Tonight, we went to my cousin’s apartment in Brooklyn to celebrate his son’s first birthday. Given the dysfunction in their house, everything that was a plan ended up not being the final plan – his wife’s sister, husband, and son were hours late (even though they had originally wanted to meet at 5pm), the cake had to be cut and eaten before dinner as opposed to after, and the restaurant got switched because of their random demands (and my cousin’s lack of balls to assert himself). Despite all the snarky remarks, ignoring, and passive aggression that were obviously in the room, little Ryan was oblivious. In pretty much all the photos I took of him, he seemed happy and healthy.

While it was great to see my little pseudo nephew (first cousin once removed… whatever you want to call it), the entire time we were sitting at their apartment and then at the restaurant, it was like I was subconsciously making a mental list of all the things I hated and did not want for my own kids and life. The list goes something like this:

1. Do not make snarky remarks to your husband in front of family/friends.

2. Don’t ignore your husband.

3. Let your child stand up and fall. And then get back up. Stop preventing him from failing. He’s never going to win if he doesn’t lose occasionally.

4. Be assertive and don’t let any neurotic or selfish in-laws dictate your child’s birthday plans. You set the date, time, and location. If they want something else, they don’t have to come. Your child, your decisions.

5. If your child rejects food, stop force feeding him. He will end up throwing it all up later anyway, and guess who will have to clean it?

I have other mental check lists, too, for other parts of life. Some have been prompted by my parents, some have come as a result of Ed and his life, and others are inspired by other neurotic people I know. It will be easier to say it than do it, but if I write them all down, maybe I will be harder on myself to enforce these rules.

By the way, Bart (Ed) came to the birthday event last night, but we never took him out of the bag. In retrospect, it was probably a better thing because it’s not like we need to expose him to any more stress than necessary. He left this world to escape it, not to relive all the tension again.

I shared the URL to this blog to another friend today. I’ve been selective about who I am actually sharing this with, and yes, I am aware that this blog is public and anyone could find it if they really wanted to search for it. Obviously, a lot of sensitive topics have been discussed on this site that could be damaging to certain individuals in my life, but I figure that this is the best way for me to be open about my emotions and feelings about life.

This blog originally started as a food-blog-hopeful, then more realistically became a blog about my daily thoughts about life, particularly here in New York. In the last two and a half months, it’s been a public place where I have shared my thoughts and emotions on the impact my brother has had on my life in light of his death.

The truth is that maybe no one is reading this blog, and honestly, I don’t really care about it that much. But, one thing I will say is that I hope that if anyone has to go through what I have in the last two and a half months (or, really, in the last 27.5 years) that I hope what I have shared here will be helpful and inspirational to them. In many ways, life is about service (in any way that you want to interpret that), and if I can help just one person get through the self-inflicted death of a loved one in his/her life, then that would be enough for me.

I lied about what I just said; I hope that Ed is reading this blog.

Tonight, I went to a “girlfriends” Meetup, where I met three other working women in their  20s-30s who live in the tri-state area. We met in the West Village for a food and wine pairing. The food was average, two glasses of wine were awful while the other two were tolerable, but luckily, the 2-for-1 happy hour gave me two glasses of Sancerre, which were really the only two good glasses of wine I’d had during the evening. The company was okay, but I didn’t feel like I clicked with anyone enough to actually want to see them again or ask them to hang out one on one.

So given how much I had to drink, for the second Thursday in a row, I stumbled home pretty tipsy and ended up in bed crying again. It’s as though every time I have a lot to drink now, I end up thinking about Ed and how hopeless he felt, and how I wasn’t capable of doing anything to help him enough. It feels like a bottomless hole in which I keep falling and the falling sensation doesn’t stop. Maybe drinking a lot isn’t the best thing for me now.

Then I remembered an incident that happened on the train earlier tonight. While swiping my Metrocard to get into the subway turn stall, a big fat black woman exiting the subway tries to push me out even though she could obviously see I had just swiped. Not being one to back down (especially in light of my brother’s passing), I pushed my way through the turnstile so that she was forced to back up and stumbled back a bit. As I left the turnstile, she pushed me from behind. I turned back and we exchanged multiple expletives (mostly woman hating ones because that’s what women do – we hate each other), and I walked away. Needless to say, who would have thought that a little petite (but muscular, mind you) Asian woman like me would win against a fat black woman like her? It was a glowing moment for me, needless to say. I guess all that time I’ve been spending at the gym has paid off.

