Reunion

The family is asleep now, brother snoring in the living room, my little nephew and sister in law sleeping quietly in the spare bedroom. I'm in my bedroom, working into the wee hours of the morning, striving to prepare for another lecture on Monday.

My dream of bringing my family here has come true, family. Mum and dad would be so proud of us seeing us all together under one roof, my roof. I've extended them the warmest welcome, brought a toy and smiley balloon to greet my nephew, and prepared feasts at night and even booked a rather fancy surprise. They are family, the only family I have left, and they deserve nothing less.

We went into the mountains today and admired the changing colours of Autumn. We woke at 5ish, all of us for some reason, me included, so exhausted after 9. It was probably the longest sleep I had for weeks, though it was interrupted by noise of construction going went on all night last night...

The colours of Autumn is simply breathtaking... It breathes life into even the fullest of lives, into the greyest of imaginations and minds. Who can behold such colours and not be amazed , awed or be even the slightest persuaded in the presence of a greater being who paints with such vivid colours?

My newphew gets so excited by any playground and I spent a long time under the hot sun teaching him how to step and hold on tightly. He's so sweet, inquisitive and ever so cute, though he can be a little devil when he is tired and grumpy and wouldn't stop crying... My brother and his wife seem to be in awe at the nature and all that Canada has to offer... She confided in me she noticed that a difference yesterday when we went to a riverside park: the children and parents don't give us another look , as they do in Europe. Not a hostile look, just a look as if we are different. But in Canada, we are no more different than the rest of the population, for this is a country of immigrants. Unlike Europe which still has an issue with race and colour... Just after she said that, I watched as two squirrels, one dark furred another with a light shade of brown fur played and dashed up a nearby tree. 

Family arrives today
Excited but anxious

Missing mum

I miss mum, and saw her in my dreams... I guess it was prompted by meeting a friend who lost his mum only a few months ago. He told me how he can't bear to see pictures of his mum. He told me how his sister has become a "rogue', partying all day, not going home, and yet she posts all these pictures of their mum on Facebook all the time. He told me that and was tearing.

Just because I don't post Herr as much or as often, doesn't Mean I dont miss her or think of her. She's on my mind, in my dreams. She's a part of me. As I am a part of her. Her, and dad, are the reasons why I do things, why I feel I should strive to be  a better  person, because they were the best people they could have been, because they gave their everything to give to me and to ensure I have everything.

Would she, and dad, be proud of me?

Cut loose.

Exam done

One down, two more to go.
Exhausted from lack of sleep and the repetitive cycle of work and study every day for the past three weeks. Not yet fully done, two more to go, better than the nine I began with back in October  2011. But what a long (and at times grueling) process it has been.

I sat there after the exam and waited for the one hundred something people to exit the exam hall... So many people all want to become a lawyer. What makes me better or better qualified? Why am I even doing this? Prestige? Money? Or just the ability to call myself a lawyer and awe (most) people without even needing to say anything else?

With this exam the summer is drawing to an end. A new school term about to begin.... Maybe with a course I need to lead.

Next week, the beginning of the sixth year I am in Canada .

I lay on my bed and heard the door open, and then footsteps approach.

Shadows approached , and then the face. It was mum's face , and what joy I felt...
Joy that turned so soured and became tears and sobbing.

Happy father's day...

Developments

Been very quiet these days here, reflective of how my life had been these days...

Fell very ill two weeks ago from a bad flu. Before getting ill, I was emotionally very down and fragile...
It's the lingering effects of loss and grief. I just cant explain why I miss my parents so much these days.

Sitting alone at a Japanese restaurant I found recently. Next to me a table of middle aged people talking about how kids these days are so distant and don't take care of their parents, how kids visit once or twice a year, even if they llved in the same city... I'm just sitting here and thinking to myself how lovely they have parents to love and treasure and yet they dont... Would they miss their parents As I do so much now after they are gone...?

