One Year Death Free

...And that year was 2022.

I didn't want to jinx it, so I didn't say anything as 2022 ended, and then it was 2023, and out of my mind. Actually, that's not entirely true, but whatever.

As of now, I am uncle-less. 

As a kid, I had four biological uncles (brothers of my parents) plus three in-law uncles (married to sisters of my parents). Yesterday - Friday, Nov. 3, US time - my mother's younger brother died. I don't know any details at this point, but he'd suffered from Parkinson's Disease and probably other heart/cholesterol issues due to weight. 

Grief is different each time. Of course, an uncle is not as close as a sibling or parent, so I haven't been teary yet. (It almost happened just before writing this.) I just ran away to the beach for a break in the morning.

It's about a 10 minute bike ride, and I usually swim for 7-10 minutes. Today I lay in the sand for a bit after that. It was later than I usually go, so the sun was super-warm and the waves were a soothing background. While I was there, I realized that's become my post-death go-to. After I got back from my nephew's traumatic funeral in 2019, I went to the beach for a bit. After my sister's funeral, took almost a whole morning just sitting and reading. Dad, too. It really helps to clear my head.

ANYWAY! Uncle ... let's call him Devin. I was thinking that we weren't that close, and we weren't. We didn't stay in touch or anything, and that whole family is scarce on social media. But suddenly I realized that, growing up, he was probably the uncle I saw the most. Uncle Devin lived in the neighboring town to my mom's mom. So every Christmas, every summer vacation, we would spend time at Uncle Devin's house. Especially as Grandma got older, he and his wife did more of the hosting. They had a cool, split-level house, and the town's water tower was right outside. It was very tempting to climb, although we couldn't get very high up before the ladder was locked down. 

Uncle Devin has two sons, so the whole family was very into scouting. It was a boy-haven house, even with a zip-line from one upstairs window to the tree-house... DECADES before zip-lining was mainstream. They had an extra garage where he taught his sons how to fix cars. With a sunken pit so they could just walk down some steps under the car to be worked on.

He was fun, and funny. When Brett and I were road-tripping across Iowa, we stayed with them for a night, and boy, they got along well. Brett and Uncle Devin had first met at my cousin's wedding a year before, and after talking together, Uncle D gave me the thumbs up. It felt like getting approval from the cool uncle. Because that's what it was. 

Uncle Devin's approval meant something. I remember, at Grandma's funeral - she died at 101, so had everything planned out - my sisters and I sang Beautiful Savior. Afterwards, Uncle Devin, an impressive tenor himself, told me "You've got some pipes!" It meant the world. I don't sing much outside of church choirs, and only to myself these days. Not that he was stingy with praise, just that he gave it when you weren't expecting it.

This is life. Death happens. He was a good man, who left a good legacy. He will be missed.

And life will go on.

One calendar year without a death.

p.s. Blogger is doing its thing where I can't reply to comments right now, and I can't remember how I fixed it. I'm reading them! I want to comment! I'll get around to it eventually!

American Road-Trip, Part 3: Hobbies

So, my brother-in-law has a new hobby: Making perfect ice.

I have not seen the results of this hobby, because we didn't visit their house, just met up at my mom's. I guess it is ice that is perfectly clear, with no streaks inside from bubbles rising to the surface? There's a specific way to do this. Apparently.

He's an engineer. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but I do think it speaks to a mindset that appreciates technical challenges. So... perfect ice.

When he takes on A Hobby, it is one hobby for a duration. For a while, he brewed beer. Then he was making mead. I know he also enjoys researching the best ways to cook certain things. Like I say, technical, detail-based, precision tasks.

Someone else we visited works in the gun industry. I believe he tests new models of guns coming to market. He loves his work, and enjoys talking about it. I didn't understand a lot of what he said. He showed Brett some of his personal guns. So it's a job and a hobby!

One fun aspect of this trip was finding out about hobbies that developed during the pandemic. Good friends have developed their gardening in ways specific to their abilities. A self-proclaimed NON green thumb, she created a cactus garden. He grows strawberries. They planted a grape vine to grow over the arbor they built (it's not grown that high yet) and they added a decorative sculpture garden in one corner of their property.

Another friend has also been working on his garden, but in his case the big draw is a fire ring that will have raked, flag stone seating around it when complete. 

A good friend of mine who found herself gaining weight during lockdown has jumped on the fitness bandwagon, walking with friends, and throwing down an exercise mat at home to get exercise in inclement weather.

These are not the things we talk about during the occasional long-distance phone calls. Or if so, the topics don't bear the weight of the hobby. "What did you do today?" "Oh, I took a walk / worked in the garden / made ice." Then the conversation rolls on. That's why it was so great to actually visit with all these people. We can talk all the time, but seeing a person's life is a different level of communication.

It's the little things that make a person whole.

What Day is it?

*looks at corner of laptop screen* June 1st. Okay, so that's...

*digs planner out of suitcase* ...Thursday. Fine.

