We “canceled” Christmas this year – Christmas lights were replaced with flickering candles and burning incense. It was a back-and-forth debate with myself – tree, no tree, decoration, no decoration, maybe just a little decoration, maybe tree with some decorations with mom’s items. In the end, I simply could not bring myself into the celebratory mood. Strange, isn’t it? Celebration and happiness are indeed all in our minds.
I've been independent from my parents for a very long time. I have not realized how my daily well being is dependent upon that invisible, biological, psychological and emotional tether between mom and me. The bonding between a mom and a child is like air; we breath in and out without ever realizing the presence of the air until we are suffocating.
There are good moments and bad moments, or I call them “front lobe moments” and “lizard brain moments.” In the front lobe moments, life carries on with the omnipresent feeling of mom was still around – I figured that I can always pretend. The lizard brain moment often hits when it is time for the daily video call with mom and a naggy little voice in my brain kept trying to remind me – “mom is going to call, where is the phone?” There are also random things or random chats with friends triggering the lizard brain moment, which is a moment starting with tears pouring followed with uncontrollable sobbing.
One of these lizard moments was triggered one morning by a sudden realization – I am next. When dad died many years ago, I cried in the context of the continued rock-solid presence of mom – I was sad but not afraid because I was in the protective shield wielded by mom. Now mom’s gone – there is no one in front of the line anymore, I am next in line facing the God, the next would be me, I am next….
The strange thing is – since mom passed, I somehow start to visualize my eventual death to be a family reunion. I can almost see mom and dad happy together again – long waiting is finally over. Maybe my grandma “PoPo” moved in with them, maybe mom is telling them all about us and me, “PoPo” helped raising me and she must have wanted to know how I turned out to be. Neither dad nor PoPo knew that I ended to be a lawyer; both knew that I was a scientist, maybe they will have a good laugh together about me always wanting to go after the next unfamiliar thing. Maybe my other grandparents moved in with them too. I know mom will keep an extra room for me. Since I left home, mom moved many times, and she always kept a room for me.
I told myself that I am not afraid of death. But am I really not? Human is biologically wired to fear unknown. Death by nature is unknown to living beings. It is a one-way bridge– no one came back telling us what the other side of the bridge look or feel like.
I was told many years ago by a friend when she lost her last parent – “now, I am the only one between my children and God.” I never could understand that. Now I know – as I am standing alone, stripped of parental protection, facing the bridge.
JLF’s tiger cub
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