Category Archives: family

Parakeets and chicken and waffles

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A few of my female colleagues have offered to have a mini bachelorette outing with me before I leave for the wedding, so yesterday, we discussed going to a fried chicken spot next Thursday to celebrate. And lo and behold, last night, I dreamt that I was at home in my backyard, enjoying the sunlight and taking care of two different parakeets, one blue and one pink and white, each in their own separate cages. They have cages that look just like the one that my Willie, my old pet parakeet, used to have when I was young. I left them alone for a bit and came back, and I notice that my mother has given both of them new food. One had a big piece of fried chicken on top of a waffle he was nibbling; the second had a mini hamburger.

Why would she feed these parakeets fried chicken and meat? I thought. This stuff is going to kill them!! Of course, they didn’t mind because they were just gobbling it all up. I guess this food sure beats having seeds, vegetables, and fruit.

Seen again

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I was on my treadmill at the gym today, and for the first time, I almost slipped off it. While running and staring out the window, I thought I saw Ed walking across the street toward me. This man had a black jacket, khaki pants, and black shoes on, and his walk was just like Ed’s. His height and figure were like his, too. I almost stopped breathing when my eyes followed this guy. In the end of course, it wasn’t him. But it reminded me so much of him. This has happened about two or three times since he has passed away.

It was even worse this morning because I’ve been thinking about him a lot the last couple of weeks during the lead up to this wedding. He feels closer to me, yet he couldn’t be any farther away from me now.

As the day gets closer

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The last two weeks have been really grueling for me. It’s not even just because of all the work travel, the flight delays and cancellations and the unforeseen hotel stays in cities I didn’t think I’d end up in. It’s because as the day gets closer to the wedding, all I think about is the fact that Ed won’t be there. It sounds really obsessive, unhealthy, and maniacal to a degree, but I can’t really help it. It tends to happen whenever I finish something and feel good about it, or when I am thinking about the food or the decor and in the back of my mind, I wonder what he would have thought about it. Lately, it’s because I’ve been listening to potential wedding music, and every song I choose to listen to seems to remind me of him. And then I tear up and think…. why can’t he be here with us? I’ve told this to so many people, but when you are planning big events in your life, whether it’s your upcoming graduation, your wedding, your child’s birth, you always think that the people you love the most will be there for you. So when they aren’t, it’s absolutely heart wrenching, especially when they aren’t here due to unnatural causes.

I feel the way I do about my wedding the way I do about the anniversary of his death and his birthday. As the day approaches, I feel like I am getting closer and closer to seeing him again. He will make an appearance in some way, or I will feel his presence even though I know he is physically not there. There’s no logic in any of that thinking; it’s just a feeling I have in my gut.  I wish he were here. I need to see him again.

No more gifts

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My mom loves her gifts. But she also is eagerly awaiting the day after my wedding so she can hound me about her future grandchildren — you know, the ones who I haven’t been thinking much about at all.

“Don’t buy me any more gifts,” she said yesterday. “You should be saving money for your future children… my future grandchildren!” Then she starts chuckling. I can see her smiling through the phone. The smile is so big that I can feel it through the phone. “You know, I need grandchildren! I need them soon!”

She used to hound me about saving money for a future down payment on a house. Now that I am getting married in a month, she is hounding me for the grandchildren. It’s always something.

Annoyed FedEx delivery guy

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I had stems of 24 large cymbidium orchids sent to my mom for her birthday. When I placed the order, which I thought I got a pretty good deal on since cymbidiums are one of the most expensive orchids to buy, I envisioned my mother’s face ecstatically opening the box to uncover these fat, beautiful cymbidium faces, freckled with fuchsia and yellow and staring back at her. I anticipated that given the long life of orchids, the blooms would last her until the time she and my dad departed San Francisco to drive down to San Clemente for our wedding. Little did I know that the path to get to her would not be so smooth and bright.

On Friday morning, the FedEx delivery guy comes to my parents’ house and rings the bell. No one answers at around 9:39am, when he attempted the delivery. He rang again, and still no answer. So what does he decide to do instead of calling the recipient to ask when she would be home so he could re-attempt the delivery? Meh, no problem. He just takes the box, throws it over the gate, and drives off!

My parents come home about two hours later to discover what appears to be a very large florist box sitting in the middle of their staircase. My dad later told me the box was dented on one side, and when they took it in and opened it, six of these very beautiful (and expensive) blooms immediately fall off. Some of the petals had fallen off and had been smashed. Someone had mishandled these poor orchids, and this was just not right.

I online chatted The Bouqs and complained about this shortly after my mom called me, and immediately received a full credit back and numerous apologies. I just kept on imagining a FedEx delivery guy being so frustrated that the recipient was not home and then taking the liberty of throwing the freaking box over the gate. What the heck was he thinking?!

 

Someone’s turning 62

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My mom is turning 62 tomorrow. I’m not allowed to say “happy birthday” to her since she’s a JW, and her people don’t believe in birthdays, but since she is still herself, she loves receiving gifts, and she indirectly expects to get something around the date of her birthday every single year. Chris decided to send her a surprise dinner from some Asian restaurant tonight (I did not know this), and there was no card that said who the food was from.

