A sunny Tuesday morning. I’m surprised to find that it is -2℃ at 8 o’clock. I’ve had a good sleep. It’s remarkable how good that plus the sun can make me feel. I shall not let that goodness and the day go to waste. I will not haste though, but savour all the minutes at my own pace. I remember the saying, haste makes for waste. So how shall I proceed?
The day is almost over. I surely did not haste today. I enjoyed a leisurely 4 hour brunch with my two dear friends. One of them had just recently lost her mother. I shared my thought that I really had believed that we would never lose our mothers. We had them for so long. It’s really strange now to find ourselves without our mothers. But that is the way with nature. We are losing more people as time goes by. It is this stage in our lives.
After time spent with my two friends, it was time to take my father out to the mall for a walk and coffee with my mother’s friends. I don’t have any Chinese friends except these. I don’t have a lot of friends either. I am not a social butterfly. I cannot handle too many people but I am fortunate to have my little groups of caring loving individuals, at the mall, at the YWCA and my retired co-workers. It is enough.
After coffee at the mall, I still had a little time to do a bit of weeding, planting and watering in the greenhouse. My spinach and lettuce are ready for small pickings. I planted 2 sweet one million tomatoes. There’s 2 blossoms on the snow peas. Our days are still a frosty but it was toasty warm in the greenhouse in the afternoon. Now it is late and time for bed. It was a very good day.
spinachlettuceblossoms on snow peassweet 1 million tomato
It feels like winter is reluctant to leave us. When I woke this morning, it was 0℃ and feeling cooler than that. It hasn’t gotten much warmer, sitting at 5℃ and feeling like -5℃ at 2:40 pm. The sky has remained grey. There’s a strong wind blowing though not as bad as yesterday. The planted snow peas and celery in the raised bed remain under covers.
It’s a good day to cosy up with a hot cup of tea. I’m sleepy, tapping and trying to keep up my joie de vivre. I’m finding I can choose how I feel. I choose the brighter side unless I’m too cranky. Sometimes I revert to my childish side and slip over, Then I have to give myself a talk to get my adult self back. It’s all okay to slip, stumble and fall. It keeps me humble.
It’s almost Mother’s Day. How does one celebrate it without a mother? She’s been gone a year and a half now, a short and a long time ago. It’s short but long enough that the pain is not the sharp searing kind. I’ve adjusted to her physical absence. Her essence is, of course, forever in me. I do not need to do anything for Mother’s Day. I no longer have a Mother and I have never been a mother. Anne Lamott speaks so well on the thing about Mother’s Day. Here it is from 2025:
“Here is my annual Mother’s Day post, ONLY for those of you who dread the holiday, dread having strangers, cashiers & waiters exclaim cheerfully, mindlessly, “Happy Mother’s Day!” when it is a day that, for whatever reasons, makes you feel deeply sad. I told Neal last year that I didn’t think I’d run it, because I always get so much hate mail, and he said, “It’s never stopped you before.”
This is for those of you who may feel a kind of sheet metal loneliness on Sunday, who had a sick or abusive mother, or a mother who recently died, or who wanted to have kids but didn’t get to, or had kids who ended up breaking your hearts. If you love the day, and have or had a great mom and happy highly successful kids, skip this piece: I’m begging you.
I did not raise my son, Sam, to celebrate Mother’s Day. I didn’t want him to feel some obligation to buy me pricey lunches or flowers, some obligatory annual display of gratitude. Perhaps Mother’s Day will come to mean something to me as I grow even dottier in my dotage, and I will find myself bitter and distressed when Sam dutifully ignores the holiday. Then he will feel ambushed by my expectations, and he will retaliate by putting me away even at a PlaceForMom.com sooner than he is planning to — which, come to think of it, would be even more reason for me to resist Mother’s Day.
But Mother’s Day celebrates a huge lie about the value of women: that mothers are superior beings, that they have done more with their lives and chosen a more difficult path. Ha! Every woman’s path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is true. An unhealthy mother’s love is withering.
