One Year Gone

 
 My mom has been gone a little over a year now and a lot has changed.

  I miss my mom less often, but when I do miss her, it's more intense than before.  I miss her less but more....

   Anyways, we all grieved in different ways.

   I stayed at school late and tried to stay busy until I fell asleep.  My sister immersed herself into a fandom online and switched her major.  She plans on moving back to California next summer.  And my dad very quickly started a search for a new companion and wife. That one was the most difficult hurdles for me to overcome, even though I knew it was bound to happen.

  My dad is domestically useless.  He's of the older generation where the husband works and the wife does everything else.  On top of that fact, he's also born and raised in Vietnam, so his views on marriage and expectations are even more old school.

 I had planned on moving out, but seeing how much help my dad would need, I decided that I won't move until he finds someone.  He found her fast.  But there are some issues.  She lives in Canada for one.  Secondly, she's in the process of getting a divorce.  So it may take her two years before she can even make her way to Oklahoma.

 There were a lot of things for me to accept in all of that.  I had to accept that my dad deserves to make his own choices without informing me and Chi. He's a 64 year old man. I had to realize that just because he already found someone else does not mean that he did not love my mom. I had to accept that a lady who is not my mom, will eventually be living in the house that my dad and mom built together. And I had to accept that my dad is obviously lonely and that me and my sister are not enough to help fill that void. He needs companionship, and if this lady will make him happy I have no right to complain or object.

 Life is unfair more often than it is fair. Know that.  Accept it.  Move on.


 Just an update!

Grief Sucks.

  My mom has been gone for 12 weeks now.

  As Buddhists we believe that at this point, her spirit has made it's journey into the next life.  I am both happy and excited for her, as well as deeply sad.  I used to feel her around me when she first passed, but I don't anymore.  There's a sense of magic to believing your passed loved ones linger around you.  I no longer sense that.

  My dad and Chi flew out to California to do the last prayer ceremony and to scatter her ashes in the ocean.  I wasn't able to go because of work and timing, but they were able to film it so I could see it.  I was disheartened that I couldn't go, but not much you can do.

 This entry is just going to be a continuous stream of thought that may connect or not.

  Over the past couple of months I've been asked, "So how are you doing?" a lot.  My go-to answer is, "I'm okay.  We're figuring things out."  I can't say, "My mom died, how do you think I'm doing?" which oftentimes crosses my mind.  I can't say, "I'm different somehow after she passed.  I'm not the same." I can't explain that my days aren't as bright because there's a cloud following me.  Not all the time, but a lot of the time.

  I keep busy.  I'm at work until 7 or 8.  I am constantly with people and making plans with people.  I come home usually around 9 or later, say hi to my dad and sister, shower and go to sleep by 11:30 pm.

 My dad works late, he comes home, eats, and retires into his room and talks to friends and family on the phone for a couple of hours.  That or he's watching/listening to youtube clips of Buddhist sermons or Vietnamese music.  I worry about him, he just seems lonely. I burned a DVD of my  mom talking about how she made her way over here. The video's from 2010 and it's over an hour long and my dad sat there and watched it for a long time.  We all miss the sound of her voice.  I'm so glad I filmed that.

 My sister is either at school or at the store helping my dad, or in the study on the computer for hours. She's decided to completely change her career path and other things in life.  I worry about her and her future.  She's a very "I want to do this now so I'm gonna do it" type of personality and doesn't seem to think things all the way through before doing it.

 But we're figuring it out.  My mom was very much the glue in this family; our sounding board, our common sense, our heart.  What do you do if your heart is gone?

 One of the things I dislike the most after my mom passed is that time seems to move too quickly.  Death doesn't stop anything from moving on. There's this saying in Vietnamese my mom told me, "You live for a week, but you die for a year," saying how short life is.  It just doesn't stop for anyone.  It goes on.  And I don't like that.

 I think it's become more difficult and more painful the longer it's been.  It hasn't gotten easier at all.  I don't think it's truly sunk in for me. I have powerful triggers throughout the day that knock the wind out of me because it brings to surface a memory of my mom.  Someone can say a word that for whatever reason, my brain connects with and a memory floods into the forefront of my vision.  It plays out like a movie in front of my eyes... reality kind of blurs and fades out, and noises and sound become muted.  It only lasts a couple of seconds until I snap out of it, but my heart is really heavy afterwards.

