How do you title a post like this?

I decided earlier today that I would blog tonight since it’s been so long and since I am, for this one evening, caught up (well, sort of, anyway).  I’d already titled the blog: “The Perils of People-Pleasing and Perfectionism: Alliterative Life Lessons.” Titles are fun, right? But the day has taken a turn, so I’ll have to save that for next time. And, curiously, I can’t think of a damn thing to title this post. 

For the past week or so I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot. “Isn’t that a given,” you might ask? Well, no, actually it’s not. Since they left and I began the new job, I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to think about anything other than the day in front of me. There’s been some purposeful avoidance, too, I’m guessing. It’s not that I don’t think about the fact that she’s halfway across the world dying of cancer. That thought crosses my mind several times a day. But I haven’t really allowed myself to internalize that, to really think about what that means. Instead, I’ve been running from everything these days and feeling increasingly angry at everyone and everything in the process. I’m just pissed. I want to scream and lash out. And every time Bennett throws one of his massive toddler tantrums, I want to join him. Instead, I’ve been holding him, talking quietly to him, loving him through it—and it helps. It feels cathartic for me as well.

Over the past few days, however, my anxiety has been through the roof. I’ve woken up several times in the middle of the night thinking that I’ve heard my phone; I keep waiting for the phone call from my dad with bad news about my mom. But the last time I talked to my dad he told me that things were “about the same” as when they left. I didn’t believe him, of course, and that probably served to heighten my concern. He’s a reliably unreliable source when it comes to these things. So I wanted to check in again, but because of the time difference, I had to wait all day to call. By Bennett’s bedtime the feeling was so intense that I paused our book reading to call my dad. I never cease to be amazed by these strange moments of connectedness or knowingness that come upon us suddenly and strongly. My dad didn’t answer, but he called me soon after to tell me that my mom is in the hospital. For now, it’s just some fluid on her lung that they had to drain, but then he also came clean about the rest.  She can barely walk these days. She doesn’t really talk very much. She is having some hand/eye coordination issues. They hadn’t been telling us because they "didn’t want us to worry," which is what I suspected anyway. And then he dropped the bomb. He explained that he sort of regretted seeing his mother in her deteriorated state right before she died and suggested that he and my mother didn’t really want that for us. He did say that he would leave it up to us, but I can tell that they would rather we didn’t come.

I contemplated not going for a minute. I tried to imagine what that would feel like. Not going, of course, would mean that our final moments here would be the ones that I carried with me. In some ways, that appeals to me. I haven’t shared those last moments with anyone: not friends, not my partner, not my therapist, not my siblings. I’ve barely looked at them myself. I tucked them away because I couldn’t bear to think about them. Her last words to me were full of all the wistfulness, tenderness, and love of our lifetime lived together and all the regret, sorrow and longing for that lifetime unlived, both past and future.  There’s a part of me that wants to preserve that…but I know I’d regret that decision.

While cooking this evening, I put something away in the cabinet and saw the sesame seed oil that she bought while she was here; I was struck by so much grief and heartache that I could barely finish cooking. All of those things that drove me crazy—the way she took over my space whenever she was around, the way she rearranged drawers and cabinets to suit her needs—were suddenly deep losses. She’ll never be the boss in my kitchen again. She’ll never feed me again. She’ll never cook for my child. She found so much pleasure in feeding us—watching us eat, making us our favorites, relishing how much we love Korean food.  She was a fierce and formidable woman. She was wounded and short-tempered. But she was also mine. Now she’s weak and vacant. And soon, in that way that mother and child belong to one another, I won’t belong to anyone anymore. Whatever good, bad or un-nameable things have passed between us, when she gave me life she anchored me to the world, and now I feel like I’ve been unmoored from something and set adrift. So I’ll go, of course…to see myself off as much as her and to honor all that she has been to me.

I keep thinking of this poem by Rabindranath Tagore; I’ll leave you with it:

Peace, My Heart

Peace, my heart, let the time for


the parting be sweet.