The illusion is that mothers are automatically more fulfilled and complete. But the craziest, grimmest people this Sunday will be many mothers themselves, stuck herding their own mothers and weeping or sullen children and husbands’ mothers into seats at restaurants. These mothers do not want a box of chocolate. They may have announced for a month that they are trying not to eat sugar. Oh well, eat up or risk ruining the day for everyone.
I hate the way the holiday makes all non-mothers, and the daughters of dead mothers, and the mothers of dead or lost children, feel the deepest kind of grief and failure. The non-mothers must sit in their churches, temples, mosques, recovery rooms and pretend to feel good about the day while they are excluded from a holiday that benefits no one but Hallmark and See’s. There is no refuge — not at the horse races, movies, malls, museums. Even the turn-off-your-cellphone announcer is going to open by saying, “Happy Mother’s Day!”
You could always hide in a nice seedy bar, I suppose. Or an ER.
It should go without saying that I also hate Valentine’s Day, even those years when I’ve had a boyfriend or random husband.
Mothering perpetuates the dangerous idea that all parents are somehow superior to non-parents. Meanwhile, we know that many of the most evil people in the country are politicians who have weaponized parenthood.
Don’t get me wrong: There were a million times I could have literally died of love for my son, and I’ve felt stoned on his rich, desperate love for me. I felt it yesterday when I was in despair. But I bristle at the whispered lie that you can know this level of love and self-sacrifice only if you are a parent. What a crock! We talk about “loving one’s child” as if a child were a mystical prancing unicorn. A majority of American parents secretly feel that if you have not had and raised a child, your capacity for love is somehow diminished. They secretly believe that non-parents cannot possibly know what it is to love unconditionally, to be selfless, to put yourself at risk for the gravest loss. But in my experience, it’s parents who are prone to exhibit terrible self-satisfaction and selfishness, who can raise children as props or adjuncts, like rooms added on in a remodel. Often their children’s value and achievements in the world are reflected glory, necessary for these parents’ self-esteem, and sometimes, for the family’s survival. This is how children’s souls are destroyed.
But my main gripe about Mother’s Day is that it feels incomplete and imprecise. The main thing that ever helped mothers was other people mothering them, including aunties and brothers; a chain of mothering that keeps the whole shebang afloat. I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother, who unconsciously raised me to self-destruct; and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends, my own best friends’ mothers, and from surrogates, many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life, including my mom, even after their passing.
The point is, have a beautiful, wonderful Mother’s Day if it is a holiday that brings you joy, but just be conscious that for many, many people, it isn’t. Proceed thoughtfully. Deal?
April is gone. Today is May 3. I meant to show up 2 days ago but I never made it. Some days are easier than others. Today is not one of those. The sky is cloudy. I’m heavy with it. I’m saggy and draggy but I’ve started the day. I still start it reading the two Heathers. I’m also reading Nobody’s Girl now that I got it from the library. It’s no wonder that I’m weighed down.
I wish that I’m not so serious minded. I wish that I am more light hearted. But that is not who I am. Whether it is because of genetics or how life shaped me, it’s hard to know. It is probably both. It is not easy being an immigrant child of immigrant parents. Being the oldest is not a cake walk either. I bear/feel the brunt of the responsibility for helping them navigate in an English speaking country. Life was and has been a serious affair. There was/are good times and laughter but not the uproarious kind. Our lives always seemed to me to be smaller than others.
That’s my feelings growing up. You don’t shed those feelings of inadequacy easily. I haven’t. They’re still there somewhere just underneath my skin. Not that I feel like a failure. I know I have done very well. I am a well informed and educated person. I am financially independent. I am retired with many interestests. I am never bored. I am occasionally melancholy. Who isn’t, especially in these times?
