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Monthly Archives: June 2012

Love Story

17 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by K.Lo in family

≈ 13 Comments

This is a story about James and Eleanor.  James is my father, and here are some things about him that are important to this story:  he lost my mother to cancer ten years ago, he has Parkinson’s disease and lives in a Sunrise residence where caregivers help him with the tasks of daily living he can no longer perform for himself, and he is 79 years old.  His formative years in China were full of trauma, first because of the Japanese occupation during World War 2, and then because his family had to leave everything and flee to Taiwan (literally on one of the last boats out of the harbor) once the communists took over.  As a result of that and his family culture and the Chinese culture in general, my father has always had a very difficult time expressing his thoughts and feelings.  He is excellent at communicating information about things, and has always been highly skilled at recalling and telling detailed stories about historical events or about people he’s met.  But ask him how he felt or what he thought about something, and he would typically struggle to articulate a response if he was able to at all.  Often he was not.  When I was growing up, he rarely initiated any expression of emotion.

Of course, an inability to express emotions doesn’t mean a person doesn’t actually feel them, although it’s taken me some time to realize and understand this.  My mother was the expressive parent in our family, the one whose emotions were very visibly on display.  My father’s expressions of love were quieter and far easier to overlook.  The fact that he had 10-hour workdays yet still found time to cut up an orange for me and make me a hard-boiled egg on toast several mornings a week (even when I was in high school and fully capable of making my own breakfast) was something I just took as a given.  In the years since my mother died, I’ve seen my father make a conscious effort to be more expressive, but after decades of habits to the contrary, it hasn’t been easy for him.

And then came Eleanor.  I first remember hearing about Eleanor from my father late last fall.  He told me she’d been put on hospice for ovarian cancer and told by doctors that there was no more they could do for her.  He remarked on her positive attitude and cheerfulness despite her circumstances and said he wanted to talk to her and get to know her better to learn how this was the case.  When the Christmas season rolled around, my father invited Eleanor to his apartment to listen to selections of Handel’s Messiah (one of his favorite choral works) on CD, which he thought she might enjoy.

What started as curiosity and compassion on his part soon deepened.  “We can talk about anything,” my father told me in nearly every conversation we had about her.  They began eating their meals together, playing Rummikub, and practicing ballroom dancing several times a week.  On Valentine’s Day, their residence had a dance and crowned my father and Eleanor king and queen.  During these months, Eleanor’s condition was remarkably stable.  Her family told my father that he made her glow and had given her a reason to live.  In the course of this relationship with Eleanor, I noticed my father becoming more expressive in his relationship with me.  He seemed to converse just a little more easily about his feelings and seemed more comfortable responding whenever I expressed my own.

The week before last, my father e-mailed my siblings and me that Eleanor had taken a sudden turn for the worse.  She had lost her appetite and her legs had begun to swell.  Last weekend, she was moved to the hospice critical care facility, and last Tuesday, she died.  During one of my father’s visits, he sang a song to her that he had learned in a Bible study years ago:

May the Lord, Mighty God,
Bless and keep you forever,
Grant you peace, perfect peace,
Courage in every endeavor.
Lift up your eyes and seek His face
And His grace forever.
May the Lord, Mighty God,
Bless and keep you forever.

Eleanor’s daughter overheard some of this, and as a result, requested that it be sung at Eleanor’s service.  When I called my father on the day she died, he spoke of Eleanor’s kindness and concern for him, and how she was worried for him and his well-being even as she was in her last hours.  He was crying and clearly heartbroken, but he could talk about it, unlike his mute misery after my mother died.  Eleanor was buried on Friday with her framed copy of their photo and a love letter from my father placed in her casket by her request.

In some ways, this is a sad story.  But mostly, I think it is a beautiful and deeply encouraging one.

