This Dad's life

Of all the events that fall on a family surrounding the death of a loved one, the funeral ranks high up on the bizarre cultural expectations list.  Exhausted from the emotional and physical strain of day and night care followed by the intensity of saying goodbye our family was suddenly thrust into party planning mode.  This being my first hands on funeral I was completely caught off guard by the amount of decisions that have to be made immediately.  All the burial preparations, the flowers, the mementos, the extended family communication, the food, the tributes both written and spoken, and the obituary are just a few of the items on our pages long checklist.  Any one of these decisions taken out of the context of a funeral would be given weeks or months of consideration.  The weight of the choices feel heavy with each one being meant to honor a man who was so deeply loved.  But time is not a luxury provided under these circumstances and you just pray that each gut instinct made that day was the right one.
 Thankfully our family loves each other and know how to (for the most part) communicate respectfully and forgive abundantly.  There were moments when I wondered how other families navigate these strange intersections of intense grief and sound judgements.  We really had the best of circumstances from financial stability to time off work, with everyone getting along and carrying the load.  I can't imagine how others get through these stressful times.  I watched mom in awe at how she handled it all with the organization of a five star general and the grace of a nun.
I kept thinking how if Ben died I would just lock myself in the bathroom and tell everyone to go away.
I'm pretty sure I told him at one point that I would just like to be cremated and have the family take the money and go on the trip of a lifetime to throw my ashes over some tropical ocean.  However this was not an option with a man who affected so many people all over the world.  Over 500 people came to the visitation alone and shared how he had deeply changed their life and impacted their faith.

People waited in lines that went around the funeral home just to come and say goodbye.  There were so many funny stories such as when he taught Sunday school and put verses in fortune cookies followed by group after group who said he helped their little Chinese church grow from tiny home groups to large neighborhood churches.  For over 50 years he devoted his life to sharing the gospel in his native language.
All of this seemed impossible to me given the fact that he was so preoccupied with devoting his life to his family.  He traveled the country speaking at Chinese churches and retreats both with youth, singles, and married groups.  I met a woman who cried at being given the opportunity to sew a memory quilt of Dad's many t-shirts that was displayed at the wake and funeral.  A project normally taking six weeks that she did in five days.  She shared how Dad's encouragement 30 years before had changed the course of her life.
As I pulled together pictures for his memorial I realized that dad was a six headed coin.  He managed to do the extraordinary and never made it seem hard or complicated.  He made everyone feel that they were his first priority.
 More than that though was what he taught me about finding joy in the wild simplicity of the ordinary.  I love the story of a day years ago when the family was busily getting ready and everyone was advocating for their plan of the perfect family day.  Some of us wanted to go to Sea World and some wanted to go to the beach.  Others wanted to stay home and prepare for some of the extended family that was visiting.  I noticed Dad sitting on a kitchen chair bouncing a baby in his lap and smiling as wide as usual.  I asked him what he wanted to do and he said, I'll just go where I'm needed.  If I remember correctly, we all went our different ways and later met up at a Mexican restaurant where he was entertaining many elderly aunts and uncles.
You see he didn't just do the right thing.
He did it like he had won the lottery.
He was always there when I needed him.  He might as well have worn a cape for all the times he swept in to save the day.  He listened to stories about the kids as if it was there was a ten year drought and I was giving him directions to the only water source.
But what I'll remember most is how he taught me that my life is an actual gift.  It isn't something to be survived but something worth savoring.  I'm not the quickest convert but if I could do anything well it would be to see that this life has been chosen for me, and every day I can choose it back.

Oh, this one gets me every dang time....

Nobody did it better than Dad. 

Long time gone

Somehow since June 18th I've logged less than a dozen nights in my own bed.  Over those many nights looking at a moon through foreign windows, I lay still.  Awake either because of physical or emotional pain and praying to disappear.  This summer, light years from the one I had planned, was clearly a mistake.  This was supposed to be my time to heal and rest, with daily walks going no farther than the porch swing.  And Dad is supposed to be healthy and strong and cheering the kids on at their soccer games.
When I wander in the dessert my last instinct is to say, hey this place is beautiful, definitely one for the record books.
Picking up the camera is an act of obedience.  Some days it lay there in the corner and I actually said no.  Out loud.  Most days though, I knew God was being faithful, even on the worst days.  For weeks I forced myself to look.  The beauty of a child's hand on their dying grandfather, the pain of letting go, watching Ben tend to his father as he would a child, letting a five year olds bravery carry me through all four verses of It Is Well With My Soul, the heartbreak of hearing Dad's love of nearly 50 years say, it's ok.  When you see Jesus run into his arms.  We are going to be ok.  We are going to miss you but we are going to be ok.
The sacrifices, the tears, the laughter at the weirdest times, the quiet family prayers between sunset and sunrise, the footsteps on holy ground.  Hard realities are generally camera shy but the one holding the baton whispered perfect peace to all of us and refused to be kept in the dark.  So in fitting fashion, with a gust of wind, a wide swung door, a flood of rain and a crashing vase, Dad was whisked to his eternal home.

