Mother's Day is Coming Up

Mother's Day is coming up, which probably equals grumpy me. I'm not looking forward to it. I don't think I'll be going home that weekend. I kind of wanted to, but if I did, I'd only be able to go home for Mother's day, that Sunday. M.I.A. is coming for a free show in Cbus the day before, and I really want to go.

I hope that doesn't sound bad that I want to go to a rare concert, and b/c of that I won't be able to go home. Well, I could, but just for Sunday. It doesn't really make sense to drive up to CLE for 2.5 hours, place a flower on the niche, and drive back down for 2.5 hours.

*shrug* *sigh* I'll think about it. I was thinking that I would go home for Memorial Day weekend instead and wear a white flower on Mother's Day. Specifically a white carnation. My mom really liked flowers. And I've been told that wearing a red carnation on Mother's Day means that your mother is alive and a white one means that she has passed away.

It will just be very difficult to listen to every1 who is going home to see their moms. I get jealous and I also feel awkward. A lot of people do not know, so they'll ask what my plans are. For instance, for Thanskgiving or Christmas. Usually I just lie and pretend like my mom is still alive. I want to tell people the truth but i don't want to be the party pooper.

We'll see how my mood changes as Mother's Day gets closer.

Wake

This is a video I made back in autumn that explains how I felt in my environment around the time my mother passed away.

Relay for Life

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile.  I went home this weekend because I thought I left my hard drives in Cleveland.  But I didn't.  When I got back to Columbus I was so upset with myself.  I had a lot of pictures of my mom stored in those hard drives.  I was really worried that I lost those physical memories forever.

Thankfully, my boyfriend found them at the foot of my bed, under piles of blankets and clothes and what not.  I'm so dumb.  *shaking head*

The trip home wasn't entirely discouraging however.  I got to see my Cleveland friends, specifically Ilya and Sarita, close friends of mine from high school.  They both attend Case Western University.  Interestingly or ironically...maybe both...Case Western Reserve University was having their American Cancer Society's Relay for Life this weekend.  Ilya invited me to come.  I gladly went.

I got there at the end of the luminary ceremony (around 10PM).  Previous to this ceremony,  everyone who has a loved one who died of cancer, knows someone who has cancer, or knows a cancer survivor lights a candle and places it into a paper bag full of sand, so it does not blow over.  At the luminary ceremony, everyone is silent except for a couple people who read off the names of everyone who has a luminary.  After the reading, everyone takes a silent lap around the track.  

I got there just as they were starting the silent lap.  Ilya kept asking me if I was alright and giving me hugs.  I actually was very unmoved by the entire ceremony.  I'm not sure if it was because I had just jumped in or if I simply was not affected by it.  And I felt terrible for not feeling...terrible.  People around me looked sullen.  I saw a couple students sit by their luminaries crying.  I thought it was sad to see them in mourning, and I could emphasize...but I personally, was not moved. 

After the silent lap, Ilya asked me if I wanted to make a luminary for my mom.  I almost said, "No It's alright."  But I felt like that would've looked weird, so I said "Sure."  I lit a candle for her, and placed it in a bag which I wrote "In Loving Memory, Chinluen Judy Hu," and set it on the inner ring of the track.  Ilya gave me another hug and asked me if I was alright.  Once again, I said I was fine.  And I was...disturbingly very calm and unaffected.

My inability to become sad really disturbed me.  I felt like I should have been crying, I should have been leaning on Ilya's shoulder for support, and I should have thought about my mom more that night.  

But the truth is, I didn't.  Does that make me a bad person, a bad daughter?  Does it make me heartless?

Maybe it's because I heard that The American Cancer Society isn't as good as everyone says it is.  Or maybe it's because I don't mourn in public.  I am a very private person...which is ironic because I'm typing all this stuff in a blog...but I actually don't talk to many people about my loss.  In fact, I get quite uncomfortable if I'm supposed to show my emotions in large public places, which is another reason why I took this blog off of my class' Art of Podcasting Blog.  

I don't think I'm heartless, and I don't think I'm wrong for being disconnected at Relay for Life.  I look around and I feel like a lot of people don't understand.  The survivors understand, and the people who saw death understand, but the people who are raising money, don't.  And it's great that their raising money for cancer research...but...they don't know what my mother's story is.  Reading her name off of a list doesn't honor her existence enough.  And lighting a candle that has to be blown out in 5 minutes because I came late doesn't make me feel any better.  

Everyone's story and everyone's experience is different.  For some people, Relay for Life makes them feel better.  For me, it doesn't.

I send my condolences to all those families and individuals touched by the effects of cancer, and I hope they enjoyed Relay for Life.

Thinking about Future Life Without Mom and Disconnect

My mom never really wanted too much out of life.  Some may say she lived a simple life.  Others may argue differently (in a more pessimistic light).  That's a topic that's too deep for a post while I'm at work.  It's a complicated one.  I'll tell it another day.

