3 posts tagged “family”
Last week was a pretty powerful week.
Friday before last, I got a call from my Mom about my grandmother; "Accha". In Singhalese, the affectionate and respectful name for grandmother is Accha, like grandma. Accha had contracted cancer a couple of years and had been fighting it quite well since then. But this Spring, she took a bad turn and then began to deteriorate quickly. A few weeks back, at age 80, she entered Hospice care. My mother was calling me that Friday to let me know the Hospice nurse had advised her that she only had a few days left.
A couple months back, I went to visit her in Maryland when I heard that she wasn't doing so well. Her short-term memory was gone by then and she was quite frail but she was flowing with stories and smiles. She remembered things about me that I couldn't remember. I sat and stuffed myself with rice 'n' curry and just listened to her share her these precious memories.
When I got the call that Friday, I booked a flight and flew back to Maryland that next day. I went straight to my aunt's house where she was. My sister was there, 7 months pregnant, with my niece Ava of 6 years along with my mother, stepfather, aunt, and cousin Avi. I went straight upstairs to see my grandmother.
She was lying asleep peacefully in a room bathed in warm amber light, the light hum of a fan barely audible as it stirred the warm air. Pictures of family and friends adorned the wall next to her. I sat with her for a few hours and read a Hospice booklet on the stages of dying.
I read about how there are many stages in how the mind, body, and spirit let go in different ways. And as I sat with her, I was amazed to see how much of my dear Accha was still there. When I spoke to her, sometimes I would get a murmur, sometimes a movement of her foot, and sometimes a squeeze of my hand. She was there and she definitely could hear me. I did not expect this.
As I read more and sat with her on my own, I realized how important it was for me to say goodbye to her, to let her know what she meant to me, that I would be OK, that it was OK for her to go. I sat and meditated next to her, opening myself up as much as possible. I felt her love, her pain, and sensed her fear.
I stroked her brow and told her I loved her, that I appreciated the things she did for me, and that when I was younger I did not but that I see how much she tried to do for me then. And I told her I was OK, that the family would be OK, and that it was alright for her to go, to not be scared. And when I was done, my grandmother had not moved at all but there was a single tear flowing down her cheek.
Later, in the middle of my night, my cousin woke me to let me know that Accha was "awake". We all rushed up stairs, gathering around her bed. My grandmother's eyes were only half-open but she was much more alert than I could have imagined; she knew we were all there. My mother, aunt, sister, cousin, and I all sat around her, joining hands with her and one another. We recalled our memories of her to her, shared our love and affection, and let her know it was OK to move on, to say goodbye to us. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life.
After that night, I resigned myself to not disturb her again. As the Hospice nurse echoed, she was walking down a path and every time she stopped to talk to one of us, it made it harder to return to that path. Once I had said my goodbye to her, I knew she had to finish that walk on her own as scary as I knew it may be for her to do.
The Hospice booklet said that we die as we live. And my grandmother was a strong woman who put so many other people ahead of herself. (To the surprise of the nurse and all of us,) She lived for five days after that night and passed away gently late last week after we all had returned home. She never wanted to be a burden to anyone.
Saturday the 13th would have been her 81st birthday. That also was the night of my birthday party, I turned 36 on Monday. Surrounded by so many wonderful friends, I reflected on my blessings and my Accha.
Accha was a registered nurse in Sri Lanka, and it was quite unusual for a woman of her era to be involved in medicine at all. More inspiring was that in her mid-60's, she became a RN again in the U.S. She studied for all of the classes and passed the necessary exams, I remember tutoring her in the Math classes back then. She worked as a RN again here for several more years before stopping work only in her mid-70's. She spent the rest of her life giving away the money she had saved all those years. She helped relatives in need, she helped built medical clinics and homes in the poorest villages in Sri Lanka, she helped people she didn't even know that she knew needed some assistance.
Now, I have to state that my family is far from anything idyllic, we have had more than our fair share of dysfunction permeate our lives. But when I reflected on my grandmother's life and that evening where we all sat around her, I saw so much of that melt away. I saw the shimmering thread that runs through all of us; my Accha, my sister, mother, cousins and now niece, through four generations. It is compassion.
Whether is naive or not, all of us believe in the good that can happen when we believe in one another, when we give something of ourselves to someone in need and that it will be paid forward many times over. I was so proud to realize this about my family, and my culture.
My birthday party was hella fun. Records, drinks, crazy friends, the cops coming to shut us down -the usual. But most of the night and the next day, all I could think of was my family and my Achha and that I wished we could celebrate our birthdays together one more time.
I miss you, Accha. Thank you.
I didn't get a chance to call my Dad on Father's day. Or more honestly, I forgot.
Beth and I were traveling back from LA that day and after we got back, I just forgot to phone him. And then Monday came and I got busy with the work week. By the end of the week, I just felt like a schmuck and let it go entirely.
I got to see him a couple weeks later when I went to visit my ailing grandmother (on my Mom's side). My grandmother has been fighting a form of bone cancer the past couple of years and has been going through a hard stretch recently. She is 81. She is staying with and being taken care of by my aunt (my Mom's only sister) right now, splitting time between the two daughters since she got sick.
My aunt made a lavish Sri Lankan rice 'n' curry lunch for us, with a myriad of dishes. My father was there with my grandmother -the mother of his ex-wife of 25 years. As we ate, I heard from my grandmother and aunt how my Dad would come visit my grandmother regularly, bringing her fresh mangoes, other Sri Lankan fruits, and mild curries. He would sit with her and talk as she ate (if she had an appetite that day), keep her company for hours. This as you can guess also provided some relief for my aunt.