And we are left behind.
And I have to choose every day whether I want to pick up the camera or tell myself that nothing is worthy.  The deep guts of this reality is that life is hard right now.  In a lot of different ways.  Things don't really feel the way they should be and I've had to learn that my Jesus Calling mornings are no longer enough to get me through a day without being the mom who guilt trips her kids or that bitchy lady who cuts you off in traffic.  I have to get on my knees with my face to the ground (like literally) and say I can't do this alone.  Me in pain, without You, is someone no one wants to be around, especially me.  In that wide span of quiet, I soak it in.  Feel the brave and the gutsy and the LOVED.  And I see the camera on the dirty hook by the door and ask myself if I want to be surprised today.

hot pursuit

I'm sitting in bed at two in the afternoon sans pants with a cat at my feet and a room decor that writes the book on tornado chic.  Exhibit A:

Because I always say that your room should reflect your emotional state and dang it if I'm going to be a hypocrite.  Let's just say I've quit wearing eye makeup because there's a chance all the pre-work crying caused my coworkers to think I was becoming a meth addict.  I wish I could say my low point was when Ava found me sobbing into a bowl of cereal the night before my birthday.  Not because I was getting older but because it felt wrong to celebrate with a heart as angsty as mine has been.  But as they are prone to do, my people showed up in ALL the ways and refused to let me get lost in my hot-messness.  There was a lot of love in a 24 hour time period.

This day and most days, I'm being carried along and truth be told~
IIIIII'mmm kind of an awkward load right now.
I've got white knuckles on the evidence that my anchor is in the wild imagination of Him who loves me and makes me see that I am known even in the midst of my pain and loneliness.  And anchors become very real after months of pain, multiple colonics day spas (as my friend Anne lovingly calls them), followed by warm metal milkshakes and hours of tests that repeatedly show up negative.
But if I have any say in the matter, 38 will not be a blur of pain and quiet exhaustion followed by stress that is nicely packaged and shoved aside.  So listen up 38!  Here's your mantra:

*Communicate with the team
*Love the wiggly bits
*Say yes to help
*Choose the right words AND have the courage to say them
*Try something new (I'm talking to you hot yoga and whatever that one is called where you dance around like a crazed African princess)
*Sacrifice self pity on the altar of Every Better Thing
*Two naps on the weekends
*Grace to all the messy roommates
*We are not one 7am- mama -wakeup away from disaster
*Speak gentle truth to the voices of doubt and shame and guilt and regret, "Shut the h*&% up!  Rebekah's my friend and you can't talk to her like that."
*Say yes to bathroom dance parties
*Enjoy the quiet
*Enjoy the noise
*Laugh at the jokes
*Protect the margins (This one gets its own post-it-note on the dashboard)
*We don't need money, we can live off our love. By that I mean we'll need to sell our 2014 sex tape to remodel our kitchen.
*Carry each moment as it comes
*Keep your eyes wide open for His presence
*Love wins
*Just a spoonful of....ok I'm done.

Not so Ordinary ten

In this busy season finding beauty in our ordinary moments has been my greatest obstacle.  Life is so full and when we're not working, in the drive through, doing homework, at soccer/tai kwon do/fill in the blank, washing bloody nose sheets at 3 am, writing papers for class, forever rushing out the door, I pull the covers over my head and whisper to Ben, "are we doing the right thing here?"  Am I the only one who thinks we should quit this life and become nepalese goat herders?  And he gives me a look of love and also of, honey you own all the crazy because you could not cut it as a farmer and we both know that.  So I shove it aside and set the cursed alarm for five one five.  