Other than that, it's been busy at work, and I'm slowly (maybe much too slowly...) Trying  to study for an exam in two weeks. Very quiet at woke nowadays, as nobody is around. A colleague is leaving soon for a new job, so a lot of responsiblities are going to be falling on my shoulders... Another colleague's dsughter has surgery to remove a lump, and her father in law is literally on his death bed... There was an afternoon I sat and listened to her and tries to calm her down, even though I was myself tryingg to hold back tears.

Then two dsys ago my prof wrote to me and asked if I want to lead a course in the coming semester. I was completely taken aback, as I never realised how much they valued me. My first instinct was to think "I can't..." And for the whole of that day I was very tense and nervous just at the thought of teaching and speaking in front of people for three hours.... 

My colleagues have been encouraging and told me to just do it. It is a great opportunity, and a step into teaching, some that could prove useful in the future. Who knows, maybe I'll love it and decided this is what I want to do? 

But just the thought of being a lecture scares me.... Who am I? How much credential do I have to teach ( even though it's a course about airlines business and I do know a fair bit about airlines and airplanes...) ? What if they boo me or despise me and see me as just this young boy making fool of himself? 

I told my boss I'd think about about... Deep down I am very tempted, but am also very nervous too... Deep down, as someone reminded , I know my parents would be so very proud of me (just the thought of that moves me to tears .. ) 

Motorbiking the streets of Chiayi, crisscrossing the little familair alley ways and lanes at night, sitting in the back...

With mum.

Show

This was a programme mum would sometimes stay up to watch...
She would be so engaged and captivated by the eloquent and powerful style of the talk show host and news reporters. Like an excited little girl who knows it's time to go to bed, but cannot.

Many nights I sat by her side and watched this very programme.


seeing this brought tears to my eyes.

Life

"The gods may throw the dice
Their minds as cold as ice
And someone way down here
Loses someone dear
The winner takes it all
The loser has to fall
It's simple and it's plain
Why should I complain?"

The middle of the night...

Checked my phone, and there was a message from my cousin.
Ascending colon. Cancer. Aunt.

I almost burst out crying.

Why?

WHY?!

Fking cancer... here to take another beloved person away from me.
Images of mum and dad flashed in my head.
Images of childhood summers spent at my aunt's house, and how she took care of me, and treated me like her own child...

I don't know how serious it is.

I will call tomorrow, maybe I will return home to see her soon.

State of the world

What is wrong with the world? 

Bombing kids playing football on a beach in Gaza...

And shooting down a plane laden with civilians, most probably on their way to a long anticipated holiday...

horrible, Despicable acts of pure violence against innocent people and children. 

Nothing is sacred, no lives immune to wanton acts of destruction and terror motivated by hatred and greed.

Email

Email to a friend-in-loss

"But I imagine you can understand till this day, I am still deeply affected, and I imagine that you are too. Worst thing is I dont really have anyone I can share my feelings with, and there's not really anyone close with whom I feel comfortable sharing my feelings with. Even my brother I can't talk about these things because he's got his own life and family to think about and distract him.

I think I can understand what you mean by seeing the loss of mum as something negative... It really was the end of so much struggle, so much pain, and now I just feel empty. Empty!! Like there's a big void that used to be filled with worry, fears, hospital visits and praying at night, but now there's this uneasy quite which is so disturbing. 

And in this state of quiet, I can't find anything that  really matters, or at least, I can't think of anything that really matters or makes me passionate (except perhaps my kitty cat, and nephew.....!!).

I struggle a lot to get up and do anything, even to get to work in the morning. Struggle to motivate myself to plan for my future or do things that before were so important (like my bar exams....) Its like losing mum, I've lost that drive and life   , and I have lots of difficulty finding meaning or purpose...

Perhaps most difficult of all is feeling like I've lost the ability to feel, lost the ability to love. And what is a Pisces if we cannot feel, cannot love? It's as if most of the time I am like a fish flapping about on land when I should be swimming freely and beautifully in water... It's like a lot of the time I see myself gasping for air, but I don't remember the last time I can feel like I can breathe with ease..."

Storm

I grabbed my bike in the middle of the pouring rain, and just biked.