 The other day I was talking to a friend and he said something about salt.  That one word made my mind do a flashback of when my mom had to have sodium pumped into her for an hour because she was low.  That was the last week of her life.

 I mean, it's crazy! They get more frequent, these triggers.  It just randomly happens, and afterwards I always get  angry because of how unfair everything is.  My mind then goes into a depressing, "She won't get to be at my wedding, she won't get to meet her grandchildren, I'm too young to have lost my mom, Chi's even younger, unfair, unfair, unfair-" and it just cycles into a slippery slope that takes me awhile to get out of.

 Eventually I calm down and can count my blessings--  I had a wonderful mother who loved me until her very last painful breath.  I had her in my life for 26 years, there are lots of people who cannot say the same. She was loved and knew it.  What more is there?

  It's just hard.  It's awful, all of these feelings.  I'm generally a very happy person, so to feel devastated randomly a couple of times a day is just foreign to me. I am constantly on the edge of tears.  Sometimes it just wells up without any kind of notice.  It's exhausting.

 I got an email from a UCO professor asking if she could send some drama observers to watch me teach for 30 hrs, and I had to email her back and tell her, "I'm so sorry, but I'm emotional this year because my mom has passed so I won't be taking any observers." And in typing that I almost cried while at work.  Ridiculous! I know, it's not ridiculous, it's normal for what I've been through, but it's just not like me.

 Grief is just awful.  It's like having someone stab you but they left the knife in.  You may forget about it for a bit until you move, then you remember how painful it is and how very present it is.

 I'm glad that I have good people around me and that I can be busy with work.  It does help a little. I just don't see how this can get any easier with time.

 

Empty Spaces

  My mom passed away June 18th, 2014 at 7:21 pm on a Wednesday.

 The day before that, Dad and I flew back to Oklahoma in order to finish off selling the store and getting all the paperwork out of the way.  We landed at 11:15 pm that night.

 For whatever reason I had a lot of trouble sleeping that night, mainly because I was so worried about mom.  I got a phone call some time at 6 AM from Chi, telling me she was really worried because her breathing was becoming more and more difficult, and she was wheezing a lot.  She said that she gave mom liquid morphine, which usually would knock my mom out for several hours and help her breathe easier, but it didn't seem to work.  I worried but we didn't know what else to do so we hung up.

 I woke up and went out to the store.  Around 11 AM, Chi called me crying saying that the Hospice nurse said that she thinks we need to fly back because mom may not have very much longer.  My dad called my uncle who works for an airline to get us tickets, and we started to shut down the store.  My heart fell to my stomach.... I felt so helpless.  We have deli food, so we started giving food away for free so we could shut the store down quicker.  Our flight was at 4 pm.  A customer asked what was wrong and I explained it was because my mom wasn't doing well.  The customer started crying, because all of customers knew mom's been sick, and I started to sob as well.

 My friend, Kelly, drove us to the airport.  My sister gave constant updates through texts, all of which were alarming.  She told me that a lot of my uncles, aunts, and cousins had taken off work in the middle of the day and were now in her room, praying for her.  We have a very large family, and relatives from my dad's side also showed up to say their last goodbyes. She said mom wasn't really awake, and came in and out of consciousness, trying to breathe.

 As it got closer to our  flight, a family friend called me and she told me that she didn't know how much longer mom had but if she should pass, she wanted me to not have any guilt or regrets just in case we didn't make it back in time because we were doing everything we could, and that I had been a good daughter.  I just numbly said "okay".  Then she told me that the nurse wanted me to be put on speaker  to say whatever I had to say now because mom was awake.  My aunt called my dad first, so he spoke first.  He said hello to her, telling her he loved her and that we would be there soon and to hold on.  Then it was my turn.  My throat tightened, "Hi mommy".  She responded with an "uhh".  I told her that I loved her very much, and if she couldn't hold on any longer that I understood, but if she could, to please hold on.  She said another "uhh",  letting me know she understood, because at that point she could no longer speak.  I told her I loved her again, tears welling up, and she gave another "uhh".  Dad and I had to board the plane.

 What if the next time I saw her she was already gone? I was at least able to tell her I loved her one last time on the phone if that had happened.... we shouldn't have left yesterday, she had been so weak.  I was up all night Monday night because I was hyper aware of how her breathing was.  We shouldn't have left.

