Tag: COVID-19

priceless gifts

I thought I was going to lose my father. Two months ago, my dad noticed a mass growing on his chest, one that I dismissed so easily when he jumped in on a video call I was having with my younger brother a month ago. “It’s not going away. What do you think it is?” I had a quick glance and told my dad it was probably nothing. I assured him that I would look at it when I visited home.

With my dad’s and my birthday being so close together and ongoing concerns around COVID, this year, we decided to combine birthday dinners to one weekend. My parents living over an hour away from me usually means staying the entire weekend and taking my cat with me. I have to plan this weeks ahead.

And then it happened. My parents said something that triggered old, deep, painful wounds. “Your dad can’t make Saturday dinner. He has to work over time,” Mom said. Suddenly, my chest flooded with feelings of abandonment, bitterness, and loneliness. The oldest sibling, a daughter, a latchkey kid, and an undocumented immigrant, I had a role to play in my family, and while it is one that I honor seriously, it is one that’s led me to develop a crippling anxiety that I’ve only learned to manage well in the last few years. Deep down, I was also angry that my dad, a senior, was being asked to do over time for his manual job. And with that, I was angry that my dad, at retirement age, felt the need to do over time. With this flood of emotions came the cries of a child—likely that little girl in me who never felt she was allowed to be young. I acted out, hurt, wounded, ashamed.

Struggling with my sense of boundaries but still committed to seeing my family, I cut my weekend visit to lunch. I arrive home, and Dad is waiting patiently on the couch watching TV. “No George?” George is my cat, and I’m tickled that this once grumpy, anti-pet dad now baby-speaks to my cat whenever he sees him. I shake my head. Immediately, he gets up and asks me to look at his chest lump. At this point, this is the first time I’m seeing it in person, and it is much larger than when I’d seen it on video a month ago. Its border is smooth but irregular, and with my dad’s smoking history, I start to worry.

A memory flashes in my mind just ten years ago when my mom was telling me about a biopsy she was going to have. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I responded. The weekend passes and I forget about it altogether, until my mom calls me Monday first thing in the morning. I was a medical student rotating through the neonatal unit at the time, and my mom was not one to call during work hours. Finding the call unusual, I picked up. “I got the biopsy results back.” For a moment, I’m confused. I walk into the hall to get some privacy. “I have cancer,” she spoke softly. The rest of the day became a blur.

At that time ten years ago, I thought about my brothers, the younger still a teenager, who might lose their mother at such a young age. I thought about our own fragmented relationship, one that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to, one that still needed so much tenderness, and one that may not see me graduate with the MD that would make her so proud. I needed more time. Please, more time.

And we got it. My mom has been in remission since having surgery and completing multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. Our relationship changed after then. We changed. It was the beginning of a new chapter that we were all ready to start.

After examining my dad’s chest, whatever I felt before didn’t matter. I suspected something serious, but I wanted to be wrong. I wanted more time. Please, more time. My dad tells me that it’s time to head to the restaurant and rushes me to the car. I try to make the most of our lunch, swatting away any distracting pings of worry.

Immediately after getting home, I hop on my parents’ computer to write a message to my dad’s doctor. I describe my observations with great detail, hoping he’ll take my doctor speak seriously and order urgent imaging. My dad has already scheduled an appointment later in the week, and I wrote that I would be calling into the appointment to ask questions and make sure I catch details my dad isn’t able to follow. This is now the third time my dad is bringing this up with his doctors.

My parents urge me to go home before it got too late, but not without sending me home with food and fruits. I’m racked with anxiety and sleeplessness the next couple of days. “Go to sleep,” Mom insists. It’s 8:30 pm, but I’m exhausted.