We are traveling in the US for a few weeks. We arrived [*checks notes*] one week ago. It's 6:40 a.m. Central time, and I've been up for 3 hours because although we are traveling, we are keeping up with our online teaching as much as we can, so I had a class at 5:00. I'm always tired, and there's no telling if it's because of jet lag, or emotional fatigue from being Social. All. The. Time. - or if it's just the constantly rotating sleep schedule due to class times.

Tomorrow we leave Brett's hometown and head off to see my family. Or whatever portion of my family decides to show up. My family overthinks everything, and people are trying to set things in stone instead of just accepting my "I'll be there from this date until that one so come whenever you can." No. Someone must organize something. Which sounds great in theory, and worked quite well here in Brett's hometown, but my family likes to have every detail ironed out before committing to anything.

Apparently.

I'd never noticed this pattern before. Maybe it's because my oldest sister is no longer around to set things up in a simple way.

It'll be fine. 

It'll be whatever it is. 

We'll drive to my mom's town tomorrow. Maybe a brother will show up that night. The next day my sister will come down for the afternoon. Probably we'll go picnic at a winery. Probably my niece will come down that evening - maybe she'll even stay overnight! 

We have things to do in the city on Monday or Tuesday, and I've let it be known that we plan to leave on Tuesday or Wednesday. We've got people to see on the East Coast who actually want to make plans to get together. People who actually want to see me and are excited I'm back in the country!

I can't blame my family. I just saw them 3 years ago, and that was for my sister's funeral, so we really don't have a ton of positive recent memories. If I was my sibling, I'd probably prefer to stay home, too. That might be best: if everyone just decides to stay home. I really hope that everyone does what's on their heart, and doesn't push themselves to visit out of a sense of obligation.

So far, this first leg of the trip has been cool. I'm really looking forward to the final leg, out on the coast. The middle part will be fine. I'll be happy to see whoever I see.

Family can be weird.

Tuesday Truth

Short post today. I'm curious about families.

On a TV show I was watching recently, two kids were abducted. The older brother took care of his sister as well as he could, even including holding her tightly when she was scared. The little girl clung on to her brother any time she could. She trusted him and followed his directions to try to save them both.

Then there were the two grown up siblings in a sitcom who always share their troubles and advice.

I cannot imagine being that close to any of my [four] siblings. The closest I was to a sibling, she flat out told me one time - before I told a story about a night of partying - "my sister doesn't do that" so I didn't tell the story. We don't want to know all the good, bad, and ugly about each other. We love each other, but kind of at an arm's length, I guess.

Of course, there's the movie "The Good Son" and other examples of horrible siblings.

It seems in movies and TV, either siblings are devoted to each other or horrible/estranged. It seems off. Even when my little brother had no contact with us for eight years, after he and his two tiny daughters re-entered our lives, we all pitched in to help with the kids while he sorted out the logistics of moving, living, working. He truly seemed flummoxed when I responded, "Of course. You're family," to his thanks.

We come together and stand up for each other. We love each other. But other than jobs and maybe church stuff, I couldn't tell you how any of my siblings spend their time. 

Are we weird? If you have siblings, are you close? Are you distant? Or do you relate to my perspective that "we love each other, but don't want to live up each other's butt"?

Memories - #AtoZChallenge

I talk to my mom every week. I didn't always, but since my Dad's funeral in early November I started calling more, and then one time she ended the call with "I really enjoy our weekly calls." I looked at my history and... no. We hadn't been talking weekly. More like bi-weekly. So I made a point to call her once a week from then on.

The other night she called while I was bingeing on a TV show I used to discuss with my deceased sister. I'd also been drinking a drink we invented when my sister came here to visit me. So if you had asked, I'd have said I was "communing" with my sister when my mom called. Not wallowing in memories, but remembering. And even though Mom doesn't get the TV show, it was kind of nice to talk her at that time.

There were normal things to discuss: family, health, my current visa situation... and then that discussion turned to breaking down why my siblings did or did not attend the recent family event. Who am I to judge? I stayed home in Vietnam! In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that Dad always used to use the phrase, "put the best construction on everything." 

If that sounds confusing, you're probably not alone. The phrase came from Martin Luther 500 years ago. Even Luther's Small Catechism has updated the wording. (I know, because Mom looked it up while we talked.)

Basically, Luther was advising everyone to assume the best. When someone doesn't text back in a timely manner, don't assume they are ghosting you or angry, but "put the best construction on everything" and think of a logical, positive reason that they may be delayed in answering.

Anyway, the phrase was familiar to Mom, but she didn't associate it with my dad. Honestly, I didn't hear it every day, just occasionally dropped into moments of parental advice. Probably. 

Mom and I don't really talk a lot about my deceased dad. Early on I realized she's doing fine. She's not a "grieving widow" in the manner that the phrase implies. She's busy, she's taking care of things, she's good. So Dad doesn't come up very often.

But it was clear that she was touched to hear that kind of memory. "Put the best construction on everything." She's dealing with some intense stuff that, at 81, should be handled by others but it just isn't. Maybe she needed to hear a reminder from her husband, via her daughter? 