And so I come to this space to tap out my melancholy, my angst and sometimes my joys and excitement. I do get those happy exuberant feelings once in awhile, too. It must have been what I felt yesterday. They carried me through a whole day of gardening. I repotted seedlings, cleaned out 3 raised beds in the back yard. I planted 3 cucumbers in the greenhouse and 7 celery in the raised bed. Hope I wasn’t over eager and too early. Hope is a good antidote for melancholy.
Nowadays I like to start my morning reading the two Heathers. They are strong women. They speak the truth. They educate me to care, to listen and that I can make a difference. I’ve become politically interested and engaged. The Heathers are Heather Cox Richardson and Heather Delaney Reese. I’m always a truth seeker and speaker. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why I find life difficult. Another one is I am a woman of colour and an immigrant. Though I come from a culture where sons are preferred over daughters, my parents weren’t of that mind. My paternal grandmother was though.
She had no influence over how I felt about myself. I grew up feeling I am a person of worth. I’ve never thought I was less because I am female or because I am an Asian. I come from strong stock. My maternal grandfather escaped the clutches of Mao but not my grandmother. She was thrown in jail in his place. She survived and thrived. They had done nothing wrong. My grandfather was a teacher and mayor of their village. My grandmother was a housewife. They were not landowners. They were persecuted because of jealousy and fake stories. That’s been many years ago. Both of them have been gone for many years but their story still lives in me.
It is the 10th of March. We had snow overnight. The sun is shining bright. The thermometer dips and rises unpredictably. One day is spring. The next it is winter. My cold is better but the cough lingers. I feel better and worse at the same time. I am sickened by Donald Trump and his wars. I wonder what all the bombing and destruction are doing to the environment. In this moment, I have no positive bone in my body. It is a difficult life but I must rise and take charge of this one precious one that I have. What will I do? A little this, a little that. It all adds up. What will you do?
It is March 8th. It rained this morning. It is day 15 of #the100dayproject. I have been working a little on it each day. My cold is still hampering me. I can’t go great guns with anything. However, I am happier with this slower pace of living and sewing. I am enjoying the process more. I have 5 completed logcabin blocks and 2 partial ones. I continued to be my usual disorganized self, not having my fabrics sorted to darks and lights. I don’t have all the strips cut either. I am in continuous state of search for the best strip.
It is a grey dismal day.This world is going nowheres fast except maybe to war. I am astounded by this world we’re in, aren’t you? I feel as if we are in a fake reality show. The only trouble is, it is not fake. It is not a bad idea to stick my head in the sand, ignore all this madness and do the things that nourishes me. Wake me when it is all over.
I had coffee with my 94 year old father this afternoon. We talked about the times from way back. He still has a good memory. The very first house we lived in was behind the cafe. It was owned by the town doctor. The rent was $7/month. It had 2 rooms. The linoleum was peeling. The next house was by the highway, across from the railway station. It was owned by grain elevator company. The rent was $20/month.It was bigger but not really better. My foot went through the floor board in a bedroom.
It was good to have memories to share. We hadn’t shared or conversed much before. We had a laugh over the rent. Who would have thought I could do this with my father?
January 30th, 2nd last day of the month and of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. It is the end of the day. I am tired. A busy productive day consisting of my sister and I taking our father to see the internal medicine doctor early in the morning.This past year has been many office, walkin-in and ER visits since our mother passed. We are all so vulnerable the first year after a significant death. And more so when the person is 94 and it is a spousal death.
We’ve all worked hard taking care of our father. The doctors commended our efforts. Our father is doing well now. They wouldn’t change a thing. They gave suggestions for possible things to do if such and such arise. And they will set up a follow up appointment in a month’s time. We are pleased that there will be a follow up and hope that it will hold up. Less doctor visits would be good.
There was still a lot of morning left after the appointment. We had planned to work on clearing more of our mother’s clothes before taking dad out for lunch. We hadn’t realized how much more there still was. This time wasn’t as emotionally difficult as the first closet we did last year. I even dare to say it was fun. We had alot of giggles and Oh my gods! as we pull out each item and tried them on. Our mother kept everything in very good condition. She must have kept all the things we had given her for Christmases and Mother’s Days. We never celebrate hers or dad’s birthdays either. We celebrated the kids’, her grandkids’ birthdays.
