Soul Brothers, Soul Sisters

Today is Mother's Day, and, on this day, I will say I am ever-so-blessed to be called a Mama myself.  Though a tough day, I am grateful for my "motherfull" life, two cherubs and kind Jeremy. 

On this day, I also take the time to join hands, in thought and spirit, with me fellow Soul Brothers and Soul Sisters.  Those who have also lost a Mama.  Those who can empathize.  On Friday, I was sitting with fellow co-workers.  One woman was speaking about her 90 year-old mother.  The other woman was speaking about her own mother who passed a few years ago.  I sat between both women, and I felt at home.  They spoke of how it feels to "parent" your parent, how to give an ailing parent perceived autonomy, how hard it is to care for a parent while juggling your own life and children.  I quietly sat and listened.  From experience, it was not the time to share my own Mama story.  Then, it happened.  "Phuong, do you have both your parents?"  My eyes teared up, "Mom passsed away eight years ago.  I understand."  Our working relationship catapulted into another echelon.  We had both experienced the loss of a mother.  She understood me, and the value of that is immeasurable. 

Friends have reached out to me recently with consoling words, offers of "let's talk", suggestions of going to therapy, texts, hugs.  I know there is much love around me, and I appreciate it.  I really, really do.  I will acknowledge that the most comfortable conversations have taken place with those who have walked the path of loss.  With my Brothers and Sisters, not much verbage needs to be exchanged.  Tears lay the foundation for common understanding, and we walk away a bit lighter.  She understands.  He understands.  I find comfort in that.

So, today, dear Brothers and Sisters, I am sending so much love to you.  Regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, we are part of this family, and I am thankful for you.  Thank you for walking alongside me as I live my everydays sans Mama.  I wish us fond memories, humor, self-patience and inner-peace. 

Egg Love



Recently, a co-worker gave me half a dozen fresh eggs.  I knew exactly what to make.  My palette and memory, at times, feel that the word "Mom" is synonymous with the word "food".  Man, could Mom cook.  If I had to divide Mom's brain into subsections, food would surely take up 80% of her brain capacity.  If she was not cooking, she would be thinking about what to feed us for the next meal, washing dishes from the previous meal or going to/from the Asian market.  With the eggs I received from Cole, I started making one of my favorite dishes, soy sauce eggs.  It is a savory dish composed of meat and eggs simmered in a brown sauce. 

 

This is my third attempt at this dish.  The first time, I was newly engaged and wanted to make a nice dinner.  My taste buds were dissapointed with the overly boiled eggs and bland sauce.  It was one of multiple poor attempts at recreating Mom's dishes.  Jeremy sat there and ate every bit of it. His compliments did not alleviate my dissapointment.  I wanted so badly to get a taste of her food.  It was the one thing I could do to bring her back a bit, and I failed. 

 

I  made the dish a second time.  I was now a Mama.  The girls had already gone to bed, and Jeremy had fallen asleep with Bennet.  So, it was just me, my eggs and a myriad of bottles filled with brown liquid.  I started taking out what I could find that could potentially create the sauce...soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, seasame oil.  As the dish cooked, I put some jasmin rice into the rice cooker.  Twenty mintues later, my kitchen smelled like home and my rice was ready.  I sat at my kitchen table and took a bite.  It was perfect.  As the egg and pork went down my throat, the tears came up.  I did it.  It tasted just like Mom's. It took me eight years to figure it out.  My tears salted my bites, and I was escastic. 

 

Today is my third time to make this dish.   The eggs were dimpled from poor peeling execution, and, once again, I guessed at my work.  With one successful execution in the bag, I simply cooked.  I thought of her as I peeled the eggs.  How come her eggs were so smooth?  I thought about her as the sauce slightly splashed when I dropped the eggs in the pot. She would have surely made a comment about the stain on my shirt.  I took a bite of the fatty beef.  It was good, and she would have approved, "Con, child, it's good.  Next time put in more sugar, một chút đường.  It's good."