 The plane ride was 2 hrs and 30 minutes.  That's a long time to be with just your thoughts and worries.

 When we landed, I turned on my phone and immediately had 10 messages that had yet to be read.  I told myself not to read them until I was in my uncle's car because if the message said she had passed, I didn't know how I would react and I didn't want to be in public when I read something like that.  So I just held my phone in my hand, shaking, and followed my dad out to be picked up.

 My Uncle Hung picked us up.  I got in the car, buckled up, looked down at my phone, took in one breath, and opened my messages.  She was still holding on, but by a thread.  Chi told me that at least 50 relatives were crammed in the house.  Mom was pale and gasping for air.  She was sweating a lot.  Chi had asked mom, "Are you waiting for Vi and Bo?" Mom had responded with "uhh". Mom was strong. Chi said the nurse gave mom another dose of morphine, so she wasn't awake. When she had been "awake" that day, her eyes were never opened.  Chi said that she opened them once but couldn't see anything.  Eventually she could no longer swallow either, and her mouth was slack as she tried to breathe.

 We hit traffic.  It took us nearly an hour.  As we got to the house, cars were everywhere.  My dad and I grabbed our luggage and started carrying it up the driveway, my heart was pounding.  There were aunts and uncles outside, all of them looking extremely sad.  One of my uncles stopped me in the driveway and warned me not to sob when I entered my mom's room.  I knew this already, so I nodded as he further explained that crying will make the soul want to linger longer and hold on further instead of let go.  I said "okay" and went into the house.

 Relatives lined the house, some had tears in their eyes, everyone watched me and my dad.  Most of the relatives had cleared my mom's room, trying to give space for just me, dad, and Chi.  I went into her room and the sight of her broke my heart.  Her mouth was agape, her body was slightly slumped over to the right of the bed since it was raised.  I rounded the bed and leaned in and said, "Hi Me, it's Vi.  I'm here."  The seconds after that happened quickly.  I remember touching her arm, watching her face, and seeing her inhale one more time.... but I don't remember seeing her exhale.  I remember saying, "She's gone...." I remember some aunts rushing in, I remember Chi yelling, "I just saw her take another breath, CAN EVERYONE GIVE US A SECOND, PLEASE?" Because people were trying to come in. I remember dad being on her other side, touching her arm.  She really was gone.  I didn't cry in those moments, I kept it together.  I stroked her face, telling her I loved her and it was okay.  I smoothed back her hair.  I wiped some tears I saw at the corner of her eyes.....

 She was so amazing.  She suffered for eight hours, gasping for air like a fish out of water just so she could make sure that all of us were there to say bye in person. What a blessing.

 The nurse came in and listened to a heartbeat that wasn't there, confirming she was gone.  I sat and watched as my aunts lifted my mom up and put on a shirt.  They lowered her mattress flat.  They put her hands together on her stomach.  They pulled up a blanket up to her shoulders.  They closed my mom's mouth and laid a towel around it so it would stay closed.

 Then I got up from the chair, turned around to go into a different room, because I shouldn't grieve in my mom's room, and as I turn I see my cousin's face and fall into the first body I come into contact with.  I sob, and my cousin sobs with me.  Then I back up into a chair to breathe while saying, "We should have been here...."

 I wiped my tears and went back into my mom's room and sat next to her, placing a hand on hers.  My dad was crying, and I've never seen my dad cry, so I watched.  He only cries for a couple of seconds though because the hospice nurse asked him if he's made funeral arrangements yet.... So he stopped crying and went back into the living room full of mourning relatives from both sides of the family.

 I got up to follow him, but as soon as I stepped into the living room and saw all of my relatives, grief came back up and I began wailing, uncontrollable, uninhibited and loud.  One of my aunts took my arm and lead me out to the front while I bawled.  It seemed like a long walk, because people were everywhere, watching.

 When we reached outside, she hugged me and said, "It's okay to cry.  Let it out."  I whimpered and cried some more.  There were relatives sprinkled in the driveway, and some that were just arriving and making their way in.

 Eventually, I calmed down enough and slowly made my way back inside.  I quietly greeted everyone, nodding as I weaved my way back to my mom's room and took a seat next to her again.  I just stared at her for a long time.  Her face was still warm.  There were moments that it looked like she was breathing.  She was so thin.