I don't care if I got wet. I wanted to get wet.
The rain is soothing, somehow, and it felt like it was healing too.
The whole weekend I felt like I was covered in a haze of depression and lethargy, and getting drenched was what I needed.

I biked and raced along the river, and every puddle I came across, I sped through like a mad person.
I loved the way water splashed all over my legs, my feet, my clothes. I loved the way I was dripping with dirty water, and how my legs were soiled from leaves and pieces of branches.

Sometimes losing yourself and doing something out of the ordinary can be so awakening.
I felt alive.
For those rare few moments as I biked and sped down the cycle path, I felt so alive.

Another Dreamfilled night

Another night my mind was filled with dreams as I slept. Again, I seemed be looking for mum, and I woke up feeling so lonely and vulnerable in my bed.

It may be that for the past three weeks or so, since my cousin came I have been so busy and spending so much time around Someone that I've forgotten what loneliness and emptiness  feels like. And now those feelings have returned with a vengeance.

The break is over, the travels and time with my cousin and friends who were visiting are over (at times, I have to admit I was hoping it would be all over soon). Back to my home with my little cat, back to my routine of work, sleep, eat and the stuff of life.

I have to admit, I enjoyed having my cousin over, having someone in the house to be around with, having someone to take care of. I missed that...

And in so many ways, particularly the way I was showing my cousin the way things are here and explaining to her how life works here, I felt a deja vu and connection with the summer of 2011 when mum visited me and stayed for six weeks with me. How I took care of her.... How I  pampered her and showed her around and treated her like a special guest...

Perhaps those experiences then, and the experiences wirh my cousin these few weeks, remind me of what I have lost, and what I would like to find and build up once more.

losing mum

A series of powerful and frightening dreams rocked my sleep this morning.
I woke up (and slept) again and again sobbing

In the dream, mum was supposed to visit me, but somehow when the day came she never showed up. I couldn't find her, and tried so hard to reach her through all means. But she was just gone. 

I searched for her frantically, dashed around the streets like a madman. Throughout my search in vain, I thought to myself: 

"I can't lose her again! I just can't! I just can't bear to lose her one more time..."

There were all these friends, and my brother, around, but they just didnt seem to care or share my sense of desperation.

It was so painful, I screamed and  yelled and cried out for help. 

I lost mum once, but in the dream I was losing her again...

Perhaps the worst night mare I have ever had yet.

In NYC

New York City... Sinatra says if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. It's an urban jungle , wild and noisy, bustling with life, humid and dense (at least in the summer), energetic and knows no difference between night or day... There is a sense of life and excitement, a vibration and rhythm that somehow is very attractive and luring.  

Could I live here? I've wondered this to myself every time I visit. The rents and prices for everything are exorbitant, but at the same time, there are a lot of high paying jobs and opportunities I believe I could qualify for. 

Travels with friends and family

It has been a long and tiring ten days, filled with visits by my cousin and friends. Spent almost a week in toronto and the Niagara falls region, then, after the two friends who flew half way around the world left, I came back to Montreal with my cousin, and began showing her around my home town. Its not been the easiest couple of days, especially trying to coordinate the likes and schedules of several people at once. There were tensions and moments I asked myself why I even put myself in another situation of trying to arrange travels of so many people at once, but at the end of the day, it was nice seeing old friends and good to show them the country live in with a bit of pride.

Yesterday, I took my cousin to Quebec city, a complete surprise, as all I said to her was pack her bags for the day. Even half an hour after we arrived , she somehow had no clue where we were and for some reason thought we were in Ottawa... It was hilarious how some people can be so unaware of their surroundings, even when on the train there were signs and announcements that we had arrived in Quebec! 

It's been really pleasant showing my cousin around, as everything seems to fascinate her , especially the history and arts and culture of this region of the world. She's forever had this dream of moving abroad, and even has the professional training to do so, but due to language barriers has not been able to do so. As I told her, if there is anything I could do to help, i would. 

