Grief almost doesn’t end. I find myself this year wanting to get over you. And get over everything that has been said and done but I’m still living and longing for you, kuv nam. How much longer, does one wait? My heart is pouring over and over again.
We are back to December already. A whole year has swept us through. December, your least favorite season of winter. Those kind of seasons that you cursed at because they make you sick and the weather with it being the worst kinds of conditions; ones that causes the cringe and fear in you of car accidents and road traffic, for your loved ones returning home from work. Those dreary days you peak through the four-season porch and quickly mumble to yourself, why hasn’t the sun come out–it’s been four days. Winter is back, but you, you are not back.
A summer rolls away and the new sun comes out, I miss you. A fall leaf is raked and bagged at my brother’s house, I miss you. Twenty-seven bags, I miss you. I find your gloves, I miss you. Then the snow flies, the ice-glazed streets, and then the Metro Mobility buses that slows me down to pick up your grandchildren, I think of you. I think of you on those buses you take to dialysis across town because you tell me they bring joy and contentment in your heart because you longed to see the city scapes. I drive into the city and think about your bus routes and wonder I could’ve shown you the city myself and I then I start miss you again. I break myself over sadness and my loss of you, the years we could’ve have together as mother and daughter, the times that short-changed us without parting words and goodbye moments, oh mom, I really miss you.
There’s just no end to close my memory on you. Your friendship and our conversations just never ends. Even though you’re gone, mom, you’re living in me.
Hmongs have a saying that goes like this; Ua cas es nim tsis zoo le yauv moog ua qhua es yuav rov qaab lus tsev os. How come leaving (the earth) is not like you’ve became a guest somewhere, where you’d go visit and you know how to come back home!
I had stopped blogging my site because I didn’t want to be reminded in my writing that I still have grief in me. I wanted to ignore and brush off my sadness, my loneliness journey without a mother. I wanted to be expressive without writing things down. Only to be reminded that in years time, that I am again will read of heart-felt letters and grief blog sites of my life without you in it. It will all become of what seems-like-of only rants of how much I miss you and how I want to come find you, to beg you, Mom, come home!
But I remember you well, you never left my heart–everyday in my thoughts and in my life, you still live in me. No matter how I dodge my emotions. You, are still my lifesong and my hero. You were my everyday. And today, it’s a memory turned treasure.
Today, at my gym workout I played a song that I used to listen to when you were alive. It didn’t mean much to me then but today, I couldn’t get over it. I cried while working out, cried in the saunas–oh your favorite place to find physical healing. Perhaps, I too, am looking for physical healing. Looking for my mom and my best friend.
Josh Groban sings it quite well when he says:
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas
I am strong when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be
When I hear the song again after the 20-some-months since you’ve left; I realized you were the memory that surpassed that became my treasure.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be
I miss you so much. It’s going to be Christmas soon. I know I can find you here in my thoughts and writings everytime I tune in. It’s a greater feeling of [indeed an expression] that grieving people should often do, but does not do enough–to write and appreciate their emotions and the tolls that sits and pulls in our grief. Without these challenges, we can’t set sail and motion our souls to find new beginnings. Without the identity of our sadness, frustration, and sometimes anger, we cannot guide others to find light.
Until the next letter in theory of grief or happier times with and without you, mom, Merry Christmas in Heaven and for us too, here on Earth!
let's mangle 