Memories. Good, bad, surprising. Have you ever had a sudden illumination and resurrected your own past because of it?

Missed the Mark

I'm trying to get stuff done today, but I can't take it anymore and this is my safe space to vent.

We stayed up late last night to watch my Dad's memorial service (live-streamed, of course) and it was terrible. SO awful! Solemn, slow, dirge-y...

Not that funerals are meant to be fun, but I've been to enough of them that I feel like a connoisseur. And this one was way less than he deserved.

In a nutshell, the pastor - of the church they've attended faithfully for at least 15 years - sounded like he didn't know my dad at all. If I was a visitor I would have thought that. Pastor Nameless mentioned two things that showed he knew my dad: 1. The trees he planted when he moved in so long ago seem to need a trim (judgy, much?) and 2. My dad is stubborn. Okay, my whole family is stubborn. Dad's stubbornness is not judgy opinion, but fact. (I had to get it somewhere!)

Other than that, anything mentioned about my dad could have been pulled from the obit or Luther's Small Catechism. Seriously. He believed this, that, all the stuff we profess in our confirmation at 13, and then basic life facts: Lived in these places, surviving family includes these people, blah-blah. No celebration of his life, at all!

And no one got up to speak except the pastor. Which would be fine if he said anything warm or kind or with any sort of feeling!

The focus was on the resurrection, which I get. We are Christian, and the knowledge of being reunited in the hereafter is a cause for celebration, but so is my dad's life! It just seems like the bigger focus should have been on the life that had just ended.

No talk about the numbers of lives he touched ALL around the world; no mention of his passion for education or his dry wit. Possibly because the pastor didn't get Dad's humor. Or maybe because he was intimidated by him? My dad has a lot of letters after his name, and I recall friends telling me, after meeting him, "Well he's not scary at all!" as if I had somehow said he was.

But to the right crowd, Dad could be entertaining. Once he and Mom came out east to see me in a play, and happened to be there on the night the director was hosting a cast party. The next day when I got to the theatre, my director asked if my dad was still in town and looked crestfallen when I said they had left that morning. "That guy is like a party trick!" he said. I'll never forget that. 

But he wasn't all high-brow. I've seen him exchange dad jokes with the best of them. They are so groan-worthy I won't even quote them.

The main photo used - on the funeral home obit, on the table in the front of the church - was one of him wearing a granddad cap and a grin on his face, holding a big stein of beer (maybe in Turkey? Maybe in a local steak house?). That photo alone says more than the pastor did.

I left the virtual memorial service feeling let down. It should have been more. He deserved better.

But if my mom was happy with it, that's all that matters. Funerals are for the living. The dead don't care anymore.

Thanks for listening.

I Jinxed Myself

I missed Flash Fiction Friday last week. Oops!

Actually, there have been a few Fridays that got away from me, leaving me to play catch up and write on Saturday. I allow it (my blog, my rules) because Saturday here is still Friday in the US.

This time, Friday got away from me and it wasn't until going to bed on Saturday night that I realized I hadn't written a story. Well, I don't have a ton of readers who would notice, so... no big deal. 

It crossed my mind that I am good at keeping the fiction going unless there's a death in the family, so I thought, "Haha. People will think someone died." No one had died.

Until Monday.

Yup. My dad died in the wee hours of Monday morning. My family had almost made it through one calendar year without a death! Almost. But I jinxed it by not writing. (I don't really believe in jinxes, but all I can do is make jokes.)

I laughed. I laughed at the irony. I laughed at the fact that I had talked to my mom in the morning, and then she called me that night as I was settling in to watch TV to say everything had changed.

One of the reasons I can laugh, and not be sad and weepy and mourn-y is because we expected this and talked about it even before we moved away from the US in 2016. My dad was in renal failure then and refused dialysis. Doctors said he needed the dialysis to stay alive. He lived 5 more years, so suck it, Medicos! And it wasn't even kidney failure that got him.

Well, I don't think so. When I talked to Mom she'd only been awake an hour and a half and hadn't even had coffee yet. Between that and a bad connection, I'm a little vague. He'd been in a nursing home recovering from a broken shoulder, and something went wrong so they'd sent him to the ER in the night.

Anyway, Dad was living on borrowed time, and he wasn't happy with life anymore. He was ready to meet his maker and reunite with two brothers, a sister, a daughter and a grandson.

So there you have it. Last week's absence explained. I'll be back with more fiction on Friday. For sure!

Happy Birthday, Sis! (To the Dearly Departed)

Dear Sister of Mine,

Happy birthday! What a year it's been! Last year this time I declared that I was taking back my year after losing the first quarter of Year of the Rat to grief. Covid still did its schtick, so I don't know that I'd say I really "owned" my year after that, but I have a healthier outlook.

How's Heaven? You didn't miss much here on Earth. If you were still here, you'd be 55 today! The "double-nickel"! Do people still call it that? Why am I asking you? 

