Countdown to V-Day, Pt. 6

Sometimes the words don’t need to be said.

I love you

(first posted August 2013)

img_8202Earlier this week, I wrote about how delighted I was to finally get junk mail from my grad school. It was the proof I needed to convince myself that it wasn’t all a dream…that I had in fact gotten the degree I had struggled to earn for far too many years. What finally got me to actually finish the degree long after my heart was no longer in it was a phone call from my mother during which she dropped the most devastating weapon in her arsenal: an emotional nuclear bomb that rained all over my angst-ridden psyche. “Just finish it for your father’s sake. It would mean so much to him. Please. Do this one last thing for him, before he dies,” she said to me over the phone in a quavering voice. It was a bravura performance, which could have won her an Oscar. It spurred me to drag my heaving flanks across the finish line, staggering and gasping all the way. Although my dad was in perfect health at the time, my mother wasn’t exaggerating about one thing. It did mean a lot to him. I wrote this essay five years ago about my father’s reaction when I finally received my Ph.D.

When we were little, we used to always give my mom and dad a goodnight kiss. One day, when I was about five, I kissed my mom, and then went to kiss my dad. As I drew near, he said, “You don’t have to do that,” and fended me off with a stiff arm. I froze in mortified hurt and wordlessly slunk off to bed. We never touched each other again until the day I went to college. My parents were about to drive back home after helping me unload my things and dropping me off at my dormitory. My mother gathered me into her arms as if I were five rather than seventeen. She kissed me and then hugged me for a long time as if she never intended to let me go, all the while tenderly whispering into my ear all of her hopes and dreams for me. When she finally did let me go, she wiped the tears from her eyes and urged me to give my father a hug. Deeply embarrassed, I tentatively approached him and awkwardly held out my arms to him. He patted me stiffly on the back and turned to leave with an “O.K., well, see ya.”

My mom is a woman who almost always gets what she wants when she wants it. One day she summoned all her considerable powers of persuasion to get my father to say the three words she’d never heard from him.

“Just say it,” she cajoled, “I won’t even look at you. Please, just once.”

My dad remained uncomfortably mute.

Never one to give up a battle and completely unaccustomed to failure, my mother tried a hundred different ways to get him to say those words.

Exhausted and demoralized, she tried a final tactic. “I’ll say it first and then you say it back to me…I love you.”

There was a long silence, and then finally he mustered a sheepish, “Me too.” She gave up. It was the best he could do.

Shortly after I defended my dissertation and was finally awarded my Ph.D., I got a letter from my dad addressed to Dr. Adrienne Kim Bird. It was written on pages and pages of his favorite yellow lined pads. It must have taken him ages to write that letter. In his barely decipherable handwriting I read very formal words of congratulations and advice about my future. In those words I know he was really saying: “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

I love you too, Dad.

Countdown to V-Day, Pt. 5

Love can save your life.

50th Anniversary

(first posted on February 25, 2013)

weddingI turned eighteen shortly after starting my first year in college. I was shocked when I found a birthday card from my father in my mailbox. My parents have never been ones to mark occasions that most people celebrate. Had I woken up in an alternate universe? Could I be hallucinating? I was reassured that all was as it should be when I pulled out the card. It contained no message and was signed “Rev. David H. Kim.” My dad’s secretary was keeping track of birthdays and sending out cards from a pre-signed stack to everyone in his congregation.

I can’t remember a single time my dad ever bought my mom chocolate for Valentine’s Day or flowers for their wedding anniversary. The words “I love you” have never, not once, either on purpose or by accident, ever fallen from my father’s lips. It’s not that he doesn’t feel genuine love. He worships my mother. His children and grandchildren know that he loves them deeply. It’s outward, obvious expressions of love that make him distinctly uncomfortable.

Almost five years ago, my mother was diagnosed with primary amyloidosis. The prognosis was dire. The doctors told her she had eighteen months to live. My sister managed to get her into a clinical trial at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. My parents were living in Korea at the time, but returned to the States so that my mother could get treated. My father left her in my sister’s care and returned to Korea to finish out his work obligations, intending to return as soon as the semester was over.

The aggressive, experimental chemotherapy regimen knocked my mother’s disease into remission, but not before it nearly killed her. One day, she was exhausted and suffering and ready to give up the fight. She called my father to say goodbye. She didn’t think she would ever see him again.