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Tile Angst

03 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by K.Lo in home ownership

≈ 2 Comments

Aside from the minor bump at the beginning with the termites, which was resolved fairly quickly and easily (if not cheaply), the bathroom renovation has been going swimmingly.  My contractor, in addition to making steady progress, is a super affable guy who didn’t even get mad at me when, two days in a row, I accidentally locked the bolt he didn’t have a key for and he had to climb in through a window to start work (he now has a bolt key).  Last week I was riding high on a wave of triumph after finding a beautiful mirror that was on clearance AND had a further coupon discount and only required my painting the frame a different color.  Instead of being a drag, that last bit made me even happier, because now I can feel all proud of my craftiness every time I look at that mirror.  With that mirror, I thought I was finally done making all the decisions I needed to with regards to the bathroom.  All my materials had been chosen and everything was ready to just be put in.  Good thing since this is an incredibly stressful and busy time at work and I am already beyond fried.

And then Friday afternoon happened, which is when my contractor called me at work, where I was still stuck grading essays, and informed me that the tiles I had chosen weeks ago for both the shower and floor wouldn’t work.  Apparently, you need things like bullnose edges and quarter rounds for showers (which my contractor didn’t think to tell me when I presented him with my choices a week ago and which I was too ignorant to ask), and the floor tile was completely the wrong size.  Probably because I had accidentally chosen a wall tile.  But whatever.  It wasn’t going to work, and he needed something to start tiling with on Monday.  As a result, yesterday turned into a frantic and frenzied search for tile.  My friend Diana was sweet enough to come with me to a couple of the places and patiently hold up different tiles and say “uh huh” reassuringly when I asked if something looked nice to her.

I struck out with the first three tiles I liked, either because they were out of stock or didn’t come with the requisite pieces, which ratcheted up my frustration and anxiety about 1000%.  Diana went on her way and I went home with two samples that seemed kind of like what I was looking for, but when I got home, it became very clear that they were NOT what I was looking for.  So back into the car and on to Home Depot and Lowes, the only two stores carrying tile in the area open on a Saturday evening.  Come 9:00 last night, I was standing in my bathroom staring at a bunch of tiles laid out and doing my best not to have a breakdown.

I was worried that I wasn’t picking a good tile for the shower, I was worried that I wouldn’t have time to find a good floor tile and everything would be closed on Sunday; add all that to the anxiety I already have about how much money this is all costing me and how many other things on the property I still need to address, and I felt very overwhelmed and very alone, which led to me thinking things like “Why do I own a whole freaking house by myself?!?” and “I’m so stressed, my body is probably releasing tons of cortisol right now and making me store belly fat!” (thank you, some article I read somewhere about that) and “I’m going to die alone and be eaten by wild dogs!” (thank you, Bridget Jones).

The worst is that I got really upset that I was getting so upset.  In the large scheme of things, tile isn’t that major.  We’re not talking life or death here.  The only person affected by this decision is me.  And yet here I was freaking out like some kind of hysterical idiot.  I was failing utterly at being calm, cool, and confident, and I hate failing.

Cut to today and me driving down State College Blvd., which is kind of the tile mecca in Anaheim.  I had my tile from Lowes that I’d picked up last night and actually quite liked when I woke up in the morning, but I still thought I should try a few more places to make sure there wasn’t something better.  The first place I stopped in didn’t have anything I liked with the pieces I needed.  At the second place, the owner (the only person in the store) sneered at my tile samples, then said his store only carried quality tiles and stones and that he didn’t have anything that would suit my needs.  He came out of the store a minute after I did and, while I was starting my car, walked over to his red Ferrari and stroked it.  True story.  And that’s when I said to myself, “Fuck you, buddy–I like my Lowes tile,” and that was that.  Shower tile decided.  The next store had a floor tile that complemented my shower tiles beautifully.  Done and done.  I guess I should be grateful for the sneering guy, because that encounter flipped some kind of switch in me.  Apparently, anger trounces anxiety and makes me decisive.

Hopefully, no new wrinkle will emerge when my contractor arrives tomorrow and sees what I’ve chosen this time.  I can handle a problem in another area, but anything else tile-related at this point just might make me run into traffic.  Hopefully, though, I can grow in my faith that while things might not be perfect or ideal a lot of the time, they do work out.  And I probably will not die alone and be eaten by wild dogs.

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