 Then my aunts came in and wanted to do an hour of prayer.

 For those of you who do not know, my family is Buddhist. For my family, Buddhism is not so much a religion as it is a part of our culture as well.  It's difficult to explain our beliefs in a few paragraphs, but I'll do my best. Be open-minded when reading this.

 We believe in reincarnation. In other words, we do not believe that the soul can only go to Heaven, or Hell, but could also be recycled into another life.  We do not say that Heaven does not exist, or a Hell does not exist.  We believe that there are tiers of Heaven and tiers of Hell.  You can reach a tier of Heaven depending on how good your Karma is, but you can also be reincarnated into another life, or sent into a tier of Hell depending on your Karma. You can get out of Hell if you have paid your debt, or you can fall out of Heaven if you do not keep good.  It all depends on your Karma, so nothing is quite permanent.

 We believe that when a person has passed, it takes anywhere from 4 to 8 hours for a soul to completely leave the body.  In that time frame, you pray.  We should not sob and show too much grief, because the soul will want to stay and linger instead of try to make it's way to it's next destination.  We believe that it takes anywhere from days to 7 weeks to be reincarnated.

 Our prayers often times sound like chanting and song.

 We prayed for an hour after that. The hospice nurse set up a time for the mortuary to come and pick up my mom, the time was set for 3 AM.

 My dad kept busy talking to relatives.  I stayed by my mom and cousins came in and sat with me.  I had always been afraid of death.  Not dying, I'm not afraid of dying.  I'm afraid of dead bodies and being near one, but I wasn't in this.  How could I be? Somehow we all start sharing stories about my mom.  Funny memories as well as sad.  I learned that around 1 PM, when a lot of people started to show up and gathered around her to pray, she managed to gather enough energy and strength to say, "On qua".... "too loud".  We all laughed at that.  Just the thought of her using her last bit of strength to complain to people who were praying for her, was hilarious. If that doesn't paint the picture of how feisty and strong she was until the very end, I'm not sure what does.

 While I was able to laugh and share stories with family quickly, my sister was the opposite.  She had been my mom's primary caretaker throughout a lot of this.  She had to sit through all of today and watch my mom suffocate for 8 hours.... she had to see family members cry.... she had to try to hold in her grief.  So that night while everyone came together, she separated herself and started to close off.  I was worried but I understood that everyone grieves differently, and she wanted to be alone.  She took a shower and went to bed by 9 pm.

 Eventually relatives started to leave the house.  All of my mom's sisters stayed behind to wait and for the mortuary people to come and pick mom up, and waited up with them.  One of my uncles had tried to fly back from a business trip in Atlanta but his flight got delayed.  He would fly in at 2 AM, and wanted to see her before they took her.  He got to the house around 2:45 AM.  He went into her room and talked to her for a bit and kissed her forehead to say goodbye.

 The people came and took mom away.  The funeral was set for Saturday and Sunday.

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 The day after mom passed, we had to go find an outfit to wear to the funeral as well as what mom was going to wear.  That was hard.  We picked out for her a dark blue under shirt with a beaded neckline and a white blazer.  She didn't like dark colors.

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 On Friday one of my best friends, Colbi, flew in from Oklahoma to attend the funeral and to support and be there for me.  It was wonderful to have her there for those few days, she helped lift my spirit up a lot.  Lots of needed laughter.

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  Saturday, we got up around 9 AM and started to get ready.  It was at Peek's Funeral Home in Westminster, California.

 Here's the schedule:

 10-12 PM:  Preparations-- there was food in the front lobby area.  We took photos.  There was a donation box we set up because her wish was for people who came to donate so we could send it to an orphanage in Vietnam.  We were able to raise over $8,000 from those two days.  Dad's already mailed it out.