But afterwards, as I waited for the train, I remained angry – not because that woman was so inconsiderate, and not because she was so overweight, but because people who are as small-minded and selfish as she is can continue to walk this earth, and innocent, selfless people like my brother cannot. Life is unfair.

I’ve probably repeated that out loud and to myself a few thousand times since Ed left us. Life is unfair. 

Today, I finished reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I found the quote that I mentioned in my post two days ago that inspired me to get this book and finally read it:

“‘Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different from, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.

‘Life has to end,’ she said. ‘Love doesn’t.'”

There was a period way back when I was about 8 or 9 when I tried to call Ed “Eddie.” He really hated it and refused to answer to it. But maybe now that he is in heaven and views life and the world differently, perhaps he wouldn’t mind being called Eddie.

The Eddie in this book reminded me of my Ed in so many ways – his view of the world, how he thought his life in the grand scheme of everything didn’t seem to matter, his relationship with his father, the violence and negligence he experienced, his inner loneliness that he constantly battled. It’s scary to think how similar Eddie and Ed were, and how during this very period in my life, when I have lost my brother forever, that I have been drawn back to this book that I had been wanting to read for so long. And now, I’ve finally read it.

Ed wanted me to read this book now. I guess it was meant to be this way.

I’m about half way through The Five People You Meet in Heaven. The concept of the book is inspiring – its beginning starts with the end of Eddie’s life (the first page reads, “The End,”) – the things he did on his last day on earth and how his life ended. It progresses into Eddie’s passage into heaven, where he meets five different people (and learns many lessons) who have in some way been affected by his life, directly or indirectly. The book forces us to think about the interconnection of all of our lives, not just with the people we know and have interacted with, but even the people we pass by on the street or at the gym, or even people whose car drives by us. Each of us affects someone else’s life in ways that we may never learn of during this lifetime. I’m sure Ed affected and touched lives of people he never even realized. Maybe it would have made a difference in his life if he had known, and maybe he’d have the confidence to still be here today.

One thing I do know is that if I only met five people in heaven, he’d be one of them because of how much he has impacted my life. When I would meet him in heaven, I’d run up to him and embrace him and cry tears of happiness. Then, I’d yell at him for leaving me for all this time to make me wait until this moment. But that moment would be more than worth it.

In a reading I asked my cousin to do, he read 1 Corinthians 13 at my brother’s funeral:

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Whether you are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or atheist, I think it would be universal to say that those words were eloquently stated.

I picked this reading for the service because after going through different Bible verses, I really felt that this encompassed Ed. All he ever wanted to do was shower me with love and affection, through gifts, actions, and words. I finished the book Where is God When It Hurts? today, and a quote in it from Jean Vanier stood out to me. The question asked was, what can we do to help those who hurt? Who can help us when we suffer? Vanier responded, “Wounded people who have been broken by suffering … ask for only one thing: a heart that loves and commits itself to them, a heart full of hope for them.”

It’s really true. When we are hurt, we just want people to be there for us – with us in person, and if not physically there, with us through the phone, through letters, cards, and e-mails. No one wants a generic “we are thinking about you,” without the person actually reaching out to say it. We don’t want people reaching out months later saying, “Sorry I never reached out. I just didn’t know what to say.” Those of us who hurt just want love.

I woke up this morning to see Chris scrolling through his Facebook feed to read a post by his best friend’s sister. They recently lost their dad to cancer, and the sister posted a quote from the book The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I don’t know the quote off the top of my head, but the basic gist of it is that when death comes, it hurts everyone who loved the deceased. It’s as though a part of you dies when that person dies. But it’s important to realize during this mourning period that although that loved one’s life has ended, the love that you shared with that person does not end. Life ends, but love doesn’t. Love will continue on forever.

It was really touching to read that and made me feel hopeful about my future on this earth without Ed. It also made me remember that this is a book I’ve had on my to-read list for a long time, but because I don’t actually keep a physical to-read list, I kept forgetting about it. I just downloaded it on Kindle today and will be reading it this week. Funnily, when I opened it to the first page, the protagonist’s name just happens to be Edward. Oh, Ed.