In Vietnam our borders stayed closed to all but repatriating Vietnamese, and the pandemic hasn't been as hard here as elsewhere, so we're lucky. Of course, now that the rich countries are done deciding whether or not to vaccinate (our brother is opting out, can you believe it? Covidiot.) they are sending their excess to poorer countries. Like us, yay! But... harder hit poor countries are in greater need. India, Cambodia, places with a higher resurgence will get the vaccines, and then, hopefully, they may trickle down to us.

Meanwhile, the borders are closed to international travel, and my American friends who are all vaccinated and like, "yea! I can do whatever I want now!" don't seem to grasp that the rest of the world doesn't WANT them coming in just yet. I'm so UNBELIEVABLY happy that you visited me before all this mess!

You really decided to leave Earth at a good time, if I'm honest. With your newly weakened lung, I don't know if you would have survived this, so I'm glad you left in time that I could be there for your send-off. Don't worry, I won't say that to your kids - who seem to be doing fine - but I know perfectly well that I'm cavalier in my opinions on death... Possibly to a socially unacceptable level. I keep a lot inside because I don't want to shock people. You wouldn't be shocked, though.

Oh, sweet sister... I still send you messages occasionally. You still have that one, little, social media account that we used to communicate, that no one else seems capable of getting into. And thank God for that! Since they can't get in, they can't get in to delete your account! 

I'm still writing. I think you'd like the final version of the book you were alpha-reader on. It's not "final" final yet, but nearly there. So sorry you'll miss it when it finally gets published.

Anyway, I miss you all the time. I've started using one of the ribbon bookmarks you made me. I had been using a card from Lucas' funeral, but realized I should be honoring your memory more. Does that make sense? Just because we were closer in life. Not that it matters.

I've done a lot of writing about grief. But I'm done with that. I say that, but my writing definitely has a darker tone than it used to. I guess that's okay. 

Dad is still defying the odds and doing "okay" in Mom's words. Needs a walker, slower memory, but when I called him for Father's Day he was in good spirits. So weird to think I had expected him to be the first major death after we moved overseas. Crazy old thing, life. And death. Crazy old thing, death. Crazy old thing, grief. 

I'm boring my readers by now, so I'll end this. I really can't wait to see you again. I'm so blessed to have called you "sister", Sister.

More Foreboding - surprise!

I'm not saying this for sympathy.
I'm not saying this in ANY WAY relating to my opinion on current events.
I'm saying this because my head and heart are flooded and it's better out than in.

I keep waffling on whether to write or not write. Few people in any of my social platforms seem to be saying things not related to #BlackLivesMatter. Which they do. Black Lives DO Matter, and I've never understood the arguments against that. But this isn't that.

...I have seen one friend who regularly - weekly? maybe? - shares Covid statistics for her county.

So if something isn't Covid or racism related, it's not likely out there.

Oh... one high school friend is in limbo waiting for a liver transplant. There's that.

Everyone has their stuff and I am not in any way ignorant of that, but I have to put my words out into the ether because they are poisoning my life.

Yesterday was the 31st anniversary of the Tian-An-Men massacre. I was in Taiwan when that happened, and helped volunteers airlift Taiwanese news articles about it, to send information across the Taiwan Straits into China where there was a news blackout. The subject brings me to tears. The People's Republic of China still denies that it happened.

Yesterday was the annual peaceful protest / vigil in Hong Kong. PROC has taken over Hong Kong while the rest of the world is focused on Covid. They tried to stop it. It still happened. 

Violence and protest is everywhere.

Also, earlier this week was the birthday of my nephew who took his own life in September. (Did I mention that in an earlier post? Sorry if I'm repeating myself.) My brother's family is reliving his death daily.

Also! I had a message from my mom last night that my OTHER brother - not the father of the deceased nephew - has been called up into a riot area. He's National Guard now. We don't know where.

Oh, yeah, and my dad is 80, my mom turns 80 this year, and Dad's been in renal failure for a few years (he's stable). Recently their gym has reopened so they are going back to fitness classes. I mean, great for them, and I'm proud they are taking care of themselves - I honestly don't know how safe their state is or their town or their facilities. But through all this they are the primary guardians of my military brother's two young daughters. Dear God, Please keep them all safe!

It's a crap shoot guessing which of my family members will die next. I thought, after my sister's funeral just before the new Lunar Year, that I'd have a good year free from more death. I'm beginning to rethink that guess.

We all die. 
It doesn't truly matter. 
I couldn't go to the funeral anyway!
It just weighs on me.

Intimidation #AtoZChallenge.

I find I'm Intimidated to talk to my family back in the US. I know myself. I am judgmental. Especially right now when it is so clear to me - over here, near, you know CHINA - that they need to stay inside.
I'm Intimidated to ask if my parents and siblings went to a physical church service last Sunday. Or if they intend to do so on Easter.

In the Christian church, Easter Sunday is a big deal. As a Christian, Easter has always been my favorite holiday. It's the most significant, faith-wise. Christ's resurrection is, in fact, the very reason we have faith!