 12-1:15 PM:  Buddhist Priests came in to start the ceremony.  They rolled in mom's casket and opened it.  I kept straining to try to see her, but I couldn't because we started the ceremony a little too far from her.  There was prayer, lots of kneeling and bowing and standing back up.  I only actually understand parts of it because I think it's spoken in a different language in a sing-song kind of way.
  There was a table with mom's picture in the middle, and then they laid out three plates of vegetarian food, and three small bowls of rice and a small teapot.  We eventually made our way there and prayed. Then we ceremoniously went up to the table to pick out foods and place them in our small bowl of rice and place our chopsticks into the bowl to make it stand upright as an offering.
  Then eventually when it came to a close, we were able to circle towards the casket.  My first thought when I saw my mom was, "OMG she would hate what they did with the makeup." I could actually hear her voice saying, "The makeup job is terrible!" It didn't really look like her because of the amount they put on, plus mom never wore makeup so it was just strange.
   Then they handed out white bands and headdresses.  Nieces and nephews wore this white fabric around their foreheads.  Mom's siblings wore the white bands around their arms.  Chi and I wore a white headdress and Dad wore a white band around his head as well. This way, any guests/visitors that came to the funeral immediately knew who the family was and in what way they were related to the deceased.

 1:15-2:30 PM: Viewing.  Anyone could come up to the table, pray and walk by the casket.
 2:30-3:00 PM:  People from VSA (Vietnamese Student Association) came and spoke because my parents were one of the four founders of VSA in Southern California.  Which is pretty cool if you ask me!
 4:00-4:30 PM: Another round of prayers, and changing of the food offering.
 4:30 PM-8 PM: Viewing.

 When it was time to go, my dad ran up to the casket and said, "Okay Honey, I'll see you tomorrow okay?" and we left.

 Next day was kind of the same only it ended a lot quicker.  From 9 AM-11 AM was viewing.  From 11 AM- noon was last prayers, then we did a procession to the cremation building.

 I was okay until they closed the casket and I realized I would never physically see my mom again.  That's when I started to cry.

I wasn't really sure what was going to happen.  We paraded to the cremation building, each niece and nephew holding something from the funeral, and made our way into a small room with a window.  As soon as I saw the window I knew that we would be watching them put the casket into the burner.  

 Since it was a small room, not all of the siblings could squeeze in.  We did some more prayer and we saw them wheel in the casket.  Then they opened what looked like a large oven, essentially, and they pushed in the casket and closed it.  We eventually made our way out, lots of people crying now.  

 We all stood outside of the building, unsure of what all to do.  We were supposed to go to the Temple next because my mom's urn would be there for 49 days, the full 7 weeks that it could possibly take to be reincarnated.  

  So that was it.  Mom was really gone.  

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 Chi and I drove back home on Thursday and arrived on Friday.  

 It's just the three of us now.  Dad seems lonely.... of course he is, he lost his best friend of 30+ years.  They worked together everyday for 20 something years.  So he keeps busy.  He's not home for very long.  He makes plans with friends after work, or goes to visit my aunt and uncle who live just down the street.  

 I think the hardest thing to deal with after losing someone is the space they leave behind.  My mom used to have very specific spaces that belonged to her and are now empty.  Like the space at the dinner table.  The space on the right side of the bed.  The space next to my dad.  It's just empty now.  

 The next hardest thing are the actual things they leave behind.  Personal belongings.  We've already started rummaging through things.  I had to go to the AT&T to cancel her number.  

 My mom was very simple in style and dress.  She never bought anything new; all of her clothes are hand-me-downs from her sisters.  She never bought anything new because "there's no need".  

  We are going to be holding a garage sale eventually.  There are too many things.  

 Through all of this, I cannot help but be grateful and thankful for everything.  I am thankful and grateful to have had such an extraordinarily strong woman be called my mom.  I am thankful and grateful to my relatives and friends who have stood behind and beside me through this past year.  I am thankful and grateful to grieve but still be able to laugh.  I am thankful for all of the messages I've received through texts and Facebook.... they truly meant a lot, even though I may not have responded to everyone.  Thank you for just being there.  

 This next school year will be strange.  I'm glad to be doing a musical this year, it will keep me busy and focused.  

 Oh.  And I got a tattoo of my mom's signature so I can always carry her with me.  <3

Timeline of Emotional Events

 Saturday night was awful.


Around....

4 pm= Took mom to the ER because she had been extraordinarily fatigued and her shortness of breath really worried us.

5-9 pm= We get to the ER asking for blood transfusions because she's usually always low and that causes fatigue.  We also ask for a thoracentesis procedure where they drain fluid that could have accumulated outside of her lungs.