We got ambitious and went to the downstairs closets after lunch. Wow! There’s no need to go shopping. We could just shop at mom’s. She even kept some of our clothes for us. I pulled out the dress I sewed for my sister for her high school graduation. I had forgotten what it looked like. I couldn’t believe that it was me that sewed that dress. And I did it on my simple Kenmore from Sears. My sister couldn’t quite believe she could still get into the dress. Unfortunately she couldn’t quite zip it up in the back. Just one size too small.
I dropped 2 bags off at the clothing donation place. I have plans of using the cotton blouses to make another logcabin quilt. This one will be for my sister.
I completed another trip around the sun yesterday. The best gift was falling into sleep slumber after my head hit the pillow. I had a few nodding off during the evening movie. Though it was an Oscar Winner, I couldn’t make much sense of it with my little naps here and there. Nothing makes sense to me nowadays. The world is not orderly without my mother as an anchor. Sometimes I feel I’m behaving madly and very badly. I hope my night of sleep have reset me to the best operational mode.
I am not one for birthdays or parties. I don’t like alot of fuss. I can’t explain that myself. Who doesn’t want the celebration of the self? I’m all for that but fuss and attention not so much. Maybe I never had much of that growing up. I’m not used to it. I was born in China. I remembered getting a boiled egg on a birthday. It symbolizes new life, renewal and good fortune. And a chicken drumstick symbolizes a blessing for prosperity and a promise that the person will never go hungry in the symbolizes a blessing for prosperity and a promise that the person will never go hungry in the future. I remember getting both on birthdays in China. No birthday cakes or gifts.
I left China at age 8. I don’t remember getting anything for birthdays in Canada. Our whole applecart was upset being in a new country and culture. I got invited to some birthday parties. Then there was Christmas and Easter. We didn’t celebrate like the rest of the town. We did get Christmas trees after awhile. My mother made us new clothes for the new year. We didn’t do birthday cakes or Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys. I felt our foreigness and of looking in from the outside.
Now, I have grown out of all that. We don’t all have to do the same, dress the same, think the same, celebrate the same…Or maybe we do have to do the same and be the same. Look at what is happening south of the border, in Minneapolis. Listen to the witness describing the Alex Pretti killing. It’s like I’m watching a horrible movie. It is not a movie we can step out of. But I have to step out, shut out, and turn off the world now and then. It’s time for a birthday lunch. We’re doing Japanese.
Sometimes it is hard to believe that it is a little over a year since my mother passed. I wonder where she went. When I think of her, I see her as she was, vibrant and alive. She is just somewhere else. Life and love are still here. We are calmer, more at peace. For my father and me, we are still doing coffee most afternoons at the mall. I would go over to Tim Horton’s. They know me now and what I want. Every day it is large coffee, one cream, one sugar. Sometimes I get some Timbits. Surprising how comforting this habit of coffeeing is.
It really wasn’t my intention to do this. My siblings and I were not really close to our father. Our mother was the nuturing one. My father was like most Asian fathers of his generation. He brought home the bacon and left the family stuff to our mother. She took care of everything else. But with her gone, we couldn’t really just leave him at 93 to fend for himself. We pitched in to make sure he was safe.
I couldn’t do much after falling ill and losing my hearing. I told him not to call me because I wouldn’t be able hear. He understood and was very supportive. He said not to worry about him and to take care of myself. When I was recovering and could hear a bit, I dropped in on my walks for a short visit and a coffee. Last year was a long winter for both of us. He was mostly housebound. I was mostly deaf with alot of incessant bad music in my head. I did alot of walking to distract myself and also to hear the crunch of tires on ice from the traffic.