Let it not be a death but completeness.

Let love melt into memory and pain


into songs.


Let the flight through the sky end


in the folding of the wings over the


nest.


Let the last touch of your hands be


gentle like the flower of the night.


Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a


moment, and say your last words in


silence.


I bow to you and hold up my lamp


to light you on your way.

Comings and Goings

I hadn’t anticipated writing again so soon, but over the past day or so we’ve made some big decisions regarding my mother and her care: we’ve decided that she will be more comfortable in Korea for whatever time remains. I know…it feels big and shocking. At least it does to me. I guess I hadn’t anticipated this happening. But nothing is easy or predictable about watching a loved one die or, for that matter, being the one who’s dying. It’s hard to foresee what the needs—be they physical, emotional, spiritual, etc.—will be.

I’ve sensed for some time now that my mother is homesick. For the past decade, my parents have spent time building a life in Korea. Their faith community, their friends, and their possessions—all of this is in Korea. Beyond that, however, I think Korea has simply become home again for my mother in some more meaningful way. For a long time, that wasn’t the case. After marrying my dad and leaving Korea, she rarely had cause to go back. Her mother and brother followed her to the US shortly after I was born, so she spent nearly 28 years away from Korea before returning ten years ago. But all that has changed over the past decade. She is, we joke, a “real” Korean now.

When we made the decision to move her here, I think we were all in a state of panic, uncertain about what kind of time we had and how quickly the cancer would progress. And we all needed some time with her to find closure, to make her feel loved and to feel tangibly loved by her. We feel good about the fact that she has spent her most well and able-bodied time with us. She’s held her grandchildren, watched them play, and loved them. 

As she gets less well each day, I began to imagine what it must feel like to be away from everything that feels comfortable and familiar. We are limited here. My skills and resources limit my ability to provide her daily with the kind of food, the only food, that she seems to stomach well. But we are limited in other ways. I’ve given all I have to offer—my time, my home, my love, my compassion, concern and companionship. It has been, I feel, enough for her in many ways. In other ways, though, there are parts of her that I cannot feed. The places from which she derives, and has always derived, the most comfort and peace—God, church, faith community—can’t be found here with us, and I can think of no more important time than now for her to surround herself with those things.

Making the decision to let her go was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to be a part of making thus far in my life. It’s incredibly agonizing, unbearable even, to watch one’s mother die slowly. But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some sense of relief that I no longer have to do that. The alternative, though, is not watching one’s mother die, and it’s an equally agonizing prospect. The fact that I won’t be there to care for her, to anticipate her needs—it feels wrong. Yet, as wrong as that feels, the decision to let her return to the place where I know she will be the most comfortable and peaceful, feels right.

There are no easy decisions here. Either carries with it some unmanageable weight. In the end, though, it seemed clear. We did our best to release her from the guilt of leaving us. She feels torn, I know, but the time for worrying about us...well that has passed. It’s our turn now to take on some of that worry. 

The week ahead feels daunting. How do you cram it all in? How does one make space for all of the past, the aching present and the tenuous future? How does one make someone feel loved enough to go? How does one say goodbye, knowing that it very well might be the last time? I want to get it right. But I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know if I’ve done any of this right. I’ve done my best, and I hope that when I look back on this moment five years from now or ten years from now, that I’ll still feel like we made the right choice. But just in case I don’t, I’m reminding that future self that at this moment in time, we made the best decision possible in an impossible situation.

If you think of us this week, we’d be grateful. 

What’s Yours is Mine, and What’s Mine is Mine...

People keep asking me how I am, how my mom’s doing, how things are going, etc. Typically, I don’t know how to answer so I mumble something like, “she’s doing pretty well right now” or “things are going okay, and I’m fine.” The truth is that most of the time, I don’t know. I’m discovering that death and dying are difficult, but not always (or at least not immediately) in the ways that we imagine or expect. My parents aren’t interested in dwelling on or discussing death, so we don’t. And for the time being, my mom is stable and well enough that while the C-word is still the elephant in the room, we’ve learned how to walk around it without stubbing our toes. In the meantime, it’s easy to get bogged down in the everyday task of living. It’s easy to forget why we’re here together and what we’re doing.

