So, my dad is in some hospital in China.
Saturday I get a voice mail on my phone after work with him breathing heavily going : "this is your dad, listen to your mom, take care of yourself."
What can I do? How do I even find out what the hell happened to him?
Turns out he's slowly been cutting off the oxygen to his heart. he was having chest pains but he's so in the clouds about his own health he couldn't recognize a heart attack for what it is.
He eventually gets to the hospital with the neighbors help and undergoes treatment.
So Mom gets on a flight to China that night. My sister and I both would like to go, but mom just tells us to go on with what we are supposed to do. What else can we do? Go to china and sit in the hospital? its out of our hands.
I was going to stay home from the Taikai, but mom told me to just work everything out. So I did. I'm glad I did. Because otherwise i'd have had the day off from work and nothing to do int he house other than sit and think the worst, I'd have gone crazy. No information until mom gets there.. what to do.
Being around good people helped, just being engaged in thought other than my own I held it together pretty well. Everyone ate lunch together, so I ate. I realized today that I probably wouldn't have cuz i really didn't have an appetite.
20 hours later she gets there and we get some ore solid information, he's conscious, had been conscious the whole time, just in pain. They'd given him the drugs and he's in observation, but definite answer from them about how critical he is, they don't know the right questions to ask. And I still suspect they are giving me the :kid talk" make it sound not as bad to keep the kids calm.
Today things go back to "normal" I go to school stick back into my schedule, and I realized how much focus I needed to even do that. I was supposed to study, and I couldn't even focus on the first sentence in the book. then the next thing i noticed it was 3:30 and i hadn't eaten since the night before. I forced down a few bites of a muffin in class, but thats all I could do.
that class gets going and i get a call from my sister.. I can't pick up.. but its home calling, so i don't know if its because we have more news or what... then a few minutes later i get an international call, most likely from my mom
2 calls in a row. Are they trying to get a hold of me with news? I stepped out of class to check the messages, and mom wants me to call China when i have time.
I had enough.
couldn't finish sitting through class i was going home.
I finally get to talk to him, and he's able to talk on the phone, thats good. he's able to eat.. thats good too.
so he's under observation for a week or two.. thats good so to say..
then the anger set in... the things he said " if i had been taken away thing time.." and crap like " i was just tiered and it got to me, usually i can wait it out." WTF so this isn't your first f"in heart attack?!?!?!?!?!
I don't know how to deal with him, i know i'm mad because I care, but damn sometimes I want to punch him.
SO this roller coaster of emotions. not too fun.
thank you for not taking him yet.
thank you to everyone that's been there with me and looked out for me. I don't know how to show my gratitude.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
giving in
i don't want to need this, somehow i don't think its fair to need these kind of things from people...
but maybe its just human... to need more than to want.
but maybe its just human... to need more than to want.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
breathe
its like you never notice how hard you were struggling until the moment you let go.
then all of the sudden you can breath again, theres no more tension
and i see my hands shaking from holding on so hard.
but now I'm fumbling
you forget how to protect yourself
and the world doesn't stop taking you by surprise.
then all of the sudden you can breath again, theres no more tension
and i see my hands shaking from holding on so hard.
but now I'm fumbling
you forget how to protect yourself
and the world doesn't stop taking you by surprise.
something from the old me, something i need to remember
October 2003
The waves of Ocean Beach seem so different than the other beaches I've seen. It's not the first time I've been here, but sadly its the first time I noticed how unique it looked. The waves are so close together and so far out when they break, it seems like the sand itself bubbles and foams. It reminds me of the Little Mermaid legend, where she dissolves into the ocean as beautiful sea foam, to live a brilliant but short life as her beauty did. Short as it may have been, at least she lived for her heart and let her emotions make her alive. And that life may have been short but it must have felt like centuries to her. Waiting and longing day after day hoping for something so far out of reach.
Sitting here I keep thinking of an incident so long ago I'm surprised I remember it.
When he was still well, He had taken us on an excursion on San Francisco public transit, which should have ultimately ended at Ocean Beach. We never made it there. I was young, not older than 8, and we had tiered as the day went by. I vividly remember the moment by the side of the curb, when he asked if we wanted to continue, and my answer was a definite, tiered, no. Don't know why I remember that moment like a burn into my skin, but I do. Perhaps I had some feeling of guilt for not spending more time with him at the beach that he was so excited to take his grandchildren to. This memory caught hold of me as I was on the N train, taking this impromptu trip to the beach on a chilly fall afternoon.
In reality I don't know why I decided to come out of the blue. But as I was listening to the pace of the world draw by like the scenery of an old classic movie, I remembered. We never really came with grandpa, ever. As I sat there on the train I felt that maybe he had led me here today to teach me one more life lesson that he never communicated with words. Perhaps that simple man was pushing me in a direction with some answers to life.
And I cried on the train, as I am crying now as I write this. I cry, but I am so happy still. I will see this as the day thats brought me to a revelation about myself and how i see my life. This is the day where all the confusion of the past few months become clear, and my existence comes to mean something to myself. I feel purpose.
