want to do is help her, make sure she is comfortable and cared for, not cause her more pain or frustrations. But these days, it seems all I cause her is anger and  pain...

I know deep down, mum is hurting too and that she is hurting even much, much more. I cannot fully appreciate what it feels like to gradually lose the ability to write or hold chopsticks. I cannot fully comprehend the pain and perhaps even embarrassment of needing help for the simplest of chores that were so taken for granted before. I cannot possibly know what it feels like to live with this vile, disgusting disease growing inside that you cannot get rid of, and that keeps on growing and spreading. No, I cannot know how mum is feeling or hurting...

But does it not also pain you to see her sit there, almost all day, every day, and stare into blank space? Does it pain you not to see someone you love and care about more than dear life descend into depression and fringe on self-loathing? I really have tried, dad, tried and try even more to make her feel better, to provide her with nutritious foods and to make her go out more. I would like her to reach out to welfare workers, get a new (second) opinion on her condition, and contemplate the possibilities there are beyond just treatment, treatment, treatment. But I seem more and more unable to move her, and more and more I feel this growing gap descend between us...A gap filled with occasional outbursts or mum just waving her hand and dismissing what I would like to say.

Tell me if I really am being unfair and unkind to mother... let me know if I  really am failing in my duty as a son who just wishes his own mother could get better soon, and if not get better then at least feel better. Give me a sign, tell me what I am doing wrong, how perhaps I am failing her, failing you. For I really am so tired and so lost, so tested and so pushed to the limits I am unsure where to turn to, except to you, dad, who has long gone, and who looks down at us with that perpetual smile of yours... 

I must be going so insane to resort writing to you, dad... But desperate times calls for...

your son forever, 

with love, and tears,

....

Release

(English version of the song "Fairytale" 童話）

"I hope dad will always, always protect and safeguard this family and everyone's health and happiness..."

As I wrote, there were moments when I could hardly contain my tears. I tuned into the song I heard on the radio the other day, the same song that was played at dad's cremation four years ago.

For the first time since my return, as I wrote I felt desperation and weakness consume my deepest and most fragile core. And I felt myself crack and break, felt that brave, brave mask I have been putting on crumble and fall. Fall with tears and sorrow that I have yet to express to anyone. It seems the only person I can truly open up to now is one who is already long gone...



It truly has been a long and difficult year. Long-awaited dreams were realised, beautiful dreams, beautiful memories of travels and laughters with mum... But those have been countered and subsumed by the turbulent circumstances surrounding mum's ailing health, which continues to weigh heavily on my mind and soul.

All that has happened over the past three weeks, and even before that, all those visits to the hospital, all that waiting for results, only to  be told that more scans are necessary, more treatment is necessary... Dad must have seen it all, must have seen how tired mum has grown, how worn out mum has become. And dad must know what heavy toll it has taken on my life, what I have had to forgo time and again to rush back and forth between here and my attempts to settle down...

This is my life. This is the way things are, and I can only accept things are they are. But oh how I wish there were a source of strength I could turn to, how I wish I could have a trusted  companion who could hold me, and stroke my head softly to reassure me. Is that being too needy? Does not every human being need some kind of external strength and outlet?

For the first time, I asked dad for guidance and support, asked for his blessing, even though I know that he would not want to see me so deflated and so desperately crying out for help. But more and more, I find myself so very lonely and lost that when I sleep I find myself hugging myself so tightly as if I am afraid of getting hurt... Dad, I do hope you can hear your dear son's prayers... Dad, I do hope if you are watching, watching everything unfold and deteriorate, you can come and soothe mum's pain, soothe my frustrations, and support this family as you used to...

Why do I do it? Why do I put myself through the pain and memories of writing to someone who has been dead and out of my life for almost four years?

Because he is my dad...
Because

"Dad, I miss you... I miss you so very, very much..."

( The music video is very difficult to watch...)

Letter to dad

Two more days (according to the lunar calendar), and it is the anniversary of dad's passing. I started my tradition of writing to him tonight, this one the fourth letter I will be writing.

I started late this year, because of all that has been going on over the past three weeks. And only late at night do I have the time and peace and quiet to sit down and write. Here I am, typing away at one in the morning, with dad's smiling portrait on the wall next to me, the sound of brother snoring a few steps away, and the sound of my nephew occasionally stirring and crying suddenly in his sleep.

What do I write? Where do I begin?

There is so much to say, so much to recount... The completion of my thesis, and my degree, which I began just months after dad left this world... My progress in establishing myself in Canada... Mum's condition, which has steadily deteriorated, and is still very much very fragile and worrying, and the new treatment now just days away... My first real relationship, how happy and blessed I felt just a year ago, and how shortlived that all was, and how deeply hurt I still am from the long drawn-out breakup... What else is there to write about? My hopes, my dreams, my longings, my fears... My creeping sense  of loneliness, my feelings of helplessness, the feelings of being abandoned and alone to fend against mounting difficulties, my desires, my fantasies, and my frustrations...

Dad, hear my prayers... You see and know what I have done and gone through this past year...

Dad, I do hope you still are, and will be, proud of me.