When summer came I tried walking with my father outside. The sidewalks were too rough and uneven for walker or wheelchair. Besides the weather was unpredictable – too windy, hot, cool. The mall was the perfect place for a walk and things to look at and discover. It was much easier than sitting at home with him. After awhile, I ran out of things to talk about. At first it was mostly just the two of us at the mall. It was ok. It was restful. It was my coffee break. Things evolve. Now some days we have a small group, some old friends and some new ones. I like to call it our Chinese Happy Hour. Some days I go home drunk with happiness from a large coffee, one cream, one sugar. I split it with my father.
It’s the third day of the new year. Too early to get stuck and give up. It’s too early to sink into negativity though there are so many reasons to. A New Year’s Eve celebration at a Swiss ski resort turned into a firey disaster with 40 dead and over 100 injured. Untimely deaths due to overstretched healthcare. Then this morning’s news of Venezuela’s president being captured by the U.S. Is this legal? Obviously it is possible since it’s already happened. The world is too much for me.
Closer to home, my father’s younger brother died suddenly before Christmas. I seem to be losing relatives at an alarming speed. We only learned of his passing because his youngest brother, my other uncle decided to phone him. His wife answered and just said he passed with no further information. It is distressing to get such a phone call when I was just sitting down to coffee with my father at the mall. I had to play detective to find out if this was indeed true. We have not heard much from my father’s brother or his family. My mother was the one who tried to keep in touch with them. But she’s been gone for a year. To make a long story short, it is true.
It is sad that though we are family, we are strangers. They live just 2 hours down that lonesome highway. They have a daughter living here in the city. If I had ever ran into her, I wouldn’t know. I did get 2 of their children’s phone numbers from my aunt. I texted 2 of them. The daughter here did not respond. The eldest son responded right away. He seemed like a very nice person. I feel I have at least gained one family member. I told the son that we will not be going to the funeral. My father is 94 and my mother had passed last October. We’ve had a difficult year. It is winter. the roads and weather are unpredictable.
It has been indeed a hard year. We’ve all weathered it well. But we are tired. This winter is a bit strange. I’m relieved the holiday season is over. It did not at all felt like Christmas or New Year. I’ve made no resolutions or set goals. In the last Ultimate Blog Challenge I wrote about a goal of losing weight. Guess what? I haven’t and I’ve gained a few pounds instead. And I’ve already not showed up for the 2nd day of this challenge. I’m not looking at it as failure. I’m not looking at it as anything. If I was to have a goal, it would be not to marinate myself in negativity. You know what they say about the law of attraction and algorithms.
It’s occurred to me to keep a diary of this period of being stuck in stuck. Perhaps it will help me inch my way out of it. So far I’m not having much luck. I’m still wallowing round and round, going nowhere. But at least I’ve tapped out a couple of sentences here. Oh, yes, I did ordered some cheques from the bank this morning. I was surprised that the cheques and delivery are free. Isn’t that wonderful?
The thing that I haven’t failed is taking my father out for coffee every afternoon. How can I not do that, eh? He is 94 and has never, ever been alone till my mother passed away last October. It’s a miracle of some sort that we’ve muddled through a year without her. Today I realized I’m happy that she is free of all her physical pain and earthly cares. It lightens the load that I have felt for many years. I feel a peace of some kind. Maybe now I can start to sort and weed the clutter in my head and elsewhere.
Some people are surprised that I can take my father out every day. It is really not a big deal. I am happy that I am able to give him a couple of hours a day. I do my other stuff before and after. I look at it as my afternoon coffee break. I get to spend some time with him and see how he is managing. It settles my mind and I can sleep at night. I also get to know him a little better. He is like his generation of Chinese immigrant fathers.They work and work, leaving the nurturing to the mothers. I’m not complaining or criticising. It’s just what it was.
I’m feeling a little less stuck. Sometimes it helps to talk on my keyboard. Some things get loose and unstuck. Supper is almost ready. Time to eat. It’s goat tonight.
onethousandandtwo 