When I was growing up, I was very close with my Dad. After my parents split up when I was 8, I would do the weekend Dad thing with him. I remember watching Peter Sellers' movies on TV with him on Sunday afternoons (a shared love) as he sat preparing pomegranate berries for me. This picking of the tiny seeded berries from the husk was a painstaking task and he would do this delicately for several minutes, providing me in the end with a bowl of pristine, delicious pomegranate berries. He would only take a few for himself, and only when I offered it to him multiple times. He was the same when he cooked curries for me or took me out to a favorite restaurant, he would always wait until I ate.
As I grew into my teens and my awareness developed around the dysfunction in my family, things changed. I started to see my Dad as a very uncommunicative person, unable to express his emotions. I also found myself wishing he was more accomplished, more successful like my friends' fathers. All he seemed to want to do was work as little as possible and play golf the rest of the time. I remember arguing with him that he always saw things too simply, that things were more complicated than he assumed.
I was unaware then that my attitudes were very typical of assimilation anxiety felt by most first-generation Asian immigrants; straddling two very different cultures while growing into adulthood.
By the time I finished high school and left for college, I had withdrawn much from both my parents but felt especially distant from my Dad. We seemed like we were from different planets by that time.
Through most of my twenties, as I gained my own footing in the practical world, I began to worry about my father. He had entered his 60's, had been smoking since he was 15, had not saved any money for retirement, and had lots of debt. This anxiety began to consume me and only manifested itself in angry outbursts with my Dad whenever I felt he was being irresponsible. I don't remember any warm memories of us during my twenties, our spare phone conversations never ended with a "I love you" like they did when I was a kid.
About 5 years ago, I sat. I sat and dedicated myself to the practice of meditation. During one of my early sittings, the angry feelings around my father came up. And as I grew accustomed to discovering in those sittings, inevitably those angry feelings melted away to reveal the fear and concern I had for him, sitting alongside the feelings of a hurt and lonely little boy.
When my father first came to visit me in SF about 4 years ago, I was resigned to tell him all of this. He was visiting for over a week but as each day passed, I had not told him. I only found myself growing tense and angry, again being sharp with him at certain moments -and then angry and disappointed with myself for being so with him. On the last day, just hours before his flight, I called him into the living room. Feeling like my heart would burst out of my chest, I began to talk with him.
I told him how much I loved him, how I always had. I told him that I was worried about his health and that I wanted him to take better care of himself. I told him that I wanted him to consider moving out West so I could be close with him. I found myself saying this and more, and some of these things surprisingly, as tears flowed from my eyes and I began to cry deeply, the dam of emotion breaking open.
As I looked up after gathering myself, I saw my father sitting silently, his hand rising to wipe some tears away. It was the first and only time I've ever seen my father cry.
After that day, the tone of our relationship changed. We talked on the phone regularly, and the conversations always ended with a warm "I love you." He quit smoking and now watches his diet. I also learned that much prior to that, he had begun to pay off his debt and save some money for retirement. But all these things seemed smaller in my mind compared to the bond that had been reforged, I did not worry nearly as much.
I no longer saw my Dad as someone who could not express love. I realized that every time he plucked a sweet pomegranate berry from that difficult, coarse husk, he was telling me loved me. I realized the tenderness this man carried within him along with the pain and difficulty he also endured being one of 13 children growing up in a village in Sri Lanka many decades ago.
So when I heard my aunt and grandmother talk about how he brought so much fruit and food that it would sometimes go to waste, I just smiled. How can an abundance of love ever be of waste, I thought to myself. If only they could see what I saw.
My father is not simple-minded as I thought he was when I thought I had it all figured out. He is simple, but not simple-minded. As I've gotten older and achieved career and financial success, I don't know if I've actually gotten happier. I seem to long for less work and more time to play records. It seems my Dad had already figured this out a long time ago. He wants to live simply; just enough money to pay for his essentials and nothing more. And he is happy. How can you argue with that?
So when I found myself worrying that I had forgotten to call him on Father's day, I realized later that I worried in the same way I had in the past when I felt there was something being lost, something broken between us. But there wasn't. He was there as he always had been.
I just needed to open up my eyes and see.
The holidays were strange this year. I mean, most people encounter stress and family dysfunction during Thanksgiving and Christmas but it's usually emanating from their actual families. This year, all of the stress came from my urban family with much drama from Thanksgiving into New Year's! With my actual family, everything was awesome.
My lovely sister who I adore, my beautiful terror of a 5 year-old niece, and my wonderfully mellow and special brother-in-law visited and stayed with me for nearly two weeks right after Christmas. We had so much fun together just doing nothing: hanging out watching movies, walking around the neighborhood, and just constantly making each other laugh. I am so happy for my sister Yosh that she has such a beautiful, unique daughter in Ava and that she and George have wonderful partners in each other. My sister so deserves that, I feel incredibly blessed to have the type of relationship with my sister that I do now to appreciate her in that way and be happy for her.
It was inspiring and fun to see this trio in action.
Here are more pics from their visit here, including some grooming adventures with BC.
Oh, as a footnote, the aforementioned urban family drama was all resolved, everything tied up in a neat bow in the end with lessons for each side to grow on, all After School Special-style and shit.
