Finding Momentum

Gasp

2022-11-05T00:00:00-07:00

I’ve been scanning Mom’s photos, each one sending me into a reverie. I load the scan tray, then hit the button. A buzz, a hum, and the whir of a feed tray. Photos of family vacations, birthday parties, now available anytime.

I note that there’s a progression in the photos. In her younger years, she’s laughing, young and free. As the years go on and the family grows, she seems more muted, often smiling demurely in the background. I wonder if it’s because she was in such a mode of giving; her time, her energy. We are loud, rambunctious, silly kids.

One night, talking with Yomi about his grandma, I choke up. I think back to a memory I had of Mom, riding with us in the back seat of the car on a road trip in Canada. The thrum of the car lulls us to sleep. The sky is clear above us and mountains, silhouetted neatly against an iridescent gleaming moon, pass by silently.

In the present, I gasp, and feel something twist in my stomach, and I realize that I can never recover this memory with her again. Like looking at this memory through museum glass.

Again, I’m looking at the photos of her last days. Replaying her final hours and moments. If I had known - if I really had known - would I have stayed by her side longer? We had thought that we had more time with her. A few days or a few hours more. The closest thing I have of her now are these memories again of the last minutes of her life before she slipped away.

The feeling repeats itself for weeks on end. Out of the blue, I realize - I’ll never have those moments with her again. I get choked up, and find it hard to breathe.

The moments at the end are the last ones I have of her, and the ones most colored with pain. The times at the end when I could barely hear her labored breathing over the hissing of her respirator, trying hard to make out her last words. It’s the afternoon of her last day, and I’m back at home taking a nap. My sister, taking over the shift with Mom in her hospital room, texts us frantically, Come back, hurry. Mom’s slipping away, and she’s mouthing words that she can’t make out. The tragedy is that we never find out what she’s trying to tell my sister. She’s lost her voice; the respirator is making her mouth dry. Mom mouths - I love you. And that’s the last thing she says to us.

The night before Mom passes, I have a dream. She and I are in two paddle boats on a lake. It’s nighttime, and the moon is bright over the water. But something is horribly wrong. She’s drifting away from me, and calling out my name. I’m paralyzed - I can’t move. And in this dream, I watch her slowly fade away from me into the mist. I wake suddenly, feeling a deep sadness.

It’s only 5AM, but I get out to ride my bike in the San Diego hills. I’ve recently swapped out my slick tires with grippier versions better suited for sandy Southern California terrain. I’m on a new route that I’ve plotted, which starts at a high point on a local mountain and descends down the side of the mountain. The trail is rockier and more technical than I had expected, and I’m riding fearfully, my brakes locking up and my feet frozen to the pedals. I clip a rock with my pedal and down I go in slow motion, landing with an oomph on my side. Thankfully, I’m OK, save for a large bruise on my knee that’s started to bleed a brilliant red.

Back at home, I’m bandaging up my bruise when I get the fateful phone call from my sister. That’s the morning when it all starts to go downhill. Mom’s collapsed in her bed; the paramedics have arrived. And the day plays out in slow motion.

The night of Mom’s passing, I sit with four-year old Yomi in bed as he asks about her death and I can’t help but think about our road trips with her and get choked up. It’s too late, she’s drifting away. I can’t hear her anymore.

I can’t breathe, because she’s right there with us, just behind me in the back seat of the car. I’m twelve then, and I feel twelve now. She’s there, then she’s not, and she’s back there in the boat, fading away and I’m left abandoned. It suddenly becomes hard to breathe. She’s stuck behind museum glass, lost to the mist and dreadful cancer and words that I cannot make out behind the hissing of the damned respirator.

Arrival

2022-05-12T00:00:00-07:00

“Andrew, get over here. Mom’s unconscious.”

I’d never felt like hyperventilating before, until today when I took Esther’s call. I ran upstairs to get my clothes, heart pounding, ever quickly sucking in air, feeling dizzy. Breathe slower, breathe slower. Not today, not today, not today. I floored the gas pedal and peeled out the driveway, wondering, would it be today?