My mom sends me a text during the afternoon on Lunar New Year. “Imaging consistent with benign tumor.” I’m relieved, as if I’m taking my first breath after coming up from under the water. This was the gift I’d been asking for. It was the only gift I wanted but the most precious one I could dream up.

afternoon prance

I walked to the park to stretch out and get some air. I ran into a work colleague who I’d never met in person. A young couple sets the timer for a selfie. I pass by two children running down the path with their dad behind them. A photographer directs a bride-to-be as someone holds the train of her dress. A couple toasts a special occasion with some bubbly over a picnic. A woman sits in the grass against a tree, with a book in one hand and the other scratching her dog’s belly. A breeze blows through this modest January afternoon.

times like these

In the best of times, I feel invincible. I am planted firmly into the earth, my roots extending warm embrace after warm embrace.

In the best of times, I am fearless. I ride the waters in flow, with the sun and the moon, following my charted course.

In the best of times, time belongs to me. I manipulate it as I choose, but always out of honor and never out of spite. The ticking of the clock hastens the hum of my heart.

But in the worst of times, I feel frail. Pieces of me flutter and chip away in hurried gusts. I am wrecked. I am reckless.

And in the worst of times, I am not my own friend. To her, I whisper words that wash away those parts that glimmer in the sun.

Still, in the worst of times, my humanity remains. Those parts that ache and bleed stubbornly and with relentless, unnerving awareness.

And through those times, I realize the irony of choice and the sting of circumstance buried in my beautiful bones. Though they have broken, they are strong. They carry me through the next step.

groundhog day

Wake up. Skim emails. Get out of bed. Greet cat. Feed cat. Brush teeth. Wash face. Start the kettle. Scoop the litter box. Sweep the floor. Pour the coffee. Turn on the computer. Respond to emails. Take a yoga break. Attend meetings. Catch up on news. Respond to emails. Make lunch. Attend meetings. Respond to emails. Respond to emails. Respond to emails. Make dinner. Respond to emails. Play with cat. Feed cat. Shower. Brush teeth. Skim emails. Go to bed.

the cycling of the sun and moon

As I’ve gotten older and built my own life independent of my parents (by parents, I’m referring to my mom and stepdad—who, for all intents and purposes, is my dad), my relationship with them has changed. The way I see them has changed. And it keeps changing.

It’s funny how we often forget that our parents are whole people whose lives don’t completely revolve around us, their children, even though that’s often the case for a really long time. No matter the relationship we have with them, we’d often idolize them and see their word as infallible, them—indestructible. Over the years, we’ve all gotten older, wiser, gentler, but they have also become more frail, and the reality of their mortality suddenly feels daunting and sometimes, frightening. Sometimes, maddening.

I find myself having to develop a newfound patience for when my parents fall short of my expectations. Admittedly, I feel guilty about this. Just tonight, my parents failed to make it to a Jo Koy show my younger brothers and I had treated them to. They didn’t check their email to verify the address. They didn’t use Google Maps to see the time to leave. They didn’t understand that parking was a separate charge or that they would have to park far in case they arrived late. They didn’t understand that all bags must be left in the car.

Well, they arrived late. Sure enough, they’d have to park so far and were spooked by the large crowd, on top of having to pay for a locker to store my mom’s purse, that they decided to leave the arena altogether without ever stepping out of the car. “I’ll Venmo you for parking and the locker fees!” I insisted. But they were tired. They’d driven for over two hours in traffic. And most of all, my parents are older. I forget about this all the time. What do my parents know about Google Maps and checking the traffic ahead of time? My dad was just asking me about the Yellow Pages not too long ago. My mom has plantar fasciitis and cannot take prolonged walks.

I found my frustration easing. It is a strange feeling, eclipsing your parents. Thinking about it leaves me feeling uneasy and emotionally and mentally unprepared. There is still so much to say. So much to do. Things to repair.

“Are you driving home? Or will you find a hotel to stay at overnight? Did you eat? Can I order takeout for you?” I texted.

“No, it’s ok,” my mom replied. “We’ll have a good time. As long as we’re together. No worries. Sleep and rest. Ok, low batt.”

lessons in love

I came home to visit my family for the holiday weekend and attended my first indoor, extended family party in a long while. I saw family who I haven’t seen in a number of months, others two years, some in ten, and some in twenty. I’d held a newborn nephew who I hadn’t yet met. I cried with an older cousin whose husband just recently passed from COVID in August.