    They do the following things: Draw her blood, run an EKG on her, and do a chest X-ray in order to make sure that there is fluid.  They confirm on the X-Ray that the white matter that is on the scan is fluid.

    After that, it takes two hours for the doctor to come in to do the actual draining procedure.  They sit her up and he runs an ultrasound over her back and tries to determine where the fluid buildup is.  He finds the area, numbs the skin, makes a small incision and puts in a long needle.  He fiddles with it for several seconds, shakes his head and pulls it out.  He didn't get it.  He asks for another sterile kit.  He gets the kit, opens it to get a new needle and tries again.  He concentrates, fiddles, shakes his head again, and bandages her back.  He says that he couldn't get the fluid, so the interventional radiologists will do it in the morning.  Me and my sister are angry because, really? You stuck a needle into her twice and got nothing? Do you see how exhausted she is? Her heart rate is going crazy! Fix her!

   They want a follow-up X-Ray and I ask what for, because the procedure wasn't successful. They said the doctor just wants to make sure. They take another X-Ray. We wait some more.  Mom tells me to go home (my aunt's house, which is about 35+ minutes away from the hospital) since she'll have to stay overnight and Chi can stay with her instead.  I reluctantly go home.

    I get home, Chi texts to tell me that they ordered a CT scan on mom. Okay.  I update my aunt and uncle on what's happening and they go to bed.  I watch some TV.

12 AM=  Chi calls me and she's crying.  Tells me in between shaken breathes that I need to come back to the hospital because the fluid that they thought they saw on the X-Ray is not fluid but is in fact a tumor that has rapidly grown on her left lung. The tumor is part of the reason she's having such a difficult time breathing. There is also some fluid around her heart that they could drain but since her heart is beating so fast, if during the procedure her heart should fail, does she want to be revived? Mom said no.  I don't fully process all of this so I said okay, let me pack some things and I'll head back. Chi says she's calling Dad next.

   I grab a backpack and throw some clothes in there, gently go into my aunt and uncle's room to wake them up to update them.  I'm repeating things and saying things in haste, basically telling them that this doesn't look good and we don't know how much longer we have with her.

   I get into the car and head back to the hospital.  As I turn onto the freeway, that is the moment it hits me.  Everything finally catches up in my brain and I start saying, "I'm not ready for her to go" over and over again and I completely come undone and unraveled while driving.  Everything is blurry, and I'm loud and gasping for air because I'm already grieving the loss of my mom even though she is still here.

 My cousin calls me during this and I dumbly pick up and start wailing into the phone .  He tells me to calm down and breathe and that him and his sister are headed to the hospital and that they'd meet me there.  He reminds me to breathe several more times and then we hang up.

 I take his advice and do my best to shut things down and inhale.  I'm driving 75 mph, tears still streaming, and I decide that I need to call my aunt in Oklahoma to let her know.  It is 2 AM over there.  I call her and she picks up and her voice is quiet as she asks what's happening because she'd been waiting for this call.  I tell her what's going on and she immediately starts to sob and tells me how much she loves my mom and how worried she'd been, and it is in that instant that I start to really calm down because I realize that nowhere in this am I alone.  My entire family is going through this with me, I have people I can lean on.

  After I hang up with her, I call several more cousins in Oklahoma to let them know.

  Somehow during all of this, I manage to turn on the GPS and stick it on the window because there is construction and it took me on a different route.  I don't remember much of the actual "drive", I just remember crying and calling family members.

1-2 AM= I've sobered up and I make my way to the room and make sure I am calm and not visibly upset.  Mom asks why I'm back and Chi tells her it's because she called me.  I tell mom that there are people coming to visit.  Mom feels guilty that people are coming to visit her at 1 in the morning even though it was their decision to come. I sit in the chair next to her bed and take her hand and watch her.  I try to drink her in, try to cherish every second with her and burn it into my memory.

   My cousins Lilly, Kevin, and his girlfriend Jackie, are the first to arrive. My mom asks them through shallow breathes why they came to visit her so late.  Kevin says that he didn't come to visit her, he came to ask her if she wanted to go gamble with him and that makes her smile-- the kind that brightens up her entire face-- which is rare now because she's always frowning from being so uncomfortable. She tells him how charming he is.  Kevin takes her hand and says something to her about how she needs to keep fighting or trying.  She turns and looks at him and softly says, "I'm trying. I'm trying, but it's hard.  It's so painful. I also want to live, but how can you live when you suffer like this? I know everyone loves me and I love everyone too." The room is quiet and most everyone is in tears.