 

When I sit down to eat this tomorrow, I'll think of Mom.  I am not sure if there will be tears this time.  I am confident that as I finish the meal, my brain will start to think about Wednesday's meal for Jeremy, Bennet and Ruby.  I have found peace in making heart-meals for my family, and I am grateful. 

 

 



Grateful

 

The other day I was talking to Kim.  Just 11 months younger than me, I sometimes forget who is older sometimes.  "You okay?" she asked, as our conversation was coming to an end.  After briefly discounting her question, I realized she was referring to this very blog.  I quickly took a short breath, unsure of her next sentiments.  "Just making sure you're okay."  That was the extent of our conversation.  My sister and I can fill the seas with our dialogue.  Other times, our silence gently lends to an easy understanding with one another. 

 

Honestly, when I first started all of this, I was only thinking of myself.  Self-pity and lonliness accompany each other well.  When Kim brought this up, I was reminded that there are two other people who do know what I am feeling. There are two other people who lived alongside me in our two bedroom mobile home.  There are two other people who lost the same mother.  I remember standing between Kim and Dan on the day they buried Mom.  We had front row seats as her casket was lowered.  As the pulleys easily worked to placed my sweet/feisty/tenacious mother into the ground, each of my hands gripped tightly onto the only people who truly, truly understood me in that life moment. 

 

I am grateful for my brother and sister.  I know we were our mother's entire world.  To a fault.  She would sew for 10 hours a day to buy us namebrand jeans.  She would work in a Chrysler factory for years to find money to pay for  knock-off Cabbage Patch dolls, band instruments, crossiants.  When she no longer worked because of the stupid cancer, she crocheted holiday pins for me to sell at my Student Government meetings in college.  "Maybe sell them for $3? I can make a bit of money."  I still have those pins.   

 

Mom's happiness was directly tied to the three of us.  Her joy was the fruits of an unseen, but strongly felt, umbilical cord that fed her soul and attached to her three offspring.  She was careful not to boast about our accomplishments; nonetheless, every wall in our home was embellished with shadow boxes of insignificant medals we earned in school and newspaper clippings with our pictures at coloring contests/science fairs/perfect attendance ceremonies.  She loved us too much, and we are better for it.  

Kim, Dan and I hold the pages to Mom's stories.  Together, we find ways to live her life.  Together, we have not been able to recreate her eggrolls, tell her stories, make her fruit pizza.  The part that really makes this all count is that we do it together.  For all that my mother has taught me and has given me, I cannot be more grateful for my brother and my sister.    I just need to remind myself that this journey has been buffered by two earth angels who come from the same genetic pool. 

Baby Within

I admit that I have been feeling reticent since my recent gumption to tell this story.  Friends have approached me with thoughtful/concerning/compassionate/you-really-need therapy sentiments, and though I have blatantly stated my feelings in writing, I am not ready to whole-heartedly verbalize my inner-thoughts.  At this point, I am not sure if others really want exposure to this raw material, or if this is my excuse for not confronting this collision head-on myself.  People stated, "I did not know you were so angry about this."    This thought has been slowing rolling around in my head.  Now, it has picked up momentum, and I understand that this crockpot-speed anger manifested once I took my third pregnancy test in August of 2008.  Until that moment, Mom's passing was simply an untimely, utterly sad event for me, myself and self-involved-I.   The minute innocent bystanders were involved, something shifted. 

Mom talked about her pregnancies with each of us.  I caused the most trauma.  Dad was a prisoner-of-war when he fought for South Vietnam.  Upon his release, Mom and Dad married and decided America was the place to provide a worthwhile, worry-free future.  They escaped in the middle of the night.  As a naval captain, Dad navigated the wooden boat filled with 80 people.  After 11 days at sea, they arrived at the Hong Kong harbor.  I was born within 48 hours of their arrival.  At 5 lbs., 6 oz., I was too much for my mother.  "They sucked you out with a machine.  I was too weak to push.  You were so red when you came out.  It was all of the watermelon I ate."  I loved this story.  The history, the drama.  I loved it.  Growing up, Mom was sure to let us know that pregnancy was hard.  "Con, I was sick, bệnh, the entire time.  It was hard.  Khó. It was hard." 