She is like the little sister  I've never had, the sibling I've always wanted... Even yesterday, when we were outside , I called my own brother just to say hello... What he showed me was this surly and irritated face, such an attitude of contempt and irritation. I hung up the phone and nearly burst out crying... My own brother, yet so little understanding or willingness to undrrstand or know about my life and what I'm doing...  

It has also very difficult at times retracing steps I took with mum three years ago in 2011. Literally, as I took my cousin through the old city of Quebec, as we walked down those cobble stone paths and walked past the restaurants and cafes, it was as if I was walking down memory lane. Memories of mum and I were everywhere to be found, around every corner... The hotel we stayed at, the ferry ride I took at night by myself to have just a little time to myself, the walls of the old city I climbed with her, the restaurant where we had exquisite food and coffee, and when I did not even flinch to order the best (and often most expensive) dishes, because I wanted her to have the best this world could offer. At that time, and how fortunate I am to have the means to do so, money was not a consideration. Making sure she was comfortable, that she enjoyed herself and forgot all about the torments of hospital beds and chemo was what mattered most. 

It was such a beautiful trip, and showing my cousin around remineded me so much of those few weeks mum was here with me. I took care of mum so well, just as I am taking care of my cousin. I remember mum saying she felt so blessed and happy here (despite the first days at my home when she and I had a terrible falling out over my sexuality...). It was lovely to show mum around, to show off the beauty and culture this country has to offer. It was extremely important, for her and for me I think, for it was a way to reassure her that I am in a safe and beautiful environment so that she needs not worry about my future whenever that day came when she is no longer around...

Sure enough, she is no longer around, and here I still am, living in the same home and in the same country as the one mum and I visited three years ago... same place, same little lanes and alleyways and gelato parlours, same field where mum stood and called my brother in Europe, yet this time around so terribly empty. 

Terribly empty...

It feels so alien and bizarre three years later to return to the same place and yet mum is no longer physically with me. Part of me feels bitter, like I am waking from a cruel dream that seemed too real and too wonderful. Part of me feels blessed and fortinare to have made such memories all on my own... Images of my brother's sour looking face and annoyed attitude just made me feel so alone in the world.

Return to Niagara falls

I cannot but think back, how two years ago I called mum at this very spot. I grit my teeth as I listened to her weak voice reminisce the past, how she and I talked about our first visit here together as a family back in 1994....

I asked if she could hear the Falls, hear the powerful sounds of nature, hear the unending echo of the flow of water... She could not feel it's power, its incessant sounds and the damp on my face.

I broke down and howled. Tears poured from my eyes like I've not done for months. I couldn't cry in front of her as her body weakened and thinned , as I watched her become skin and bones and as cancer robbed her of life and colours. The falls were so powerful, majestic, beautiful.... My mum was once so in my eyes, and has always been so beautiful, kind and patient. Yet, she was losing her life, losing her colours, and I knew that soon I would lose her...

I broke down after speaking to her.
Cried just as I am crying now. Uncontrolled outpouring of emotions, of tears that I could not cry before because I needed to be brave and strong in front of her, in front of everyone. But deep inside I was in pain, hurting and crying. Then, as I am now.

Two years on, her body has gone to ashes, her belongings stored in a space I do not dare to enter, in boxes I do not have the courage to unpack or touch. 

I watch the Falls and realise again how much I miss her... The force of nature is so raw, so strong, so powerful. It gives and it takes, and what are we but little human beings at the mercy of its whim?

Two years, twenty years later, so much has changed...

Anniversary

I woke up early to the beeping of my phone.

It was my brother, who had sent me two pictures of his dining table, at the head of which sat my nephew. Spread over the table were plates of food. Chicken, fish, vegetables, fruits,  and at the centre of it all, a picture of my parents, one taken at a restaurant in Taipei around 15 or so years ago.  I remember that dinner well, we were all there as a family. Brother was grumpy because I made him walk in the summer heat to get to the restaurant. It was a fancy place, close to the bank where dad worked at the time, and part of our annual family dinner...

Now, its just my brother and his family, and me left now.