  About fifteen more minutes pass and two aunts and an uncle come in.  The sisters look like they've been crying.  One of the sisters asks us to leave the room while she chants and prays with my mom.  All of us leave to the waiting except for the sisters.

 Everyone leaves around 3 or 4 AM.

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Sunday (Father's Day) my dad flies in at 2:30 pm and my aunt flies in at 8:25 pm.  I should say that my mom is one of 8 siblings, and she is the fifth one in her family and the youngest of the girls. While most siblings live in California, there are two living in Oklahoma and one living in Arkansas.

 My cousins Catherine and Crystal come to visit today for several hours. Mom sleeps on and off most of the day and it's usually hard for her to sleep for very long because breathing is so difficult.  While she sleeps we sneak pictures of her and with her and share them with each other.  The doctors come in around noon or one and tell us that Hospice is the next likely choice for my mom.  I knew that was coming but it's a hard pill to swallow.  It meant they would now stop all attempts to stop the spreading of the cancer because the cancer has won the battle.

 Once Catherine and Crystal leave, the Hospice lady comes in and starts taking down our information.  She tells us that it's all about comfort and quality of life until the end.  That if we decide to do hospice, we can't take her to the hospital unless we want to end the contract with hospice.  We are asked questions no one really wants to think about, like in the case that my mom can no longer eat, does she want a feeding tube? No she doesn't. Does she need a nurse to be at the house 8 or more hours? Have we discussed what we're going to do once she passes? The entire process was depressing.

  We were hoping to get discharged from the hospital that day but they said they had to keep her another night, which makes her sad.  She keeps saying, "I want to go home, they said I could go home today".  My mom is so small now, sometimes her sadness and sickness makes her seem like a child. They apologize to her and promise she would be discharged tomorrow.

 Eventually the hospice lady leaves to get paperwork done and order a hospital bed to the house, etc., and one of my mom's younger brother comes in. He's already in tears as he steps into the room. She sees him and for whatever reason, she starts to cry too, which then in turn makes me tear up.  They say some things to each other but I try not to listen in because it seems intimate, but I catch her say that she's sad, which breaks my heart.

 My dad rolls in five minutes after and me and Chi greet him and we all stand around and talk for a little. My dad's hungry so me and Chi go down to the cafeteria to eat with him and spend some time with him since we haven't seen him in awhile. And it was Father's Day.

 Dad's closed the store for an indefinite amount of time since mom seems to be in such a delicate stage right now.  I think it's good.  We all need to be here with her.

 Eventually everyone decides that I should go home since there can't be 3 people in the room with mom overnight, there'd be no space. I get voted off the island so I had to hitch a ride back with a family friend that came to visit.

 When I get back home, hospice stuff had already been delivered.  There's a hospital bed and a new oxygen system for her.

  I know this was long and there are many errors in it, but it's therapeutic for me to type out.  I like to document emotions and events in my life, and this is going to be an extremely devastating event, but it's part of my life.

  To all of you who have prayed for my mom and my family, I want to thank you.  For all of you who have donated to us, we cannot tell you how grateful we are.  I truly have such wonderful friends and family, and although I know this will not be easy it is more manageable with you all there to remind me to breathe.  And I've been getting a lot of messages, I am sorry if I don't respond.  Just know that it's read and that it means a lot to me.  <3

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Visits at 2 in the morning.

Catherine and Crystal visit.

Co Van comes to visit.

Father's Day Hospital Cafeteria lunch!

Together and watching the Finals. Spurs won. <3

An Update On My Feelings and Other Things

 Things have been a bit crazy in my life.

  I am currently at the UCLA Hospital with my mom.  A couple of weeks ago she was in the hospital for 2 weeks, then she got sent home, and now she's back again and this will be her 2nd night here.

 I had to take the rest of this school year off because as of right now things with my mom's health is very delicate and we are unsure of how much time we will have with her.  I am so blessed to work at a school that is extremely supportive and understanding.  They all rallied behind me and shooed me away so I can spend time with my mom.  I left knowing my kids are in good hands with my best friend, Dana Hanley, who had graciously accepted to be the sub for the remainder of the year.