So my mom called tonight to ask if I sent her food. My initial response was… No, I did not? Why? She said that someone ordered food with a label that said “happy birthday,” and that if I did not send it, she would give it to my aunt upstairs because maybe she ordered it.

“Auntie Linda’s birthday is not in February!” I exclaimed. “And when has she ever ordered food delivery before?!”

I looked over at Chris on the couch. “You sent something to her, didn’t you?” I said to him. He gives me this funny side-eyed look, and so I know he did it. “Chris sent it,” I said to my mom on the phone. “Don’t give it to my aunt!”

These are all the games that my family plays, and Chris just joins right in.

Engagement photos

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Our photographer finished editing the full set of our engagement photos, so I sent the gallery to my parents so they could see them. My mom said she loved the photos and said we both looked really good in them, but she critiqued my choice of wearing jeans for half of them. “Why are you wearing such weird clothes in the first half?” she asked. “Who wears jeans to things like this?”

My mom has had a life-long hatred of denim and anything jeans-related. She’s always looked at them as working men’s clothing, the type of clothing you wear if you are changing tires or working on a construction site. She has no idea why anyone would want to wear jeans every day or why anyone would find them attractive or comfortable.

“But that was meant to be the casual clothing photos,” I said to her. “I’m more dressed up in the second half.”

She doesn’t care. The jean hate continues.

Dream recap

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I was walking up to Grand Central tonight and talking to my mom on the phone when I decided to tell her that I dreamt that Ed never died. I guess I thought to tell her because she brought him up. Well, what I left out was that I also dreamt that although he was alive, she had died. But hey, she doesn’t have to know every detail, right?

“He said he never died,” I told her. “He said he is still here with us. He said he has always been here with us.”

“He never died?” My mom repeated pensively. “He never died… Yes, you know that when Armageddon comes, Ed will be resurrected, and he will live on paradise on earth with us forever.”

My mom loves her convenient truths. If paradise on earth really existed according to Jehovah’s Witnesses’ beliefs, then Ed and I wouldn’t “qualify” because we were never Jehovah’s Witnesses to begin with. We would go to hell. And neither would our dad qualify, and heck, my mom hasn’t converted a single person yet, so she probably wouldn’t have made the 144,000 person cut off, either! But at least our mom thinks Ed is a good enough person so that he could be resurrected, so that thought was kind of comforting.

She said to me that since Ed has passed, she has seen him in dreams only twice. I told her he comes to visit me at least a couple times a month since he passed. She expressed half surprise, half envy.

“He comes to visit you… in New York?” my mom said to me, confused. “But how doe he know the way to get there? He could get lost.”

Even in dream life, in the after life, in heaven — wherever my sweet, innocent brother continues to live another form of life, our mother continues to worry about him. After death, he still lives somewhere out there, and because she knows this, she continues not just to pray for him, but to worry if he is safe, happy, and at peace… and if he won’t get lost on the way to New York to visit me.

What our mother doesn’t realize is that now wherever her son is, Ed can’t get lost. He cannot be in danger. He can’t feel pain, and all he can do is feel peace and be happy. That’s why every time I see him now, he’s always the happy one, and I am the one crying and sobbing when I see him. I really should be happier when I see him in dreams, but I can’t because I am selfish. I miss him in this life where I am, where I live. In his new world, he has found peace and happiness. It is a daily struggle to accept and for me to be at peace with his peace.

 

 

Secret revealed

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I finally asked my mom today if she was going to tell her two friends from Hawaii coming to the wedding that Ed isn’t here anymore. I’ve been avoiding asking her in fear that she might lash out at me, but she actually seemed very thoughtful when she responded. She said that they will be visiting the Bay Area before the wedding and that she’d talk to them then about it. She even acknowledged how important it was that they know before the wedding. I am slightly in shock we agreed on this so quickly and easily.

A wedding without my brother is getting closer by the day and more real by the minute. I hope that he will be watching over us.

Dessert selection

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Last night, I was going over dessert selections for our wedding and deciding what sweets we wanted to offer. We tasted a number of options that we liked during our visit to Southern California last month, and it will definitely be a tough decision to finalize which ones we want to move forward with. As I was going over the selection and the costs, I found myself thinking about Ed and which ones he would want the most. He always like fruit filled desserts as well as chocolate anything, so as long as that was on the table, he’d be happy and satisfied. I thought about the chocolate mousse with raspberries we tasted and how much he would have loved that, and the oreo and s’more items we tried. The list is endless of the things he would have enjoyed and have been excited about if he were here.

It makes me sad to plan this and know that as each day goes by, we get closer to the big day when he will not be there to enjoy and celebrate with us. I thought about when I have thought about him during this process, and it tends always to be at moments when I am happy or excited about something. I rarely think about him when drama arises with my aunt or my cousins, or when friends or family have made up bullshit reasons for not coming. My brother would have been there no matter what; that’s what siblings do for you. They’re not like your flaky friends from high school or your cousins who say they look at you like you’re siblings, but in practice do not at all, only when it’s convenient for them. Siblings make each other their priority in life; they are extensions of yourselves. if you fail your sibling, you are failing yourself. The sad thing is, this doesn’t apply to my dad or his siblings, but with Ed and me, this was very true. And that makes me even sadder to know he won’t be there for this day.