As it turns out, my almost two year old and I are having similar issues. Namely, sharing is HARD. These days it feels like nothing is my own anymore. Everything is up for grabs: my spot on the couch, my television, my car, my time, even my food! The other day I went to Bloomingfoods (the local co-op, for you non-Bloomington folks) to grab a few things for dinner and decided, while I was there, to make myself a salad for lunch. Before I came home I asked everyone if they needed/wanted anything, but they all said that they were set. So I returned with the groceries and my delicious salad in tow. I purposely waited until my son was done eating his lunch because sometimes the up-and-down of mealtime is exhausting and because sometimes I just don’t want to share (parents, you know what I mean, right?). So you can imagine my irritation when I prepared to take the first bite of my salad and a pair of chopsticks swooped down in swift Mr. Miyagi fashion: “Oh! Let me have some!” my mother exclaimed, while quickly relocating half of my lunch to her already-emptied plate. “Was this just for you? Or was it for all of us?” she asked. “You can have as much as you want,” I replied. On the inside, though, I was annoyed. It’s always like this. Someone goes on an ice cream run and she says over and over that she doesn’t want any. But we’ve learned to bring her some anyway or get a larger size than we’d intended for ourselves, because her spoon will inevitably make it into the cup—and probably more times than the ice cream’s original owner.

It’s not that I begrudge her the food. I’m happy that she’s eating, and that she has an appetite. (It’s kind of a running joke in our house that my mom is the resident compost center. She eats all the time these days, and she’ll take care of any leftovers on someone else’s plate. She’s always been a little bit like this, but I think the steroids have given her appetite a serious boost.) I recognize that when I have that impulse to throw myself on the floor screaming, “MINE!” it’s not about the food or the car or the television, however much it feels like it in the moment. It’s about desperately trying to reclaim a little corner of space for myself. 

The Korean sense of community and loyalty is sometimes stifling and oppressive in its expectation and demand, but it’s also one of the most astounding aspects of the culture. In Korea, as in many other countries, it’s not uncommon for several generations to live together. There, you’ll also find communal bath houses that families (usually separated by gender) frequent together; employees mill around willing to offer a hand, literally, in case the patrons would like a good scrub down.* In 1997 during the Asian financial crisis, tens of thousands of people participated in a gold collection campaign to help their nation repay their IMF debt. And in 2007, entire towns banded together to clean up a coastline after the oil spill. They lavish newlyweds with exorbitant sums of money, everyone bringing their own money-stuffed envelope to contribute to the pot. They bring food by the truckload on a daily basis during times of crisis, and they pray with a kind of fervor and devotion that I’ve rarely witnessed elsewhere. Closer to home, when my parents left Korea, they did so thousands of dollars richer from all of the gifts that both friends and strangers bestowed on them. I’ve been indoctrinated with all of these reasons why “Korea is best” and, like a good student, have since filed all of this away in that folder of my experience labeled “the Korean way.”

*I get a little weirded out by all the bodies in the locker room at the Y, so those communal baths (jimjilbangs) consist of a little too much closeness and sharing of bodily space, fluids, etc. for me. 