When I lived in the US, I was an active member of a church. When we moved to China, I lost that. Our first year in China, we tried to find a place to go to a Christmas service. We found that they they are such a huge deal and attract tourists, that some churches required you to show your foreign passports just to get in. We opted NOT to attend a Christmas service. 

In the past four years, I've gotten used to reading my Bible, praying, meditating, and not having that church community. I get that it's a transition process and most people living in a "free-religion" society are accustomed to attending communal worship. I get that the sudden change in societal rules does not make people suddenly comfortable to give up communal worship.

I'm Intimidated to ask any of my family whether they went to church on Palm Sunday. I'm not asking about Easter plans. My family is not too active on facebook, so if I don't ask, I probably won't know. Then I won't have to get in their face. Because I will. I'm mean. And as the 4th of 5, knowing that no one takes me seriously I sometimes get loud.

In the face of my Intimidation, since I can't say this to those I love IRL, please, please, PLEASE...

STAY HOME! 

Here's a thought. Worship at home. Zoom, Skype, Sing an Easter hymn without potentially contaminating yourself and dozens of others.

GOD gets it. God has asked us to care for each other, to consider those in need. Right now, we are all in need to be protected. We NEED to isolate.

Worship. By all means. Jesus lives, and that is an amazing miracle. 

But follow His lead and consider all the lives that touch yours. STAY HOME!

Getting Together #AtoZChallenge

Since no one is really Getting together these days (one hopes), this post is more related to the "Grief" part of my theme.

We moved to China in September of 2016. Knowing we'd be leaving the country that month, my dear mother tried to get the whole family together for Labor Day weekend. She'd had kids out the country consistently for at least 8-10 years. My big brother moved back from Turkey in June, so there had been just three months with all FIVE of her offspring on US soil. 

Our family is seriously lacking in family photos that include everyone. 

Suddenly, days before the weekend Get together, my little brother decided he had to take his daughters to Chicago to see their maternal grandparents. So the rest of us Got together, but it was not what Mom had hoped for.

Nearly a year later, Brett and I returned from China - partly to close out our storage unit, since we now knew we'd stay in Asia long-term, partly to see family. During that 2-week visit, I only managed to Get together with one of my four siblings.

After moving to Vietnam the following year, we knew it would be a while before any family Get togethers.

Or so we thought. 

When my nephew died (18yo) last fall, we scrambled to find a way to get me back to the States. I won't get into all the reasons this was a logistical problem, but Brett couldn't leave. 

The whole family at one Get together. For a horrible, horrible, terribly painful reason. But we were there. At one point my older brother (father of the deceased) commented with tears in his eyes about how amazed he was that everyone was there.

When I got home, my darling husband suggested that we start planning a trip to the States for June of this year. A long trip - maybe three weeks - so we could see everyone and spend time together for fun. Not for grief. I had started clocking ticket prices in early January.

Then my eldest sister died. It was ruled a heart attack, although there was no autopsy, so... (Come back on Day S for my opinions of Statistics.) That meant just five months after going State-side for one painful funeral, we were in transit again. This time, Brett was able to accompany me, and THANK GOD! 

Again, the whole family was able to Get together. Again for a horrible, horrible, terribly painful reason.

We were, even more than before, looking forward to our June trip - as yet unplanned - to Get together with all of our friends and family for FUN!

When Covid19 came on the scene, I knew that a trip in June wouldn't be possible. My family in the States may have been skeptical, but I knew. Now that they are dealing first hand with this pandemic, they agree. We cannot have any fun Get togethers for a while.

When was your last Get together with friends or family? What did you do? Does the memory of it help keep you optimistic for the next time you can Get together?

Smart People Being Idiots

I just can't with my family right now.

Good grief.

I'd like to apologize on behalf of my State-side family members. It's not a valid apology, because they don't even seem to realize the danger they are to others and themselves, but I'm apologizing all the same.

I'm sorry about my parents - 79 and 80 - who are only now stopping going to their "Strength for Seniors" fitness class at the Y... because their governor finally declared a ban on non-essential travel. And truthfully, if they hadn't gotten a message from the Y stating that "due to the ban" the class will be cancelled, they'd probably still go. 
I just can't.

They are currently caring for my nieces, too - 8 and 11. My brother is a single dad in the National Guard, and works as a driver during most days. He is, at least, trying to keep his kids safe by not bringing germs home to them. I bet he didn't expect our parents to be part of the problem!

I'm sorry about my sister, who took both of her sons - 18 and 10 - down to 18's college to clear out his dorm room now that his spring break is turning into... distance learning? Summer vacation? Not sure on details. Imagine dorms clearing out. I hope the school was smart enough not to force all students to clear out on the same day. Still. 18 has a car. A nice, snazzy, vintage Mustang. Couldn't he have done his own moving out? 
I just can't.

I know my sister is smart. There must have been a reason she had to go down... and bring her younger son along. But I can't imagine what could be more important than protecting your family right now.