My younger cousin had digitized my aunt’s home videos and uploaded them to YouTube. They were playing in the background, and by the time I’d sat down to watch, they were on a recording from March 1991. You could hear my aunt asking what the red light meant. “It means you’re recording!” my uncle responded in Tagalog.

1991 was the year my grandma, mom, and I came to visit the US, which ended up being a permanent migration for my mom and myself. My mom was just a year younger than I am now when she made the choice to stay. I had just turned five. The home footage caught so many things I’d either forgotten or had no way to make sense of at the time—my grandma’s testing of the waters, my mom trying to put her best foot forward, and me—clueless and still unable to speak more English than what I could mimic from my mom’s Whitney Houston cassette (I was obsessed with “Greatest Love of All” and credit all of my early English learning, pre-migration, to the late and very great Whitney).

I didn’t know if my mom knew we would be staying here at the time of that home video. I suspect now that she did, or at least was considering it heavily. I wonder if I could’ve made such a brave decision at her age, essentially my age now—to leave behind my entire life and take my child to this foreign place and start brand new.

My relationship with my mom changed after we stayed. Once carefree, an emotion and lifestyle of privilege, my mom took on a different demeanor—one of struggle, disappointment, exhaustion. And I changed alongside her.

I think about this video and laugh. I’m wearing my Mickey Mouse cap for most of the video, speaking in Tagalog and playing some game that involved sweeping the back patio and tumbling like a roly-poly. However, my favorite parts are much more obscure. In the video taken at night of my now-aunts and uncles having conversation on the sofa, you could see my mom sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa with me sitting on her lap. We’re playing some kind of game, and it doesn’t matter what, but it ends with me giggling with a huge smile on my face and wrapping my arms around her with the biggest hug I could give.

This post is dedicated to Ne, Romy, Dan, Ong, and Fely.

Do you need a bigger pot?

These days, I feel like I’m constantly talking or thinking about space. Holding space. Making space. Physical space. Figurative space. Mental space. Emotional space.

About four months ago, I hung one of my pothos plants on a ladder by the window:

Taken July 27th.

Because I’m a klutz, I inevitably walked into it and knocked the whole thing down. I lost a precious vine in the process, some of which I plopped into a jar of water to propagate. After sweeping away the spills of my accident, I re-erected the ladder, secured the pothos onto the rung, tidied up the soil, and wiped down the leaves.

A couple months after hanging, I noticed that the soil was no longer holding onto water. The leaves continued to remain sad and wilty even after a hearty watering, and I suspected that the roots needed to be shaken loose and have more room to grow.

I finally repotted and re-hung Sylvia (that’s what we’ll call her now) last week. Here she is immediately after repotting, still getting used to her bigger pot:

Taken a week ago.

I let her get used to her new space—let her stretch out and expand. Here she is today:

Sylvia today.

I’ve found gardening to be a haven for my thoughts and emotions, a reflection of ways in which I, myself, am trying to grow. It’s so easy to stick with the same because what’s familiar often feels comfortable. But is that familiarity constricting your roots? Do you need more room to grow? Do I?

office space

I’m in the middle of transitioning to my new role at another agency. For the first time in over a year-and-a-half, I attended an in-person staff meeting.

I didn’t realize how emotional I would feel finally working in proximity to colleagues (people!) again. An introvert at heart, I found comfort in living in an unusually solo state. Additionally, living in a dedicated isolation allowed me to finally center much-needed self-care and work through past traumas that I’ve been wanting and needing to address. Not that any of this has been easy, and the “comfort” of isolation can be its own coping mechanism.

My home office corner with my work-from-home colleague catching the warmth of the sun at the window.

A curse or a blessing? It doesn’t matter. I’ll ride this wave and see where it takes me.