We were caught unprepared. The day before was an ordinary day. That night, we had brought the family over and had dinner together. My aunt spoon-fed my mom on her bed. The kids were screaming and fighting in the other room, as usual.

We had decided we were going to hire extra help for the upcoming month. My aunt had said her goodbyes, having stayed a week to help us, promising to be back in 2 weeks. We were all tired, but feeling up for the next phase of her care. Mom’s wounds were healing, she just needed to get over this hump.

The day before, Mom was smiling as she sat with her grandkids, listening quietly as we bantered back and forth. Her voice was reduced to a whisper; some medication had taken her voice from her. Things were not okay though; she had been visibly declining daily over the past several weeks. Her appetite had diminished, she had been mainly relegated to bed rest, and walking even a few steps was laborious.

We shouldn’t have been surprised that this morning, everything was falling apart. She’s in the ER. We arrive to see her hooked up to an oxygen mask, hooked up to sensors of all different sorts. She’s small, engulfed in blankets and the cacophony of beeping machines. Over the next hours, they run tests and scans and concerned nurses and doctors make their visits. Mom motions to speak over the hiss of the oxygen mask. We can’t hear her, and it takes her several tries, her whisper barely a rasp: Can I go home today?

My sister smiles bravely and tells her no - we need to find out why she fainted.

Mom’s arm has swelled significantly from the day before. She had been complaining of muscle soreness, and the night before I had been giving her a massage across her swollen legs, feet, and now arms.

The doctor comes to give his report. Scans have detected gas bubbles under the skin of her swollen arm. An infection has made its appearance, hidden until this morning. Blood clots are showing up in her legs and her lungs. Her body is in shock, her blood pressure swinging wildly to and fro. There are no real treatment options; surgery is out of the picture, given the weak state her body is in.

We’re in shock. My dad, Esther, Annie and I tag team in pairs, rotating in and out of the ER waiting room and my mom’s rooms, heads in our hands, fighting back tears. Slowly the diagnosis becomes clear - we have a day, maybe a few, left with her. Get the family here as soon as possible.

Nobody can prepare you for the death of a loved one. It’s not that the information isn’t there. Weeks ago, Annie had bought us a copy of A Beginner’s Guide To The End to help us navigate end-of-life caregiving. I can’t say I cared to read it, and it lay unopened in our house. Now I find myself wishing I had at least opened it, to find some sort of comfort over what was happening here.

Objectively, I’d always known Mom was going to die. Pancreatic cancer will kill your mom, a cancer specialist friend had told us. We had asked her to be as blunt as possible with us regarding Mom’s chances of survival, and were grateful to hear the truth. There was no way out. The cancer would be too strong.

But my denial - and maybe faith in the mystery of God - wouldn’t let me consider death. And here it was, looming and menacing, and we only had hours left.

Mom is frail in her last moments with us; skin barely covering her bones. She struggles to whisper to us - bodily functions to perform, worries over whether or not she had done her CT scan correctly. I put my forehead on hers and nuzzle against her cheek, like I do with my daughter, and look into her eyes. They are glistening. I feign a smile under my mask, hoping I can encourage her.

Annie is alone with Mom for a few hours while the others go home to grab supplies or eat food. Does anyone know what 11 over 11 means to mom? she texts. No, we don’t, and it remains a mystery. The minutes tick by and she gets weaker. Quieter. Finally - to Annie and Dad, who are in the room, her last words: I love you.

The doctor arrives again and delivers the news - there are only hours left. Her body is shutting down. Please hurry, Annie texts. My aunt and grandma grab the next flight in to San Diego, but it doesn’t look likely they are going to make it.

At home, I scramble to gather the family and get into the car. Rushing, we run into the long hallways of the hospital and arrive in her room.

Mom’s eyes are closed, and the situation looks grim. I glance at the machines and note her low heart rate and blood pressure. Over the noise of the machines, we say our goodbyes and kiss her generously. The nurses have her body pumped with norepinephrine to keep her alive until the relatives can arrive to see her.