Before my mom passed away, she said she was sad that she was going to miss out on seeing her daughters grow up, get married, and have kids.  Not that marriage is a huge deal for me, but I guess in my mind it represents the big events in my futures life.  My mother won't be able to witness me finally getting a real job.  What if I reach my goal of becoming a filmmaker?  She won't be here to watch my films.  She won't meet her grandchildren (if I have any).  

I think though maybe what hurts most, is that I don't think she knew me very well before she left.  She didn't know what my passions are, my favorite color, my dreams and aspirations.  She wasn't familiar with things or people I care about such as my friends and boyfriend.  She said that I was her favorite (A PARENT SHOULD NEVER TELL HER KIDS THAT THEY HAVE A FAVORITE), but she didn't even know me.  I think I just reminded her of herself.  I am the only one of my sisters that looks like her and remotely acts like her.

Ugh.  My brain hurts.  I'm really confused right now.  I don't really know if I'm talking about stuff that fits together.  Maybe I'm just rambling.  I actually have a lot of conflicted emotions about her passing away.  I'm angry, relieved, regretful, apathetic, overwhelmed, just about any emotion you can think of.  There are so many topics in my head: religion, life after death, life before death, the actual feeling of passing away, sickness, mortality, happiness, purpose in life, meaning of life, etc.

I really don't think I can write anything that makes sense right now.  I'll try again another time.

After Midwest Mix Up Dance Competition

I'm on a dance team here at Ohio State.  You can check out our videos on my dance blog www.soyouwannadance.blogspot.com   The good news is that we won 2nd overall!  The bad news is that my mom couldn't come.  She would have liked it and I think she would have been very proud...and maybe a little jealous.  :)  She loved to dance too, but never had any formal training.  I think that's  why she made my sisters and I take dance lessons...and piano lessons and art lessons and ice skating lessons, etc.  I think she wanted to share those passions and interests with us, and give us the opportunity to learn about them.  Her family didn't have the money for her to get formal training when she was younger.

That night, after the competition, I had a dream that my mom was talking to me.  She was lying down, still sick, but well enough to speak.  I bent down over her.  She asked me how I was and how everything was going?

Is it possible that my mom is speaking to me through my dreams or is that simply what I wish?

I felt like she was trying to catch up with me, see what's happened since she passed away, including my dance competition.

I Can't Imagine

I attend a Grief Counseling group every week at The Ohio State University.  It's one of the services they offer for free.  It is a place for people who are experiencing/have experienced a loss to talk.  

I've met some interesting people and heard heart-wrenching stories at these sessions.  But one girl's experiences makes me wonder how she carries on in her life.  She is an only child and currently a sophomore in college.  She had lost her mother to cancer at age 13 and her father to cancer at age 15.  Hearing about her situation makes me wonder what she must have gone through.  I think about how much innocence must have been taken away at such a young age, and how much maturity it must have taken to overcome such tragedy.  I wonder who could she talk to?  Most of her friends must not have understood.  She said that many adults would tell her how sorry they were and that they lost their parents too...to old age.  Losing a parent to old age and losing a parent early on are different experiences of loss.  Don't get me wrong, I believe both are life-changing and sad, however, to lose a parent while you're still a child?  A teenager watching the burial of her parents?  There's a difference.

This girl has some emotional baggage.  She's not perfect, and she still suffers from these traumatic events, but I admire her.  If you met her, you would be able to tell that she carries more maturity and wisdom than most adults.

Pancakes and Salad

One of my professors made a presentation on pancakes today.  It reminded me of a story that my mom would always tell us about her trip to America.

She was coming to the United States for the first time.  My dad had been in school at the University of Cincinnatti for awhile and they had decided to move to the United States permanently.  On her plane ride over, she experienced for the first time...American food.

For breakfast, they served pancakes.  She had never before in her life scene such food.  She didn't know how to eat it.  She looked over at the fellow American passengers sitting beside her.  The closest was a rotund man.  He smothered his pancakes with butter and syrup.  My mother copied him, drowning her pancakes in syrup and butter.  She took a bite.  She said it was too sweet and very disgusting.

The next meal was a salad.  Once again, my mother had never seen a salad before.  Eating raw vegetables was very taboo of Taiwanese culture at the time.  She looked at her neighbor again, and watched what he did with the plate of leafy greens.  He poured dressing all over this salad. My mother, hence, did the same.  Too bad she chose a dressing she didn't like.

Rap Music and a Little Asian Lady

I have a dance competition coming up for my hip hop dance group, Stylez, here at The Ohio State University.

I think if my mom were still here, she'd enjoy it, eventhough she hates rap music. Hehe. I remember all the times when I'd blast the latest (terrible) rap music in the car and I'd bounce along to it, my mom would just sit in the passenger seat quietly. If she spoke, she'd complain about how rap was just noise to her. She said it sounded like chanting or something. Othertimes, to amuse me, she'd bounce along with me. Can you just imagine? This tiny 50 year old Asian woman with glasses bouncing along to rap music with her daughter?

I bet it was cute.

Nightmares

I had a nightmare about my mother last night.  I don't remember what happened, I just know that I was sobbing over her in my dream.  I think maybe she died (again).  I've never woken up crying from dreams until this year.  I have had countless nightmares which seem so real that I wake up in tears.  I don't stop until I realize that it was just a dream.