I don't have a bead on my older brother's situation, but I've just tasked my niece (22) with urging her parents to stay in. He's a school administrator, and when I spoke to him last week, they'd had a meeting - trying to keep some distance between each other - and afterward he had asked an upset teacher if she would accept a hug. He didn't have a problem with it. Thank God she did! 
I just can't. 

I know they are trying to get SIL's mom to stay in, though - what is it with that generation! They have a lot going on without even thinking about a pandemic. 

[After finding their son's dead body in the attic, they have finally moved back into their house, which they can't sell until they finish the renovation to the kitchen that had started before his death. So... life is hard to begin with, and I know - from words of my SIL - that there's a bit of a "what's the worst that can happen? The worst has already happened," mentality in that family. It's heart-breaking.]

It's also heart-breaking to think that they might be cavalier about social distancing, and I might lose my big brother because he just doesn't care anymore! (Just messaged him. He says he's trying not to die, so... okay?)

{UPDATE: Just talked to him, and they are doing what they can, running over to MIL's house everyday, and feel like the country is better than I think, because there are way fewer cars on the road.}

My only living sister can't be around me for more than a day without screaming at me, and my younger brother doesn't talk to me. Not to be mean, but now that Big Sis died, if Big Bro died too, I might as well not have a family at all.

We're not stupid! I swear!
I come from a high-IQ family. I know we are all intelligent human beings. But poor choices are not relegated to idiots. In fact, maybe it's a case of doing the math and playing the odds. 

Except for the fact that the numbers are skewed by the fact that NO ONE knows much about this virus, and frankly, the American media does not seem to help. 
(We watch American news. We also watch international news. Try it sometime.)

Stay safe, people.
Stay home.
It's the only way to end this.

Numb

There was no indication. She seemed fine.

I mean, okay, last month she found out that all the breathing trouble she'd been having wasn't just a form of bronchitis. She had a pulmonary embolism (fancy talk for a blood clot in her lung). 

Drugs - blood thinners, maybe? - took care of it and she was doing fine.

I checked in with her regularly.
Me: How you feeling today?
📞 *talk for about 15 minutes*

~ 2 weeks later
Me: Merry Christmas! How's your lung?
Her: Sleeping well and breathing better.

Somewhere in here, she had a check up with the cardiologist who told her she was fine and he'd see her in six months.
 
~ 1.5 weeks later
Me: Are you breathing okay?
Her: Absolutely, sleeping normal and not running out of breath with normal activities.



Five days after that last message, my sister, 53 years old, dropped dead of a heart attack.

That's all I got. I'm numb. What can I say?

She is the person I talk to the most from back home. She's the one who keeps tabs on my dad, when my mom insists everyone is "fine". She's the one who works with me to get gifts to people while I live 9,000 miles away.

I don't know what will happen next, when I get a burr up my butt to call her and vent about something, or just to laugh together. I just lost my touch-stone. I'm numb.

This is twice in five months that I've taken a surprise trip to the US for a funeral of a close family member. It's not fun. It's exhausting. I didn't even spend enough time to acclimate to Eastern Time (which means no jetlag on my return to Vietnam, so that was nice). 

We got back home 2 days ago, just before Lunar New Year. A fresh start.
The belief here is that you should get rid of the bad before the new year: clean house, cut hair, reconcile... whatever. Get rid of bad juju and start the new year fresh. 
That's what I'm hoping for. Death is a part of life, but if I can have a year without such close, heart-rending deaths, that would be great.

Quick as a Wink

I'm not taking the whole month I had allotted for this trip. I'm glad I made that month available, but my brother's family are trying to return to life as of Wednesday, and my presence is no longer needed.

I am keeping an open line to God during this whole trip and it's amazing, when you learn to listen. As it turns out, this Friday I will be in transit again, so there will again not be any Fiction Friday, but I'm hoping next week to resume a schedule.

This trip has been illuminating. My nephew was well-loved, and there were about 800 people at visitation, and a very crowded church for the funeral. A few things were cute and unifying:

The high school soccer team he'd just graduated out of all showed up wearing their jerseys. They all sat together, too. 

His pall bearers all wore aviator sunglasses, as he used to do. 

When I had packed for this trip, I had tossed two pink dress shirts into my suitcase, and thought I'd wear one to the funeral. The morning of the funeral, I was considering a darker colored shirt and - silly and insignificant a detail as a shirt might be - I said a quick prayer. I wore the pink. When I arrived, my brother asked, "Who told you about the pink thing?" What pink thing? Turns out pink was his favorite color. He felt that color described him. He was wearing his favorite pink bow-tie in the casket. The whole family was going to wear at least a touch of pink. And that was the only color of dress shirt I had brought! 

It's a weird detail, but I think they appreciated it.

I'm so glad I made the trip. Looking at him lying there, it was clear he was gone. The color was wrong, his freckles were covered and without his perpetual grin, his cheeks had fallen. It was important to see that, and recognize that his soul is no longer here.

Yesterday, my sister-in-law and niece took me to Walmart. In the hair-care aisle, SIL suddenly was overcome at the normalcy of it. Things are not normal anymore. The new normal will never be right. They are holding it together, but grief strikes in the most random of moments. For me too, and for each of us.