Thirty minutes later, it’s just five of us. Mom, Dad, and the three kids. It feels familiar and right. Five of us, stuffed together in a rental car cruising the backroads of Canada or Wyoming or Southern California on yet another road trip. The five of us, weekly sitting around the dining table sharing prayer requests and singing together per family tradition. The five of us visiting the local salad bar buffet restaurant on Saturday nights.

And then it happens: her heart rate flatlines and the ECG machine roars with one long continuous beep, the way it happens in the movies. I’m standing nearest her, stunned and shocked. Not today, not today…

I lean over to kiss her on the forehead. Immediately, her heart springs back to life and the ECG registers a heartbeat. We sigh in relief, but not for long.

It would be the last ten beats of her heart. Her body gives out soon after.

The next hour is surreal. We cry, we talk, we are shocked. This is the new reality. Mom’s left, but her body’s here. We hold her hands, and rub her feet. With time, her body stiffens. I think about how hours ago, Mom’s soul was there and now - it’s her body. A dead body, I think, how gruesome. Seconds ago, she had been here. I hold tight to her and I want to wail.

We persuade the hospital staff to let us keep her body in the bed for a few more hours until our relatives can make it to the hospital. Sadly, they will have missed her by a few hours. In a video, my grandma weeps as she anoints her daughter’s head with oil.

I head home, shocked and exhausted, crawling into Yomi’s bed, answering a million questions about death and sharing all the things I missed about his grandma until he falls asleep.

That night, I sleep fitfully, struggling to process the speed of her departure and horrified by the depth of her suffering. I wake feeling a complex, muted, impassable sadness. My one solace is that she has arrived. She is no longer in pain. She is home.

Slow shutter

2022-04-24T00:00:00-07:00

So much has changed since you heard the word cancer through the phone last year in June. You knew nothing was going to be the same - at least in theory - but nobody ever really knows what to expect, do they?

You should have known, but how could you have known? It was an inconvenient fact at first, a technicality. It shrouded itself in chores, tasks, and the frenzy that comes with a move.

You all gather in San Diego shortly after hearing the news. You bring the family there from Oakland, Annie comes down from Pasadena. That day everyone goes out to take family photos. It’s a perfect June day, the pulsing heat from the sun radiating off the lawn. The family finds an open field nearby and the kids romp in the field. You set up your tripod and assemble everyone together.

At the moment people seem calm, poised. You hold Mom’s hand and she looks at you with tears in her eyes. You don’t know what’s going to happen.

You snap photos of the family, in different configurations. Your family, Esther’s family, Mom and Dad. Click, click. You bring out the bubble machine for the kids, who chase the bubbles and roll over laughing, screaming, chasing each other. Total chaos. Click, click.

You ask Mom to stand framed by the trees. The light is soft on her. You square up and turn the camera body, focus, and snap a series of photos. She smiles brightly. You step back and everybody’s eyes are wet.

The portrait is perfect. Mom’s in a patterned dress and a sheer cardigan, facing the camera straight on. Her eyes gaze at you warmly, but they also hide some sadness. You regret at once taking this photo, because it makes her seem so alone. She’s the only one of us who is to travel this road.

In your mind, you think - this is the photo that we’ll show at her funeral. Of course, not immediately. In many many long years, God willing.

You move in September, a whirlwind departure, and arrive in San Diego and live nearby your sister and also to your parents.

Your therapist at first doesn’t seem very helpful. Isn’t he supposed to help you process? Can we get any of this grieving stuff out of the way? Never mind the fact that at the outset, everyone is fine.

It bothers you a little. Everyone is smiling. People are praying. Mom and Dad are the ones who seem to have the most faith. Is it just you? But you’re also consumed with the grind of daily life - childcare and expecting your daughter, the stressors of COVID and remote work.

The glimmer of cancer and death at times feel blissfully far, far away. But it’s always there, approaching slowly.