My team at work had a team-bonding event last night, so a number of us went to Lucky Strikes for bowling, dinner, and a lot of booze. It was six men and one woman (that’s me). Of course, I felt the need to keep up with everyone else’s drinking, and although I know I have a pretty high alcohol tolerance for an Asian woman, they, of course, wouldn’t know this. I stumbled home pretty drunk, and ended up feeling emotional when I got back because I realized that it was the first time since my brother passed away that I’ve actually had this much to drink.

I woke up this morning with a massive headache and remembered a bad dream I’d had last night. I came home from work one day to see a pile of beneficiary information from State Farm about all of my brother’s accounts since he’d named me his primary beneficiary. There were so many forms and accounts that I felt overwhelmed and broke down crying, still in disbelief that my brother was dead and that as a result of all this, I actually had to deal with all of his financials.

In the past several days, I’ve felt the most hopeful I’ve ever felt in the last two months since Ed left us. But in the last day, it’s as though there were moments when it just hit me that he’s really gone, for real, and it just hurt so much. It’s as though the initial pain of learning that he was gone just came back again and wanted to torment me.

Maybe this happened because he could see from heaven that I was being too reckless last night. Or maybe he wants me to have fun, but not too much fun that I forget about him. If he thinks I’m going to forget about him after just one drunken night, he is obviously crazy.

On my way to work this morning, I read this article about a girl’s last wish before she died to have a pumpkin latte that was not fulfilled, and how her parents fulfilled that wish by buying 40 lattes for strangers, just asking baristas to scribble their daughter’s initials with a hashtag, #AJO, on the cups. The employees were so moved that they bought another 50 free pumpkin lattes. It didn’t end there, either – this ended up launching this huge Facebook and Twitter campaign that resulted in tens of thousands of acts of random kindness (including having bills paid anonymously just for the sake of it) happening everywhere. While reading it, I just started crying. It’s one of the most touching things I’ve read in a long time.

It further makes me believe that hope really does exist for a better world, and that there are a lot of people out there that are capable of doing good and thinking of others other than themselves. One day, I’d like to do something like this for Ed. I’m still not sure what it is or if it will be #eyw, but it will be something incredible.

While at the gym this morning, I was watching one of those biographical shows on E! Entertainment about Christina Aguilera. They discussed the song that she wrote for her album Stripped called “Beautiful,” which was a popular hit single, won a Grammy award, and resonated with millions of people worldwide because of its universal message of hope and seeing the beauty inside oneself. I remember when I bought this album for Ed the year it came out – it was his Christmas gift in 2002. He had really enjoyed her first album and was avidly following her music (however, he was not terribly thrilled with her much more sexual and revealing image in the Stripped era).

I always knew when Ed liked a song a lot because he would hit “repeat” so that he could listen to it over and over. This is what he did with the song “Beautiful.” Sometimes, he’d even sing some of the lyrics quietly to himself while washing dishes or doing some other activity in the house. “Words can’t bring you down,” he’d sing.

Words can’t bring him down anymore. No one can bring my brother down ever again. It’s like this song was made for him. Ed is beautiful.

Beautiful

Every day is so wonderful
Then suddenly it’s hard to breathe
Now and then I get insecure
From all the pain, I’m so ashamed

I am beautiful no matter what they say
Words can’t bring me down
I am beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring me down, oh no
So don’t you bring me down today

To all your friends you’re delirious
So consumed in all your doom
Tryin’ hard to fill the emptiness, the piece is gone
Left the puzzle undone, ain’t that the way it is?

You are beautiful no matter what they say
Words can’t bring you down, oh no
You are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring you down, oh no
So don’t you bring me down today

No matter what we do
(No matter what we do)
No matter what we say
(No matter what we say)
We’re the song inside a tune
Full of beautiful mistakes

And everywhere we go
(Everywhere we go)
The sun will always shine
(Sun will always shine)
But tomorrow we might wake on the other side

‘Cause we are beautiful no matter what they say
Yes, words won’t bring us down, oh no
We are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can’t bring us down, oh no
So don’t you bring me down today

Don’t you bring me down today
Don’t you bring me down today