My dad told her that she had to hold on. He told her that he wanted to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary together. I know the chemotherapy drugs did their part, but I also know without a doubt that what pulled my mom back from the brink were my father’s words. My sister reported that the phone call was a turning point. When my mother hung up the phone, she had resolved to live. She began to force herself to eat and to force herself to get up out of bed and walk around. My dad’s love saved her.

Yesterday when I mentioned that it would be their 50th wedding anniversary on Sunday, both my mother and father seemed to have forgotten all about it. My mother said, “Oh, really? No, I think it’s already passed.” I had to pull out a calendar to show her that Sunday really would be their 50th wedding anniversary. My siblings and I have long been planning a huge party that will take place this summer, but today I want to mark their golden anniversary with these words. I have never once seen my parents kiss or hug each other. I have never once heard them exchange the words “I love you.” But they have always shown me what a true partnership looks like and what true love is. My parents don’t read this blog and they’ll probably never see these words, but just as they have never had to actually say “I love you,” I think they know the words in my heart.IMG_1952

 

Countdown to V-Day, Pt. 4

I’ve learned a lot about love from my crazy parents…

parentsGiving Thanks for Crazy, Pt. III

(first posted on November 27, 2014)

I was in my first year at college and things weren’t going so well. I felt like an alien in a land where everyone already seemed to know each other from their days at Groton, Exeter or Andover. This blandly good-looking tribe wore the same uniform with only subtle variations.They would languidly call out to each other by their last names as they regrouped every Wednesday and every weekend to drink themselves blind at the frats.

I was a long way from home: a ten hour drive from Arlington to Hanover, New Hampshire, to be exact. We couldn’t afford a ticket to get me back home for the short Thanksgiving break, especially with the longer Winter break just around the corner. The campus was completely deserted. I was all alone in my big empty dorm, and all alone for my first Thanksgiving away from home.

I thought about that first Thanksgiving as I drove up to Arlington to be with my parents this Tuesday evening. The memory of it made me shake my head as I inched my way up 29 North, which was clogged with all the other weary travelers trying to outrun the 5-8 inch snowfall that was predicted for the next morning. On that Thanksgiving evening many years ago, my parents showed up at my dorm room after hours and hours of driving with my younger brother in tow. If you’ve ever driven along the Northeast corridor around Thanksgiving, you’ll know that a ten hour drive can easily become a twenty hour drive. I was appalled and aghast that they had done this for me, and also – so, so glad. We ordered pizza for our Thanksgiving dinner and ate it off paper plates in my room. It was a feast fit for a king and queen.

As you might expect, no amount of coaxing or pleading could convince them to stay the night. We ate our dinner and they headed off into the snowy night to drive all the way back to Arlington. I know my parents are crazy like I know the earth is round, but I also know that I have been incredibly lucky in my life to have experienced their love. I’m thankful for it every single day. May each and every one of us know that crazy, unreasonable, outrageous love, and may we put it right back out there into the universe.

Countdown to V-Day, Pt. 3

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Sometimes love is complicated…

A poem and a song:

Batman’s wife, who once had a youthful dalliance with The Man in the Yellow Hat, is having an affair with Robin…

Call Me Jezebel

Hurl your stones and call me Jezebel.
You have no idea what a living hell
It is to be married to the Prince of Darkness.

Would it kill him to leave one lousy light on, I think
As I grope my way to the kitchen for a drink,
Praying I don’t wake that damn butler, (“His Highness”)

I could swear today I saw the old toady look at me and sneer,
As he purred – sotto voce – in his beloved master’s ear.
Then off He swooped – all dark glamour and leather menace,

Gunning the engine of that sleek monstrosity –
A monument to selfishness and impracticality,
Bordering on sheer malice.

How are we supposed to fit a car seat in that thing?
I asked him once, but that was in the beginning…
Before I gave up buying lamps and looking for windows to open.

So maybe I was a fool for trading in the sun for the moon:
The boy next door, who came to call on me one afternoon
Yellow hat in hand, tall and slim and soft-spoken.

Dazzling in his golden wholesomeness, he asked me to wait for him.
But when he ambled back, with a pet monkey peeking from under his hat brim,
My chiropteran Lucifer had long since swept me up under his black wing.

They tell me he still lives alone in that fairy tale house of his,
But can you blame me? Who wouldn’t be suspicious
Of a grown man who shares his bed with a monkey? In traitorous spring,

I’ll admit, I called him, one bitter, lonely night
But when he answered, half-choking with delight-
I hung up: on him, on a life half-lived, half-loved, then lightly betrayed.

