On losing loved ones

A lifetime of interaction reduced to just a name on grave marker. Something is hollowed out, a vacuum unfilled.

While living, we gave so much weight to feelings: anger, humiliation, humor, humility, assigning ill intention, assigning blame, false accusation, second-guessing and self-projection.

Just stressed out. Just figuring it all out. Then understood, finally (no finality to anything. Just an abrupt and unannounced end).

We are a mixed bag, lash out not on strength, but out of weakness (self-preservation). We were quick to see flaws in others, most conveniently, people close to us. Proximity breeds contempt. Distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Death put a nail on all of this. No more lingering, self-recrimination or regret. Find someone else to mutually commiserate. Drama on screen at least shows credits to actors after THE END. In life, we are conditioned to take down as opposed to build up, criticize versus praise. Bad news, especially fire and storm, make the news.

Here, at the place of final resting, one experiences loss. Warp and all. But loss. Eerie and prolonged absence. Terminally. Like a train at rest at the end of the line, no longer to be attended to. No more departure nor arrival. No luggage, no ride. No ticket.

Just immobile. At rest. All the striving, struggling and competing. A man/woman in full.

Sunrise or sunset, no difference! Being early or late? No difference.

Loved ones, once hugged or greeted, now just a name to be “viewed”. Folded and enclosed, three-dimension person to just a name, from left to right. Two dimensions with choices of font. Yet from our deepest, we recognize resemblance…the face (at arrival gate) the voice (long-distance collect call) and definitely the eccentricity (Killing Me softly…). In dreams and memories. When asleep or while awake.

My sister wouldn’t let anything stand in her way. Colloquial expressions that extinct: “noi cau” (getting angry), “duoc the” (on the roll).

My Dad exercised not at the gym, but in the woods, not punching bag but banana trees. He once swam and pushed a boat on which sat weeping folks among whom my mom, brother and a neighbor to safety.

My brother-in-law insisted on the rule of law (he made no effort to hide his contempt for Kissinger) yet once flanked on both sides by high-ranking “enemies” – forgiveness aside. Just human-to-human link (after having a few, tipsy and all).

And Mom. Blessed Mom. She was busy the whole time I could remember. 30-years’ worth of student workload, correcting mistakes, misspells and miscalculation. Class ratio 57:1. No wonder, my interaction was what left over of her day. Not to mention gender and generation gap.

Now, they are safely under snow-covered graves. Names spelled in accordance with and in the order, originally given: Last name, Middle and First.

Family names first. Individual last. Clan vs individual. Harmony trumps eccentricity.

97 per cent of the same gene pool, rice-fed and war-weary. Striking features similar laugh. Family.

Pew Foundation found 2/3 of people are still religious, mostly due to Covid (and larger forces at work, such as imminent death itself).

A majority of us believe there was a soul, an afterlife, a place of dwelling beyond death.

Just in case. It doesn’t cost anything to hedge the bet. To have faith in the unseen. No use to speculate.

Meanwhile, current address as we all know, is not our permanent address.

That permanent address is not on Amazon shipping label. In this case, it’s a Section. Serenity.

Un-visited graves. On losing loved ones. It hurts like Hell. One’s life is diminished, especially in Asian extended-families culture (Everything all at once etc…) Rest of life living in limping, underlived in fact. still structured but with bitter taste in the mouth (survivor’s guilt).

People as species, in an intergalactic struggle for survival.

On losing loved ones, we try to fill up the huge holes inside. We spot faces in the crowd, gray hair and bent back, on a walker or on wheels, waiting for a ride or being assisted at handicap parking. Deja Vu! Flash forward to our very selves. That’s when we cultivate and grow empathy, compassion and charity. Per Saint Paul, the last is the greatest.

Yet they don’t sell it on Amazon under C, after Books. Nor do they talk about it on Tik Tok.

On subject of loss. R.I.P. Play Misty for Me…..The first time, ever I saw your face…Sis, it must have been at the mid-wife hospital where I first sighted and followed your movement (still a young girl then and was not so sure about your newly born baby brother and all). Later, shadowing you to local convenient store, to create an opportunity for myself: the more you bought, the more likely I got those bonus lemon candies.

I must stop here, but as long as I still have a heartbeat, I won’t forget, you take me to first day of school, Ecole L’Aurore …Mom, ironically, started hers at nearby Elementary- busy tending to other people’s kids.

Y’ all nurtured and encouraged me. We’re chain-linked, like roots, on life raft, tearful and frightful, with minimal hope. Together, we’re with better odds to survive the Unknown. Now that losing you doesn’t feel so bad, since I know you already knew what it was.