I have a sister with a son the same age. Our brother had to take her by the hand to look in the casket. I think this is harder on her than she's been letting on.

Quick as a wink, people were leaving town, and decisions are being made about flowers, and photos, and memorials. Tomorrow is the last day, graveside, and then I will head up to Chicago with some of our mutual friends. 

Here ends a life. A life well-lived, as short as it was.

No Fiction Today

No Fiction Friday here today.

If all goes well, I have landed in the US this Friday morning. It's the funeral weekend. In a sudden rush, we figured out all the problems with me making this trip at this time, and turned them into mere hurdles to jump over. I will have to stay in the States for a month, because I'll need to get a new passport while I'm there, and all kinds of other #ExpatLife issues, but at least I will be there for my brother and his family.

Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Especially my sister-in-law, who found the body. I cannot imagine.

It's going to be a rough few days. 
And from then on, of course. 
But this weekend will be hard, and I'll be without my rock, my husband, my partner, my better half in so many respects. He is amazing in a crisis, but cannot make the trip with me. 

Prayers much appreciated.

An Ounce of Peace is All I Want For You

Today's title is taken from the lyrics of "Hate Me" by Blue October.  This is inspired by the September Song Project (check it out here) that I found out about on JZ's blog (A Reluctant Bitch). However, I will not link up to the party today, because this post is deeply personal.
I have no words.
I am writing this to try to accumulate some words that make sense of a senseless situation.

I snatched maybe an hour of sleep last night, sometime after 4:30 a.m., so this may not even be coherent.

At around 9:40 last night I turned off my phone to go to sleep.  That's about 10:40 Sunday morning in the US EDT, where my parents live.

I couldn't sleep. I tried my essential oils. I tried a sleep meditation. I tossed and turned, never really reaching that required REM.

Finally at 12:24, I saw a blinking light on my phone. It was a message from my eldest sister alluding to bad news from our brother. So I messaged back that I wasn't sleeping, so if she wanted, we could chat. She called.

My nephew, home from college for the long weekend, hung himself in his bedroom. My brother and his wife returned home from running errands on Saturday and found him. I cannot imagine. A parent's worst nightmare. He was 18. He'd only been at college for about two weeks.

He was well-liked, the life of the party, energetic, tortured his sister regularly like a normal brother, soccer-star at his school, good looking, ambitious; nobody saw this. And there was no note. I have a weird inkling to hope that, since there was no note, maybe it was an accident? Maybe during those first two weeks of his freshman year, the guys were talking about auto-erotic asphyxiation and he wanted to try it? I don't know why that would be preferable in my mind, and maybe I should talk to a counselor about that. But then I remember, when I was suicidal, decades ago, I had no intention to leave a note. I didn't go through with it, so it doesn't matter, but as much as TV and the movies want us to believe there's usually a note, that's not necessarily so. Was he depressed? Who knows. 

My brother is still going through locked accounts to see if there's any hint online. My darling husband suggested that, with no note, no clearly defined reason, there may be some ugly discoveries cropping up in the next few days.

I cannot imagine having to go through that. My head is a whirl of questions. It seems like the only question is "why?", but that's a HUGE question! What circumstances led to this? Was it an ongoing situation in his brain? Were we all blind? Had he gotten into trouble at school and couldn't face the music? Is there some dark secret he's hiding?

My writer's mind wants to be able to describe the situation. I want to know details of what my brother and sister-in-law went through, but that is HORRIBLE! I think I thirst for detail in every situation because my family is severely deficient in the communication department regarding even normal things people talk about. It's not my business anyway.

Oh, incidentally, the family line ended with him. In the traditional sense. This nephew was the only male descendant of my father's family in that generation. My dad was one of six, including four boys, three of whom had sons who might have passed on the family name. Of the four boys born to my generation, only my brother had a biological son. (One has a step-son, who will pass on the name, but not the genes.) It's a tiny, insignificant detail, but my brother was one of those people who cares about things like that.

The suicide was on Saturday (from the secondhand information I have received). Sunday morning, my brother called Mom. She was just finishing up Bible study at church and her phone, which almost never rings, rang. By the time she left the room, it stopped, but Dad's phone was ringing. They joined their pastor in a private room and my brother made sure that Dad (with a weak heart) was seated, before explaining what happened.

The time that phone call took place? Sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m. EDT Sunday morning. Exactly when I was finding myself unable to sleep. And for the rest of the night, I talked to my sister, talked to my mom, messaged my brother, talked to my husband, messaged my other sister, my niece and my sister-in-law, then had a chat conversation with the first sister again, since I was still awake after 3:00 a.m.

I finally drifted off, and woke up crying. 

It's so surreal. The nearest grief I've experienced was my grandmother's death. I thought my next grief would surely be my dad. Today, I can do things - like write this - but I can't stop and think. That's when the tears come again. So the trick is to stay active. I did a great workout this morning, walked to the market and back, then out for breakfast, then out to the shops, then put away laundry... 