Let me tell you a little something I've learned about my m.o. this year.  I am the first one to want to cut and run.  It takes absolutely nothing to convince me that others have it better off.  I love so that I look good and feel good enough and don't feel like I owe anyone.  Believe me it's ugly stuff.  And that's not the worst part.  The worst part is that I know where contentment is found.  I know that if you break bread with someone who has nothing and then climb into your $200 duvet covered bed you won't go to sleep thinking about what you need.  I know that thankfulness precedes joy.  And still nine times out of ten I'll choose the opposite.  Because staying takes courage and letting Jesus into my pain makes me feel weak.  I crave the idea of loving others from the Love I've received but most of the time I'll settle for a genie.  So maybe the ordinary ten is anything but.  Maybe it is the extraordinary in my right now.  The only reminder that Jesus as beauty giver and not wants granter will bring joy right into the mess.

Spring beauty, cotton candy style

 catch a falling star and put it in your pocket never let it fade away

 rainbow looming for the 100th day of school

 watching mama and brother get baptized

 celebrating our white study at my 'office'

 Tia's short and sweet visit

 golden gate bridge sunset

 rounding up the sweetest almost kindergartener

 confetti parade

 happy place

"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.  And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."  Colosssians 3:15-17

I will just keep on reminding myself.  Hoping that each moment I'll be brave enough to actually do it.

Ti Nai Nai

The two of us were only able to communicate in smiles and awkward laughs but it was always enough.  I knew we were kindred spirits the day she showed up for family pictures with tattered sweatpants under her "church dress."  And no words are necessary when smuggled contraband cookies are involved.  Her story spanned over ten decades and only grew in fascinating detail.  In March we celebrated her life and testimony down in the bay area.  It was beautiful to see how present all the grandkids were for the ceremony.  Dad was comforted by their words and affection the entire weekend.  This mama's heart was so happy.  And although we rejoice that she finally got her birthday wish to "go home to Jesus," we will all miss our Ti Nai Nai.  

Boda travels in style at PDX

The two youngest sillies

hot tub selfie

Brave Ammie in the hotel pool

These five and their bear/bunnies get a lot of looks wherever we go

Dinner on an 75 degree night overlooking the bay with a blazing sunset.  It was perfection.

Holding on to Yeh Yeh

Catching up with family at the reception.  Ian was quite taken with cousin Evan and his surfing videos.

Little man fixing his tie.  Love that boy.

Hiding at the park

So much joy

And finally Ben's perfect eulogy at the service.

Two weeks ago, shortly after 9pm, I received the phone call that my grandmother had passed.  This news opened up a few different emotions in me.  

First and foremost, Grandma Hsieh was well-loved and I knew that all who knew her would miss her dearly.  She was a vivacious centenarian, who still lived independently at her hippy retirement home in Berkeley.  Once while visiting, we made the mistake of taking her out to a Chevy’s Mexican Restaurant, where she felt the soup was too salty.  She had no qualms about sending her soup back two different times.  Another time when she was a bit older, the family attempted to get her some new shoes.  She proudly protested, announcing to the orthopedic shoe salesman, “Don’t you know I am going to die soon?!”  And recently, while on a trip to Pebble Beach, she hijacked my then 3-year old son’s doggy blanket for the weekend.  There she happily replaced her customary red hat and instead wore the fuzzy blanket’s two long, floppy ears.  She said it was comfortable.  But I suspect, that she just thought it looked good on her.  

Needless to say, there was a feeling of tremendous loss at not being able to spend more time with her. But at the same time, I also felt a second emotion.  And that was a profound feeling of happiness for her.  Hers, was a life well-lived, but I always knew that she looked forward to the next chapter.  While I knew the burial site with Grandpa Hsieh was not her true final resting place, I pictured them both there, smiling, looking out over the San Francisco Bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge, and beyond that the vast Pacific Ocean.  

I thought this was a very appropriate image for Grandma’s passing and it brought to mind a poem entitled “Crossing the Bar” by Tennyson.  [This poem has a lot of nautical imagery which is fitting since some of the members of our Hsieh clan fancy themselves as “sea people”.  I realize that some of you may find this confusing, since most of us still currently live in Illinois.]  Anyhow, in the poem, the “bar” the author refers to is the buildup of deposits of sand, such as those that form where a river meets the ocean.  And crossing over the sand bar can be a violent experience when the tide is low or very peaceful during high tide.  Grandma Hsieh’s passing seemed to be a little of both, but I take joy in knowing that she now rests in the immense, vast ocean of God’s peace.  Please allow me to read the poem:

         

Crossing the Bar

By Lord Alfred Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.    

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

I am confident that when Grandma saw her Pilot, she was told “Job well done.”  And now she experiences a fulfillment and a peace that passeth all understanding.