How do I feel? Pensive, reflective, sad and slow today... Again, as much as I can 've surrounded by friends, there's that deep emptiness inside that cannot be filled... Not by booze, not by sightd of superficial people dressed in tight and colourful clothes,  not with upbeat music.

Most likely I will take some time on my own, get away and walk off the heaviness, and think of the mum (and dad) who gave me so much and made me who I am today...

I wish my parents could be proud of me and who I am...

You can be surrounded by thousands of people, surrounded by booze and party music and mood....

And yet so empty, so very empty inside.

Two years...

I feel it creeping in.

I picked up a friend, the last of three people who have flown across the world to be here this week for Pride.
It has been wonderful seeing every one, bonding again and having a good laugh and good times.

But deep down I feel the sadness boiling.
Which may explain why in the afternoon, I just slept... Slept as if I were in a dream, a trance and could not be waken up.

Deep down, I miss my late mum.

I really , really do...

Where did the days go?

Where did the days go? 

Been a month since I returned from my trip to China and North Korea. I don't know why or how the time has just flown by. Work has been extremely busy, but that doesn't explain how the days have just gone by without me noticing them. 

Been back a month, and only yesterday did I manage to unpack my suitcases... Unpack as in get the suitcases off of the floor and stuff them into the closet so they cannot be seen! And I cleaned my room, got all those papers and things lying around only because my cousin  is coming tonight.

Where did the days go? I had plans to write about my experiences during my travels, but I'm just so tired, so tired and am feeling so agitated and unable to put words to paper (or a screen). These past few weeks have been rough, not just trying to recover from a long trip filled with new experiences and excitement, but also dealing with upheavals in personal relationships (utter disregard for my personal space and privacy...) And at the same time coping with the grueling days of June, the month I saw mum fade so quickly away from our lives two years earlier...

I know it's strange and irrational, because it is all in the past. But a friend who lost her dad five years ago still hurts. Another who lost her dad twenty, thirty years ago still is close to bursting out in tears every time those raw nerves are touched. Loss and grief are so pervasive, so permanent, so powerful! I wish I could get rid of it, feel whole and not so lonely again, but I cannot. I cannot dispel the discomfort, that sense of heaviness and sorrow that robs me of minutes, hours and days without me realising it.

where did the days go? 

“I pictured myself going out in a blaze of glory, but this kind of death, this slow, invisible disappearing into nothing, it’s terrifying.”
OITNB

Something...

19 June. Ten days till the end of June, ten days till the end of mum's life two years ago (according to the western calendar).

This month has been slow and a slump. So many dreams... so many visions of mum (and dad)... Tears, emotional depletion and this terrible terrible exhaustion. Grief seems to be raring its head again, and loneliness, that damned, god-forsaken sense of emptiness and withdrawal is consuming my heart, my joys, my very soul.

There are moments I sit in the office, or stand leaning against the wall of the metro, and close my eyes. In these moments, I can hear everything going on around me, but I feel as if I am drifting, drifting and am lost like a ghost in a world full of noise, full of life.

And I feel so small... so insignificant and so weak again.
I was getting stronger, and have been healing myself with travels and explorations of the world out there (despite what people may point and say...). But moments like this make me feel like I am taking steps back, like I am stumbling and falling all over again.

May, the month of mum's birthday and Mother's Day...
June, the month that two years ago was filled with dashed hopes, flying across the world and trying to make a dying person's last moments comfortable and filled with love. 

When I open my eyes, I see the world move all around me. I feel the world spin and feel like everything has just been a dream. A dream. A dream one has during a brief nap.


But I am not alone. I realise this more and more as events have been unfolding in the lives of people and friends around me. There is no monopoly on loss, pain and grief. I see it on the face on the hapless lady sitting alone on  the park... I see it in empty eyes of a homeless man searching for a hint of mercy and compassion. Losses and emotional traumas are abound, and we are all here in our shared experience of grief and pain, in our yearning for happiness and comfort.

Sob

It began out of nowhere, slowly at first then this violent sobbing...

I yearned for mum, long for her touch and embrace...

I am hurting so badly.
I need human contact. 