So I come to realize how alive I really am. In a short amount of time I've experienced all the emotions that remind me that I do indeed "feel", and that proves that I am alive, at least to myself. I want to cry, but I don't know if it is out of sadness. I feel so full, so I cry, like a cup brimming over with revelations just to empty itself so that it can receive more. Love, Lost, fear, anger, pride, embarrassment, joy... they all seem to blend into one.
Things change, and sometimes things get out of hand and maybe a little hectic, but I feel like I can look at the world and it's all moving ever so slowly. Melancholy? I don't know, but I get to see the beauty in things, even the simplest of things. A lonely windchime in a sunny window, a shrub swaying in the wind on a city sidewalk, the birds scurrying at the edge of the water where the waves crash... maybe it's zen, if i ever knew such a thing.
And I see a young family of four strolling on the beach, they look happy, at least I would hope them to be.
Don't think I will worry much anymore, everything seems to happen for a reason, as uncomfortable or frustrating as some events in life may seem, how it made me feel. I realize now that it only happened so that I CAN feel. And see that I am more alive than ever, and i think, feel, that thats a beautiful thing. I see that when I stop questioning how the universe works in its never ending cycles of abyss, I can see it clearly. Like i am looking at it for the first time,like a child discovering night and day for the first time. And Life, as I see it has never looked better.
One would think that looking at the world with joy, sadness, fear, hope, anger, love all at the same time maybe confusing. But I can honestly say I've never seen things with such clarity. I can very clearly feel what makes me.
I will take this as my first conscious lesson in life from my grandfather, who I feel speaks with the crashing of those waves. He was nothing more than a father, son, a husband, a friend to many,grandfather, a simple man, but very profound in this lesson he teaches.
I may never be the same, but for better for worse I will always be myself.
This is my day at the beach with him.
The waves of Ocean Beach seem so different than the other beaches I've seen. It's not the first time I've been here, but sadly its the first time I noticed how unique it looked. The waves are so close together and so far out when they break, it seems like the sand itself bubbles and foams. It reminds me of the Little Mermaid legend, where she dissolves into the ocean as beautiful sea foam, to live a brilliant but short life as her beauty did. Short as it may have been, at least she lived for her heart and let her emotions make her alive. And that life may have been short but it must have felt like centuries to her. Waiting and longing day after day hoping for something so far out of reach.
Sitting here I keep thinking of an incident so long ago I'm surprised I remember it.
When he was still well, He had taken us on an excursion on San Francisco public transit, which should have ultimately ended at Ocean Beach. We never made it there. I was young, not older than 8, and we had tiered as the day went by. I vividly remember the moment by the side of the curb, when he asked if we wanted to continue, and my answer was a definite, tiered, no. Don't know why I remember that moment like a burn into my skin, but I do. Perhaps I had some feeling of guilt for not spending more time with him at the beach that he was so excited to take his grandchildren to. This memory caught hold of me as I was on the N train, taking this impromptu trip to the beach on a chilly fall afternoon.
In reality I don't know why I decided to come out of the blue. But as I was listening to the pace of the world draw by like the scenery of an old classic movie, I remembered. We never really came with grandpa, ever. As I sat there on the train I felt that maybe he had led me here today to teach me one more life lesson that he never communicated with words. Perhaps that simple man was pushing me in a direction with some answers to life.
And I cried on the train, as I am crying now as I write this. I cry, but I am so happy still. I will see this as the day thats brought me to a revelation about myself and how i see my life. This is the day where all the confusion of the past few months become clear, and my existence comes to mean something to myself. I feel purpose.
So I come to realize how alive I really am. In a short amount of time I've experienced all the emotions that remind me that I do indeed "feel", and that proves that I am alive, at least to myself. I want to cry, but I don't know if it is out of sadness. I feel so full, so I cry, like a cup brimming over with revelations just to empty itself so that it can receive more. Love, Lost, fear, anger, pride, embarrassment, joy... they all seem to blend into one.
Things change, and sometimes things get out of hand and maybe a little hectic, but I feel like I can look at the world and it's all moving ever so slowly. Melancholy? I don't know, but I get to see the beauty in things, even the simplest of things. A lonely windchime in a sunny window, a shrub swaying in the wind on a city sidewalk, the birds scurrying at the edge of the water where the waves crash... maybe it's zen, if i ever knew such a thing.
And I see a young family of four strolling on the beach, they look happy, at least I would hope them to be.
Don't think I will worry much anymore, everything seems to happen for a reason, as uncomfortable or frustrating as some events in life may seem, how it made me feel. I realize now that it only happened so that I CAN feel. And see that I am more alive than ever, and i think, feel, that thats a beautiful thing. I see that when I stop questioning how the universe works in its never ending cycles of abyss, I can see it clearly. Like i am looking at it for the first time,like a child discovering night and day for the first time. And Life, as I see it has never looked better.
One would think that looking at the world with joy, sadness, fear, hope, anger, love all at the same time maybe confusing. But I can honestly say I've never seen things with such clarity. I can very clearly feel what makes me.
I will take this as my first conscious lesson in life from my grandfather, who I feel speaks with the crashing of those waves. He was nothing more than a father, son, a husband, a friend to many,grandfather, a simple man, but very profound in this lesson he teaches.
I may never be the same, but for better for worse I will always be myself.
This is my day at the beach with him.
Monday, October 15, 2007
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