Mom and Me, Hong Kong

 When I realized that I had an offspring growing in my own body, I, too, rely on my own mother's advice.  What else is a daughter to do?  While other mothers-to-be have continual input, I relied on the two aforementioned sentences.  Alas, her words spoke truth.  Week-six drop-kicked me to the ground.  Nausea was my sidekick 24/7.  Her only piece of advice rang true, and it brought me much discomfort and misery, physically and emotionally.  One evening, I asked Dad about Mom's pregnancy.  "I don't know about that," he casually answered.  I reminded myself that it was my lonely journey, and I continued on.  By myself.

During the last year of Mom's life, I moved back home.  One evening, she was washing the dishes.  When I think about Mom, I often picture her standing at the sink, hand-washing the dishes and putting them in our drying-rack-dishwasher.  We had an argument that evening.  I do not remember why, but she yelled through gritted dentures, "I WANT TO BE HERE FOR A LONG TIME.  I WANT TO MEET YOUR KIDS.  DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?" When I think about that night, I feel guilt.  I feel guilt for upsetting her.  Even more so, I feel sadness when I finally understood Mom's fear of her own mortality.  For the first time, I realized that losing my mother was the not the greatest fear.  The strongest woman I know was losing her footing.  Mom was losing her own life. 

Again, her words rang true.  She did not meet the sweet girls.  This time, though, the sharp words consoled me.  She wanted to be here.  She wanted to tell me not to wash my hands with cold water after giving birth.   She wanted to hold Bennet and Ruby on those April days when they were born.  She wanted to eat a bowl of pho ga with Bennet. She wanted to teach Ruby her numbers, "Ruby,con, một, hai, ba, bốn, năm! Vời!  You are so good! "  She would have loved them so much.  These things did not happen, and I am not quite okay with it.  Not yet.

 

Mama Without

People tell me I have positive energy. I believe these words.  Nonetheless, 24 hours a day, at any given time, one singular thought catapults me to an irrational, self-loathing state.  I do not have a mother.  Not only do I not have the pleasure/angst/comfort of having the woman who birthed me to console/critique me on a daily basis, she left me before I had the chance to have my own children.  Math says that the shortest distance between two points is a line.  The shortest distance between my typical pro-active, content self and an angry, pitiful middle-aged woman is a government issued 8x11 sheet of paper.  I present Exhibit A:

 

Based on weekly pools of tears created by my own eyes, one would think this is somewhat of a recent change in my life.  In reality, Mom passed away in December of 2004.  She has been dead for 8 years.  It was hard losing her.  For hours, I remembered listening to her laborious breathing.  They kept giving her morphine to keep her comfortable.  For weeks after her death, each time someone around me took a deep breath or sighed, I would run to the next room.  What I did not anticipate is the increased feelings of anger with her/life/circumstances with each additional day I spend with my daughters.  Bennet is 4, and Ruby is 2.  I am now ready to say that I am really angry that I am a sole Mama.  I am a mother without a mother.  I am raising my girls to be kind, tenacious, intelligent women without any support from the woman who taught me these important life tenets.  I feel alone in this journey of parenting without my mother, and I cannot wrap my head around this.  I have tried, and I just cannot do it.  I pride myself on always finding solutions.  At work, I can find ways to help teachers teach, children communicate, people understand.  At home, Jeremy and I talk through each disagreement, each decision.  This one detail in my life has now become a suffocating boulder.

 

Within the time span of one week, both my husband and closest friend said, "Maybe you need to go talk to someone about this?"  It is time for me to embrace all of this.  I am going to get through this by doing what takes me to my most lonely moments - telling my story.  I am hopeful this endeavor will be positive for my walking-hearts.  Present Exhibit B:

 

 

I have much, much love to give to my daughters, my husband and my ever-so-giving family and friends.  This mama just needs to fill her soul by finding a way to let go.  Step one is acknowledgement.  I have a problem.  Welcome to this soul mama's first therapy session.