I feel, strongly, my sense of duty and obligation as the eldest and as the child of a Korean mother. But I am also compelled, as a daughter, by my love for my mother and by the impulse to draw her near during this time and make sure she has whatever she needs. Still, sometimes I throw twelve internal tantrums a day, crying out for space. It feels like nearly every inch of my house has been invaded and snatched up by alien creatures. These people gave me life. I grew up with them. But I haven’t lived at home since I was 18 years old, so at times they feel foreign. Their habits, their practices, their beliefs—they aren’t mine. If you move in with your parents later in life, I think you expect to sacrifice a little (or a whole lot) of your personal space, habits, etc. You revert to the dynamics of those early years when you were the child and they were the adults. But what happens when your parents move in with you? When you become the caretaker and they become the ones being cared for? Well let me tell you, they bring their baggage with them, and those bags are bulging with parental-ness, with past practices, with questions and assumptions. At least mine did. The thing is, they’re no different. They’re the same people they’ve always been. I’m the one who has changed. I don’t think we ever stop being parents. As we grow into new ways of being in the world, however, we do stop being children in certain ways. I’m working to find the balance between the life I’ve carved out for myself and the life that they carved out for me. I’m struggling to discover a way for both of those narratives to exist in the shared space between us. But it’s not an easy task. Some days there’s less of me than I’d like. On those days, I remind myself again why we’re here, and the big picture comes back into focus.

These days, however, we’re just muddling through the day-to-day, and some struggles, apparently, are universal. Last night my partner stopped to pick up ice cream for everyone on her way home. This time I wasn’t really feeling into it, so I asked my mom if she wanted to get a medium cyclone and share a little bit with me. “No!” she exclaimed, “I don’t want to share tonight. I want my own!” My eyes bulged, “SERIOUSLY?!” Ugh. Well okay, then. I get that. But geez. 

A Thousand Words

I’ve been going through old pictures lately—scanning, saving, and uploading. I’ve looked at these albums so many times over the years that I know which pictures are in which albums (and there are A LOT of albums), and I know which pictures I’ll see before I turn page; they’re old friends. As the past rushes up to meet me, it grounds me in the present moment: “I was there, then….I am here, now.”

While I was growing up, we moved every 3-4 years because my dad was in the Air Force. Moving meant purging and packing. I was good at the purging. I didn’t attach strongly to many objects. Aside from my ever-growing collection of books, I carried only a few objects from place to place. But the photo albums, those were dear to me. I would haul them out of their closets or cabinets and spend time studying them, remembering moments, people, and feelings.  

My mom took pictures all the time, and she liked to direct the shots. She was sloooooow about it. She would give orders and wait until we shuffled ourselves into place—our very own Olan Mills (there are some truly ghastly real-deal Olan Mills’ specials tucked away somewhere). But she was also really good at capturing those candid moments as well—laughter, tears, surprise, etc. I’m terrified to think what she might have been like in our age, the age of the smart phone, with constant access to a camera. Back then, there were still rolls of film to develop; you couldn’t get too click-crazy. I suppose she would have been much like I am now: I take pictures of my son nearly every day. Between the sleep deprivation, relative sameness of our days and the passage of time, I’m sure I’ll forget much of his growing up. Not the big things, of course, but those quiet, funny or tender moments which begin and end in a matter of seconds before the next tantrum happens or our collective attention wanders to something else. These pictures don’t account for all of those gaps, but they do fill in the spaces a bit. They act as signposts, marking time for us.

As I’ve gotten older, however, I’ve discovered that these old photos function in another way for me. Often, they are windows into things I didn’t know/couldn’t see/didn’t understand when those pictures were taken. Although the pictures have remained unchanged, the stories they tell have shifted over the years.  When I look at them now, I see them not only as my child-self but also as my adult-self and, now, as a mother. Looking at them I discover lost tableaus of tenderness. I catch glimpses of parental pride. I recognize the tedious work of childrearing made somehow more perfect and less mundane by the lens.

Life tick-tocks around us. Our bodies succumb to gravity. We bald or go grey. We move in one direction, from birth to death (unless you’re Doctor Who, I suppose).  Photographs, on the other hand, are amaranthine and ephemeral: they outlast us, and they expire the moment they are taken. They show us everything and nothing at all. Sometimes they lie to us. Sometimes they tell us more truth than we can otherwise tell ourselves. And sometimes they reveal love stories that got buried beneath scraps of pain, heaps of time and whole junkyards of silences and secrets. So I keep looking.