As I said, I'm only writing this to try to form words. I really hoped it would help. I can't talk to anyone, because it's not public knowledge yet and anyone I would talk to about it knows my brother and might spill it before they are ready to share. This blog is my safe haven that no one IRL knows about. 

Sorry if it's jarring to you. It's jarring to me.

Lessons Learned

We had our first guest!
This was very exciting. No one ever came to see us when we lived in Beijing, and if they did, they couldn't have stayed with us anyway. We had only been in Vietnam for six months before hosting our first guest.

We intentionally got a house with an extra room so that we could do this. The Central Coast of Vietnam is a much better vacation destination than Beijing, and we already know of at least three more trips to visit us that various friends and family are working on.

Part of the guest room

I'm so glad my eldest sister was our first guest. She was an easy guest, not too demanding, but she and I are close enough that I could ask her honestly for advice on improvements to the guest room. Also, she was very relaxed about scheduling things, so we didn't have to plan the heck out of her week.

I learned a few things that I will do differently regarding future visitors.

1. Weather. I am a bad judge of weather now. I can look at an app with the best of 'em, but now that the humidity doesn't bug me, I was advising my sister to pack capris with a few shorts. It was delightfully cool with all the rain that happened! She was melting in our upper 70s. The humidity is intense for a midwesterner! Huh. Guess that's why it takes three days for my clothes to dry if it's rainy.

2. Distances. I measure distance in time. "How far is Old Town?" "About a 25 minute walk." (It's about two and a half kilometers.) I have always loved walking. I don't notice distance because I'm looking around me enjoying the life I see. It was that way in the States, too. Moving to Asia, walking has become a necessity. I walk a lot. I walk fairly fast, usually. Not everyone does. My sister has an iffy knee, and moves more slowly than I do. (She would decide whether a walk sounded do-able, but based on my distance estimation.) I don't think she enjoyed the interesting things that we passed while walking. She was very intent on the motion itself, it seemed. Maybe I'm wrong.

3. Environment. I love where I live. I notice things like the variety of colors of the houses and their gates, the distinctive shrines that are everywhere, any new fruit I see on a street-side cart, the shape of the clouds or fog in the morning. I love the smells of incense and spices and exhaust that make up Asia. I breathe deep as we pass by the rice paddies or sit by the river. I am enchanted by our cultural differences. Not everyone notices these things, or indeed cares. I think, if a person doesn't find joy in detail, or mark the uniqueness of beauty, perhaps Vietnam is not a great place to visit.

I do believe that overall, we had a good time. We did some stuff, went some places, and also relaxed a good deal. I hope my sister enjoyed herself. I honestly don't know. She didn't love the things I love about this place, but maybe enjoyed enough in her own way. With my family, I may never get a straight answer.

Christmas Came Early

My sister left for home on Sunday.
I think she must be a cat because apparently I killed her several times. (haha) I'm so used to walking everywhere, and at a good pace, that we wiped her out the first day.

To be fair, she arrived at 9am, and the best way to conquer jet lag is to stay up until bedtime in your new timezone on that first day. We started by walking off to rent bicycles.
We stopped for Vietnamese iced coffee on the way.

We took her to Ancient Town Hoi An for "bucket drinks" - one of my favorites. It's a large cocktail in a bucket!

The next day was heavy downpour all day and we stayed in. Good thing, too. She had blisters on her feet.

The next day was rainy too, but not so heavy, and there were occasional breaks in the rain, so we actually walked out to get coffee. I guess, cabin fever?

Even the lotus pond here is flooded!

The next day was drippy but okay, so we took a cab across town so she could order tailored clothes from my lady (Hoi An is tailoring capital of the world), and then we walked a ways to do some Christmas shopping. Stopped for coconut coffee.

We decided that we would go to Marble Mountain the following day, rain or shine. It was a bit drippy in the morning when we went, but the rain only began in earnest after we got in the car to head home.

Marble Mountain has Marble stores where you can watch the sculptors, and the biggest mountain has shrines and pagodas both on top and within the mountain itself. It's pretty cool. 

After Marble Mountain, I signed us up for a cooking class the following day. THAT was awesome. We made 4 delicious dishes, and the chef took pictures and videos so we can both repeat it later. He even told my sister some changes she can make to be able to do it in the States!

For her final day in Vietnam, I had booked us a room - a studio apartment really - at the place Brett and I had lived in Da Nang. Her flight left at 10am the next morning, so we wanted as short a drive as possible. 

It was Saturday night, so after hot stone massages, we went off to watch the Dragon Bridge show. Even though it rained, the dragon did his fire-breathing act... And then Vietnam won the soccer tournament they were in. It was a HUGE deal! 

Huge.
We couldn't get a ride, so ended up walking back to the room. My poor sister. 
I kept killing her by walking.

I hope she slept on the plane. She told me she slept for 15 hours after she got home!

Now you know why I've been so quiet lately. I'll get back into routine soon! I hope you all enjoy whatever holiday plans you have.