The last months have been taxing on Mom’s body. Chemotherapy treatments and an endless stream of health complications have stolen her weight and her energy.

You remember that, though you believe you know the end, you aren’t there yet. This weekend was full of joy - of family from far away, coming to visit and eat together and celebrate, amidst the backdrop of sickness. Mom lies on a couch or in bed many days. You come up alongside her and just hold her hand and smile and give her a squeeze. She’s frail now - skin and bones. But she’s still there, mustering up the energy to keep recovering and staying strong. Keeping the faith.

You take a photo of the entire family - faces old and new fill the frame. Mom is seated, next to her sister and her mother. She’s smiling: visibly exhausted, deeply happy, far from alone.

Lament

2020-06-14T00:00:00-07:00

What do I have to offer you, brother?

My inability to move to action

My feeling of being stuck

Afraid of complicity, but uncomfortable with rushed action.

I want wise counsel and action but

I am uncomfortable, and they say this discomfort is good

But what can I offer you, my brother? When you have watched the system fail you time after time

Left you hunted, broken and beaten

What do I have to offer you?

What do we have to offer you?

5AM

2020-05-20T00:00:00-07:00

When 5AM comes, I tiptoe out of the house
And revel in the stillness of the morning when breath is dew
For seasons I imagined I was trapped on either side, with fitful sleep and nighttime duties but
Here I am - we are at peace

My son, you amaze us at your wide-eyed wonder,
you drive us nuts with your petulance

For the longest time I was helpless to watch as you overwhelmed us with need
It was heard in our voices - pitch and tone - rising with desperation, resignedly soft or low and breathless with concern.
Confusion

So in the early years I would escape at 5 AM and run as hard as I could
Away, the spirit unsettled but the body resolute
Away to a self that sought peace but found little
Away

This morning there was peace - here.

The reluctant father’s serenity prayer

2019-06-14T00:00:00-07:00

Please give me longsuffering, God, so I can smile when things don’t go my way.

Please grant me serenity, God, to accept the things I can’t change but seriously to change the things I need to.

Please give me humility, God, so I never argue with a chip on my shoulder.

Please grant me fun-dad-ness, so I can wrestle with the little guy even after a long day.

Please give me a new spirit, God, so I can choose to engage instead of detaching and burying myself in tasks.

Please grant me wisdom, God, so I can know how to react when a blowup happens in public.

Please give me the love, God, to support my wife and give her the support she needs without selfish but-what-about-me -isms.

Please grant me the patience (did I say that already?), to make it through bedtime without losing my mind and read the same story for the seven millionth time.

Please give me eyes, God, to look into my little guy’s eyes and see into his soul.

Please grant me the ears, God, to hear what he’s actually saying when he’s talking nonsense.

Please give me the willingness, God, to be grown and matured, however reluctantly.

You can’t go back again

2018-06-25T00:00:00-07:00

There’s no turning back. When that big Parenthood Switch flips on in your life, you are tossed into every conceivable life change you can imagine. Your time is no longer your own. Your sleep is interrupted, infrequent and faked. Money flies away faster than you can say Baby Wipes On Amazon Prime. Your little one, bless his dear heart, happens to be a fearsome night terror, the cutest man on the face of the planet, and the darkest mystery you will ever encounter.

There’s no turning back, because when you despair (and you will despair often), you will remember that this is your lot and your duty. The love you expected to flow freely merely trickles out of a finite well that runs dry against the pressures of life. Your partner and you will fight over the stupidest, littlest idiotic things.

There is no turning back. This is irreversible. His life is in your hands. His character depends on yours.

You will find yourself thirsting for Jesus, his miraculous power, and his healing mercy. You don’t need it in some abstract, storybook manner. You need it fiercely, powerfully and sharply now. You need that healing to flow into the veins of your little one, because as he writhes in pain in front of you you can’t help but feel like the smallest man on the planet, powerless, fearfully and shudderingly angry. But how can you be angry at the little man? You tell yourself to think rationally - it’s not his fault. You wonder if fathers often feel angry at their infants when they cry, and feel very low.