Arriving in PEK

It's massive. The gigantic triangular terminal building looks like something from the future. White steel girders align the roof while see through glass panes decorate the sides. It's awe-inspiring, breathtaking, and very empty. I tread carefully on the ground, and took my first steps in the People's Republic. 

Passengers alighting from the flight from Narita seemed to be the only passengers in the terminal building, and it was only a little after eight in the evening. I rode the people mover from the international section to the domestic side to the baggage claim area. It took over ten minutes to traverse one of the largest (hu)man-made structures in the world.

Immigration was efficient, and the lady smiled at me as she flipped through my passport, which bears various entry and exit stamps from Taiwan. I was somewhat apprehensive, for there was always the fear of being denied entry at the border, particularly as I have always been a very outspoken critic of the Chinese government. A month earlier, when I applied for entry to the People's Republic, I wrote "Taipei" as my place of birth. That was where I was born. But that was not enough. The lady at the visa office sternly told me to put "Taipei, China". To the Chinese government that makes all the difference. To some, a word makes all the difference. In the section asking if I held another passport, the lady insisted that I declare myself as being Chinese. "Taiwan is a part of China, you must say you hold a passport of China." 

In an Orwellian world where manipulation is information, where an untruth repeated a hundred times becomes holier than the truth itself, where Big Brother is your friend in need and can be your worst nightmare, an individual cannot object or argue. There is no individual to speak of, no individual thought or dissent that can be tolerated. 

The question is do you disobey your conscience and conform without protest? Is conforming forsaking your beliefs and a betrayal of your very identity? Is not protesting a sign of agreement? These are questions that I wrestled with even before I stepped foot in the countries I planned to visit.  

The greatest irony of all is that my Chinese visa was issued on the page opposite my previous visa for Taiwan. A picture of the Great Wall of China face to face with a Formosan Blue Pheasant.  

At the time, I said nothing, but felt this rage inside. This was a test of my personal pride, challenging the fundamentals of me as a human being. Even before beginning my journey to the People's Republic I wrestled with my conscience and beliefs. Technically, my country of birth is at war with China, and I staunchly refuse to buy products that are Made in China (partly because of politics, but partly they are simply substandard and often made under terrible labour conditions). Are my beliefs being compromised simply by entering a country whose politics and policies leave a sour taste in my mouth? 

If this were the case,  then my travels to Burma/Myanmar, Israel, the United States or even Singapore, may have made me a hypocrite. If this were the case, then certainly visiting China (and then north Korea) would undermine the core values of individual freedom, democracy and freedom from fear that I subscribe to. I am not trying to justify my wanderlust or brush over the choice of countries I travel to, but as I grow older I do feel one should differentiate between endorsement of a particular regime and the destination you wish to visit. You are after all, visiting the country, the people (if you can even speak to or approach them...), even though at times traveling somewhere as a tourist means you are effectively bankrolling a regime. 

"China warmly welcomes you !" a massive sign said in English, and the message was repeated in a variety of languages. As I waited for the airport people mover, an automatic train that spans the length of the massive terminal building, I heard soft classical music emitted from hidden speakers. Classical music? Is that not, according to Mao and the Chinese Communist Party at one point in time , western and  bourgeois culture that needs to be uprooted and eradicated? Little did I realise that this would be the first of many contradictions and surprises on my maiden voyage tot he People's Republic of China. 

The half an hour taxi ride to downtown Beijing went without much conversation, except for the initial outbursts from the driver in heavily accented Mandarin I was not used to. I told the driver where I would like to go, and said a friend recommended that it would most convenient to a taxi. "Your friend is so bad! Very bad!" The driver kept on shouting. "(S)he  gave you bad information! Why is (s) he so bad?!" He was outraged that I could have taken the airport express and was somehow duped into taking a taxi. The driver then went on a rant about how bad the traffic would be, how it might take over an hour just stuck on the road. I sat in the back and listened to the strange outburst and tried in vain to find the seat belt fastener.