He was the bright peddler of my fondest, callow dream,
Too soon outgrown and cast downstream.
But sometimes I used to wonder, should I have stayed?

Until the night I saw a boy with a bird’s soul and name.
(A harbinger of my Spring?) He was awash in moonlight and aflame
With reverence for the Devil himself: my husband.

Dynamic duo? Hardly! He suffers the boy to trail starry-eyed in his wake,
Chirping sophomoric punchlines that would make your teeth ache
Like a mere sidekick: Sancho Panza or Doctor Watson.

But it’s this bejeweled bird who casts the unjaded, vital glow
That fleshes out and deepens his black shadow
And in so doing, animates the demon’s chiaroscuro!

It’s true I chose him for a ripe and gratifying vengeance
But in his guileless, openhearted innocence
I found light and sweet consolation…Oh, I know

It torments him. He weeps and talks of betrayal
I cover his mouth with my own – to no avail.
The words I whisper fall glib and hollow.

I tell him we are necessary to one another,
Each to each: an unholy trinity. (Father, Brother, Sister? Mother?)
This tripartite union is our shared lot. It is our fortune.

Not for me the storybook house with shutters and flower filled window boxes.
I’ll live out my life here, in a mansion built over a cave, breathing air foul and noxious,
Befitting an unworthy chorus member in a gothic cartoon.

I’ve relinquished the sun,
Sold my soul to the moon.
But I’ll never give up my starlight.

Girl Crush:

 

 

Countdown to V-Day, Pt. 2

… love isn’t always a bed of roses.

First posted on Feb. 13, 2013

img_2785True Love 

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, the day we celebrate romantic love. Couples will exchange kisses. They’ll gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes over candle-lit dinners. Many will get engaged. Bouquets of roses and boxes of chocolates will be given.

Today I celebrate a higher order of love. This love is not expressed with cards or chocolate, but with bitter tears. This type of love is messy, sad, and complicated. It’s what remains when falling in love happened long ago, and maybe it’s even what remains after we’ve fallen out of love. It sears us with pain. We should all be so lucky to experience it.

My dear friend’s husband died yesterday. When she first met him, there was a lightness in her step, a twinkle in her eye, and a quiet joy that I’d never seen in her before. On their wedding day the look of adoration in her husband’s eyes brought tears to my own. He looked as if he couldn’t believe his luck to be standing next to this amazing woman. The words he spoke during their vows reassured me that he knew her worth. He understood who she was and truly, deeply appreciated the person who was joining her life to his.

That was then, and it was beautiful. In these past few months, my friend’s husband became so ill that he slept most of the time. My friend’s days revolved around his pain management. They made plans not for the future, but for the end. They met with hospice workers. They discussed funeral arrangements. The twinkle in my friend’s eye was long gone, and had been replaced by sad resignation. Pill bottles, delirium, mental and physical exhaustion are not beautiful, and yet this formed the backdrop of a scene of pure and exquisite love that surpassed any romantic love they shared in the salad days of their relationship. So today, the day before Valentine’s Day, I celebrate this love and the fact that my friend’s husband was blessed to experience it as he left this world, and that my friend had the strength, courage, and love to give him this gift above all gifts.

Countdown to V-Day, Pt. 1

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’m republishing some of my past posts about love…My first repost is my rendition of My Funny Valentine(s), featuring Tallis and Chloe, my cute, but rotten dogs. They’re still not 100% housebroken, they tend to yap, and they’re exceedingly lazy. But we love them anyway:

 

Oh, for the love of…

When we were little, my siblings and I would ask our mother, “Who’s your favorite? Which one of us do you love the best?”

We’d always get the same exasperating answer. She would hold up her hand and say, “See my fingers? Which finger do I love best?” With her other hand, she would point to one finger and then the other and say, “Do I love this one the best? Or this one? How could I answer that? Of course, I love them all the same!”

(Secretly, I’d think, “Oh come on! Surely, you love the thumb or maybe the pointer the best…?“).

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Everybody has a favorite finger.

Only once, when we were all grown did she admit to me that she does, in fact, have a favorite child.

(Yes, siblings, it’s true)!

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My mother and her dearly beloved firstborn daughter.

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Daughter #2 – Best at Everything, Couldn’t be More Perfect if She Tried, and did I mention she had triplet BOYS?!

 

 

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Me and my long-awaited baby brother…so longed-for, so cherished that he was named Theodore, i.e. “Gift from God.” (It took four tries, but they finally hit the jackpot)!

 

 

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My mother revealed to me that she loves best…whichever one of us needs her the most at the time.