One of the most horrific dreams I had was where my family was visiting my mother in the hospital.  My dad and older sister were saying how the doctors said she still had a good chance.  She had just got out of an operation and we all had high hopes.  I walked out of the room to make a phone call or something.  All of a sudden, my dad and sister rushed into the room and told me to come quickly!   I ran into what was the hospital room, except now, it was one of those large hospital rooms you see in the movies at war sites, one of those rooms that house a hundred beds or so.  This room was empty though, with the exception of my mother lying on the ground.  I rushed over to her and held her in my arms and asked her what was wrong.  She was a limp, deathly skinny corpse.   Her skin was a green tint and stuck to her bones.  She started to convulse.  As her body twitched, black green vomit came pouring out of her mouth all over the floor and me.  I didn't know what to do.  She couldn't stop vomiting.  She was vomiting so hard it made her dead body flail about, making disturbing thumping noises on the ground.

This is when I woke up and started to cry.

Bee Sting

I got stung by a bee when I was five.  I was at my friend's house sitting on her swings when it happened.  I felt a small sting behind my left ear.  Then, all of a sudden, a fiery burning began to occur and it began to throb.  I started to cry and went to find my mom.  

She told me I got stung by a bee and put some soothing ointment on it.  When we got home, she washed my hair in the sink.  She scooped up warm water and let it run down my bee sting.

"Doesn't that feel good?" She asked.

I nodded and smiled.

Religion

Ever since the last few months of my mother's life, I have been contemplating my religious affiliation.  Before then, I had always considered myself an agnostic.  Now, I'm more confused than ever.

My mother was a Buddhist.  She didn't practice her religion strictly and often times swayed between Christianity and Buddhism during her struggle with cancer.  She eagerly seeked help from any religion that could offer her answers to why she was sick, why now while she was so young, why her, etc.  Her Christian friends bombarded her with Bibles, asked her to Bible study, and took her to church.  Her Buddhist friends asked her to join their Taiwanese Buddhist community service organization and invited her to pot lucks.  In the end, she decided she wanted to die as a Buddhist and have a Buddhist ceremony at her funeral.

When her Christian friends heard about this, there were horrified.  During her last month, her Christian friends came over several times a week, bringing food for the family of course but they also literally huddled around her to convince her to convert.  As she lay deathly ill in her chair, they whispered to her and I quote, "Just say you're a Christian.  That's all you have to do.  Just say you're a Christian and you'll be saved."  They prayed for her soul and encouraged her to announce herself as one of them.  They would sit around her for at least an hour, people on each side, whispering into her ears.  At first, my family and I had no idea what they were saying to her.  We thought they were just whispering comforting thoughts.  But then we realized what they were doing.  We realized this when they finally got up one day from their pleading and approached my father.  "She said she's a Christian!  I will call a priest to arrange a Christian ceremony for her funeral!"  My dad, in shock and in anger, said, "No. No.  You must have misunderstood.  She is a Buddhist.  She told me so."  (My father is not bias by the way.  He is agnostic with a Christian lean.)   He told her friends to leave and went to my mother and asked her what happened.  She painfully croked that she is a Buddhist.  She probably just told them she was a Christian to make them go away.

I feel very conflicted about this event.  My initial emotion is extreme anger.  How selfish that her friends come and put further stress on my mother's mind.  She didn't know what she believed in and she finally decided.  Now people are telling her that her soul will go to Hell if she does not convert.  

When I think about what my mom must have been thinking, it breaks my heart.  What must it feel like to not be able to eat for three years?  What must it feel like to wait to die, which is better than living?  What must it feel like to die at 53 and leave 3 children and a husband behind?  What must it feel like to not be able to go back to your home in Taiwan and see your mother for the last time?

My mother did not see my grandmother for about ten years.  She never went back to her home in about ten years.  Her siblings visited her 2 weeks before she passed away and it tore me apart to see my mother see her sister and brothers for only five days for the first time in ten years for the last time.

Why didn't her friends think about this before they pleaded for her to convert?  Why didn't they think about all the other things my mother might have been thinking about?

Wynee, my older sister, tried to explain to me that from their point of view, they were helping my mother.  They were trying to save her soul, because to them, if they don't, she will go to Hell.

Fine.  Maybe that's what they were thinking.  But...I just don't understand.  If you're somebody's friend, wouldn't you respect your friend's wishes and try to make passing away as peaceful as possible? 

I think that due to this experience, I will never be a Christian.  If that means my soul will go to Hell, so be it.  I'll be there with my mom.

This is my mom! (oh and Potatoes)

This is a picture of my mother.  She passed away September 17th, 2008 from stomach cancer.  Very strange feelings engulf me when I look at her pictures.  I feel a gamut of emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, remorse, etc.  Good memories come to mind, followed by terrifying flashbacks of her final days...  

Today, I remembered that she and I used to talk about how much I like potatoes, especially french fries.  I would ask her if she had eaten a lot of french fries when she was pregnant with me.  She said she didn't think so.

Isn't strange what random memories you get some days?