Luckily, the roads were relatively smooth, unlike the dreaded jams that I have heard so much about. with the growing middle class, large cities Iike Beijing has had to contend with growing car ownership and ever worsening traffic and smog. One measure was to institute an alternative day driving scheme, whereby cars with certain number plates are only allowed on the roads on certain days (Sunday's all the cars can go on the road...). Suddenly,  the driver cranked down his window and without asking just lit up a cigarette. It had been a while since i last visited a place where people smoke anywhere and everywhere, and where it is still common (for men) for the newly acquainted to offer one another a cigarette. Little was I prepared for the coming three weeks, in which every day at the end of the day I and my clothes would reek as if I had been smoking all day. 

I admired the broad streets and avenues lit with neon lights and colourful advertising billboards. The closer we got to Beijing, the more highrises there were. Modern, futuristic skyscrapers all vying to reach the heavens. And if they were not enough, there were bushes of construction cranes and scaffolding ready to unveil even more glitzy highrise buildings. Cities like Beijing (and Shanghai) has in the past decade constructed many more skyscrapers than its counterparts in North America and Europe. 

Feast for mum

I woke up early and cooked up a feast for mum.
Two years it has been. Two years...

My heart was heavy, and I miss her terribly. But in cooking, in laying out all those fruits (raspberries, blueberries, currants, pineapples...) and drinks she so loved (Evian, Perrier, soya milk...), I felt I honoured her life, her love.

I sat on the ground before the offerings and closed my eyes.
A lot of noise and nonsense and inner chatter from past and recent events I tried to shut away. They are so irrelevant, so trivial, so meaningless to what really matters in life...

I asked mum for her blessings, asked her to kindly look over my little nephew and my brother's family...
At one point the cat approached me and sat down with me a while. She looked around as if "something" was there...



I know not what she thinks of me now...
But from facebook, from a picture of her I posted clunching the bear that she once gave me, I know many of mum's dear friends miss her much too.

I tried to get a hold of my brother when the ceremony was coming to an end, as I wanted my nephew to be "here".
I only managed to get a hold of them an hour later, but still it was beautiful to see them over skype.

My nephew cute as ever, my sister in law chasing after him as he hopped around the house...

My brother and I spoke for over an hour and a half... about their upcoming trip, about his big plans for his family and about his plans for the future.

I hope mum saw us and listened to us bond with a smile.

I can't think of a better gift for mum than to remember her, and to let her know that the family she created is continuing to thrive and coming closer together...

Anniversary eve

The teddy bear mum gave me and said  I should keep forever, for he would protect me after she is gone, is lost... I thought of him tod thesy because I was planning to organise a ceremony to honour my mum. This will be the first time that bear will not be attending the ceremony.

But what matters is that I attend, that I still remember, that I still cherish the moments mum and I had together, however difficult the remembering may be sometimes. 

I've been emotional for the past week or so, partly due to this, partly due to some upheavals in relationships with friends. At the end of the day,  what is more important? I choose to focus my energies on commemorating mum, and it is energy and time much better spent.

With the help of a friend, I managed to get a hold of a whole chicken, cut up and nicely presented. It is perhaps the most important dish, the most symbolic dish. Chicken is homynous with "family" in the native language I used to speak to mum in, a language I have not used much since she left. Chicken symbolises continuity of family, of family relationships even after the departure of a loved one. I will offer this chicken to mum, and remember when I take bites into it.

Two years now, according to the lunar calendar, since mum left this world. I remember all that , events of that very day so vidivdly .... How I wrote a note and left it in her pocket, my final note to mum, my final farewell note.... How I held her hand till the very last moment, till the very last breath...

Two years... Two years...

I hope mum is doing well. I miss her terribly, more on days, painfully on other days. I think of her fondly. She was my mother, the one who have me love and affection and taught me all about honesty, giving, kindness and compassion... The one who showed me kindness, love, warmth and affection I have never experienced in my life, and I doubt willl ever experience again in the same way.

This night I remember the moments, the final houes  I spent next to mum's bedside.

Tomorrow I will honour her presence, her love, and her life.

Mum, I miss you...