Life with the little one is full of fun, joy, smiles, and funny moments. But the lows are lower than you had ever expected. There is no going back now, but there is nothing you can do. All you can do is pray. You can take care of yourself. Your family supports you with a sacrificial love. Your partner is heroic, but she too silently bites her tongue. You have a long road ahead.

You wish you were somewhere else, but that would be pitifully small. There is no turning back.

The night tiger

2018-04-29T00:00:00-07:00

The past six weeks have been nearly blissful. You’ve surprised us all, son, to learn that you are actually a rather happy baby when you’re not uncomfortable. I’ve surprised myself too, feeling intense fondness for you in your moments of simple, unbridled joy. What a difference from the first few harrowing months.

These are certainly days of bliss - laughing at your progress and recounting your new skills to family. One night, you decide to even sleep entirely through the night. We are stunned.

But of course, our fortunes do change and you refuse to be tamed. Without warning, we’re thrown back onto your fickle whims of your sleep times. You cry so hard you choke on your saliva. We pull you out after each episode; you are covered in cold sweat. Your cries are so primal they make my spine tingle and my insides shrivel.

Today was such a day. You refused a nap in the afternoon, crying to be pulled out. You refused an early bedtime, fraying our nerves with your caterwauling cries. I felt trapped, a beast in a cage. I was angry at you. I was angry at everybody. I was angry that I was angry. I was once again falling down a hole of fear and anger and self-loathing and helplessness.

Annie noticed my bad attitude and ordered me out of the house. I gladly obliged and drove up to the hills where I jogged onto the trails. The air was crisp and families were slowly making their way to the exits. The sun hung low and burned blood orange, and I wondered whether you needed to see the sky dim before you knew it was time to sleep.

I wasn’t planning to run hard but soon a jog turned into a trot turned into a gallop. I threw myself up the hills, lungs burning for air and vision blurring. I nearly imagined I wouldn’t make it back in time; I was out too far. I was in too deep. My mouth was dry; I couldn’t spit.

Sinews and bone, blood and oxygen, dirt and tears. The only thing left to do is to run hard and run fast. On the last mile, I raced a dog and its cycling owner back to the parking lot - the dog charged up the hills but trotted on the flats. I silently celebrated my victory, at least I had that. My legs burned, but I was no longer caged.

It was dark when I cracked open the front door. The house was quiet, the tiger asleep.

Already, not yet: reflections during Holy Week

2018-04-01T00:00:00-07:00

The past year has been rough on our friends. Our friends have lost many loved ones, another one recently received a terminal diagnosis.

When we were in LA, we learned from our community there to pray with great faith and learn to expect the things that were impossible or unseen. To our surprise, we ended up seeing a great number of those prayers come to fruition. Those experiences bolstered our faith and gave us an expectation to believe that the same thing could happen.

But the last year has felt relentless for ourselves and the friends we love, with recurring waves of suffering and loss. I still want to believe in Great Miracles and big dreams, but things have also come to pass that remind us that there are no guarantees, and that in mystery, we are still given the bitter fruits of suffering.

Here we are in Holy Week, and I was reflecting on the same things - that in the period between Good Friday and Easter, our world suffered and mourned the loss of Hope.

I also reflected on how little was in our control - without the initiative of God.

So in my prayers in this season, I reflect on the helplessness of our circumstance, and the great dependence we have on the merciful, mysterious initiative of God. We beg him to act, for in the end what else do we have?

Quickly does it change

2017-12-25T00:00:00-08:00

We came back home from your baptism last Sunday and you could not stop laughing, screeching with joy for twenty minutes (or what felt like forever).

In an instant, things become clearer than they ever have been before. I felt the dampness of tears on my face. How could I have doubted you?

Yusef told us once of being a dad and about the weight of looking into your son’s face, seeing his entire future unfolded before him. I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but I know a little better now.

You, the giggling one with eyes full of sky. Who are you?