 My mom's very weak right now.  She is tired all the time and hurts constantly.  Her want to fight and her optimism has waned and she now just wants it all to be over with.  She wants to give up and doesn't want to fight it anymore. This is the complete opposite of how she was and it's heartbreaking.  It's awful to know that she would prefer death over living now because she's suffering.

 I am devastated, heartbroken, and numb.  Picturing my life without my mom in it terrifies me.  It doesn't matter what age you are, you always need your mother.  My emotions go up-and-down and every which way.  First I was angry, because my mom who has fought all of her life does not deserve this.  Then I'm overwhelmingly sad and that settles in the pit of my stomach and just churns.  The sadness weighs on everyone in my family and it's like a cloud that's over you at all times.

 And I also worry about everything.  I worry about my dad and what he's going to do when my mom passes away; I worry about my mom's state of mind; I worry about my sister and her future; I worry about me and my future.  I worry about the medical bills. My mom is our rock and our glue and I'm afraid that without her we're going to come undone and wander around lost.

 My dad has been trying to sell our store for awhile and we had someone that seemed interested but we haven't heard back from him.  Dad's now very anxious to sell the store and come out to California, but he really should have worried about that six months ago. I'm afraid it's too late now and he'll be stuck there worrying about the store instead of worrying about spending time with my mom.  I called him when I got here and told him how weak my mom was and that I think he needs to come out here for at least 3 days so all of us are together at the same time.  He said he's afraid to leave the store for that many days because the store may get broken into.  I wish he could just let go of that store. He needs to, he's losing time.

 On top of that I have so many questions that can't be answered:

- Why do bad things happen to good people?
- Is it selfish of us to want my mom here so badly when she is suffering so much?
- Am I handling my grief and emotions in a healthy way?
- Do I move to California or stay in Oklahoma?
- Does prayer work?
- Why is our healthcare system so awful?


 Sometimes life just sucks. I know it's unfair, but that doesn't make it any less horrible.

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We Pranked Our Students.

  Today the school pulled a fantastic prank (April Fools) on the entire student body.  A lot of the students believe that me and another teacher have been dating for awhile.  We're just best friends, but any time we're out of school we always run into at least one student, so rumors obviously spread very quickly.

 So we decided a long time ago, that we would do a fake proposal during morning assembly.  All the teachers knew.  It was HILARIOUS, and the prank went off without a hitch.  The kids freaked out, a lot of them cried tears of happiness, then afterwards, tears of anger.  Haha, we had so much fun.

 For the rest of the day, students kept telling me how cruel I was and I was even booed by all of the 8th graders.  But it was actually just them showing me love.  And they're just angry because we got them so good!

 Here's the video!

Sometimes I Impress Myself.

 Well folks, I just closed another show this year!

 Me and a wonderful colleague of mine, Kelly Sehon, wrote a show entitled Twilight: A Stage Debacle! We wrote it and casted it within a month and started rehearsals as soon as we came back from Winter break.

   It was hard for me to find one acts that I truly loved and felt the students would enjoy so I thought, "WHY DON'T I WRITE ONE? I'M HILARIOUS!" So I texted/called Kelly and forced him to write this play with me! It all surprisingly came together very quickly.  We discussed the plot and talked about random characters and before we knew it we had a list of characters and a full story!

  For those of you who do not know me very well, I'm not the biggest fan of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.  After reading the whole series, I found the message in it overall was actually pretty awful to be putting out to girls. I felt that it told girls that if you do not have a strong man in your life, that your life is not worth living. Bella was not a strong female character. She was not independent, she was not intelligent.... she was angsty, needy, and her life literally revolved around Edward.

 OKAY.  I NEED TO STEP OFF THIS SOAPBOX.

 Anyway, the show we wrote made fun of the movie not necessarily the books.  We put most of the "iconic" parts of the movie into our show.  The play is about my school putting on a play.... it's kind of confusing to explain, you just have to know it was clever and hilarious, and the students did splendidly in it!

 Here are a few pictures during rehearsals:

Kelly and I are extremely proud of the show and the students who were involved in this.  They really brought the characters to life and it was such a fun play! We're hoping to publish the script, but we need to find out if we crossed any copyright issues because it pokes fun of Twilight.

My brain is already moving on to the show for next year! I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself, but this school year needs to end first.  =D