I thought of that when I was driving my son to his gym this weekend. I was ranting and raving about the state of our nation’s affairs as I have been since November. My son interrupted my diatribe to ask: “Do you want to move to another country?”

It’s not a crazy question. My husband is from the U.K. and has often fantasized about returning to Scotland, where he spent his childhood. Every time he visits Scotland, I get a spate of real estate listings in my email inbox. As for me, I am the child of immigrant parents, who freely changed their country of residence from Korea to America as often as some people change the oil in their cars.

“HELL NO!” I said with a vehemence that shocked even myself. I struck my own chest in a melodramatic gesture I’ve only seen performed by my own mother and maybe a few Korean drama heroines: “This is MY country!”

What the hell has come over me? I thought as soon as the words flew out of my mouth.

To be honest, I’ve always been somewhat suspicious of the very concept of patriotism…I’ve thought that being patriotic was corny at best and slightly sinister at worst. But now I understand what my mother meant…I love our country more than ever before, because it desperately needs us right now. The American values upon which our country was founded are being hurled to the winds. Your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free are having the door slammed on their weary faces. Citizens of countries where the president does not happen to have business dealings are being denied entry. Even permanent residents have been turned away. As one of the speakers at a rally I attended this weekend said: This is a civic emergency.

I’ve always considered myself to be an apolitical, introverted couch potato, but I spent the weekend at rallies and marches, joining in the shouts of “THIS is what America looks like!” and “THIS is what democracy looks like!” and “No hate! No fear! Refugees are welcome here!” As I squeezed in alongside other protesters and activists, I felt my heart swell with love for this country and for the people who are doing whatever they can to make this place a more perfect union.img_2812-2 img_2819img_2822img_2830img_2836

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“Love thy neighbor”

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I guess that makes me a radicalized patriot.

God bless America.

What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk – to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
– Barack Obama “A More Perfect Union”

Related Post: Their Country

Signs

 

I left C’ville around 6 am with a couple of friends to head to the Women’s March. In Arlington we joined up with a couple more friends and headed to the Metro. Kudos to the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority for opening early, adding trains, and filtering the crowds for safety. It took some time just to get to the platforms, but despite the huge throng of people, the atmosphere was joyful. Every time another group would be let through the turnstiles, a cheer would go up. When the next group of people would be let up the escalators, there would be another cheer. After we let two overcrowded trains go by, we finally ended up taking a train one stop AWAY from DC to actually squeeze onto a train headed TOWARD DC. It soon became so crowded that it became hard to breathe. A man standing next to us collapsed and people immediately started calling for a doctor. You might imagine that in a train packed so full, it would be difficult for anyone to make their way through the crowd. Magically, the crowds parted to let through a panoply of women – an EMT and nurses were first on the scene. A bottle of water was passed hand over hand above people’s heads to be given to the gentleman who had fainted. He was given a seat and was soon pronounced alert and responsive. This was the atmosphere I experienced throughout the day. People were supportive, considerate, and positive. Everyone looked out for each other. At the rally and march, I was humbled to see at least two elderly women in wheelchairs. I can’t even imagine what they had to go through to get there.

Here are some of the things we witnessed:

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This was the sign I carried:

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There were many chants throughout the day, but my favorites were these two simple ones: “THIS is what America looks like!” and “THIS is what democracy looks like!” I’m so glad to have been a part of this. At the beginning of our trip, we had to go one stop backwards in order to move forward to our destination. Maybe this is a metaphor for what this country is going through now. I certainly hope so. Let’s keep this train moving forward.

 

I need therapy

There are many ways to deal with life when the going gets rough…

The hardiest among us can simply:

img_8048Being of the non-hardy variety myself, I find that eating a cookie can help:

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Eat your heart out!

Sometimes animals are the best therapy of all. At the university where I work, various groups will often hire a petting zoo to roll onto campus to alleviate stress during exam periods. The students abandon their books and fly out of the libraries and dorms as soon as they catch wind of the fact that the animals have arrived…Wouldn’t you?

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“It followed her to school one day…”

Even my grumpy colleague can’t help but crack a smile when the petting zoo arrives:

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Of course we have our own cute and cuddly therapy animals at home:

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What’s that you say?! You mean you don’t find Darwin the mudskipper cute and cuddly?

 

 

Are you SURE?!

My friend Tina is a child psychologist. Her trademark tools of the trade are her therapy guinea pigs. They earn their keep by going to work with her every day. For years she’s been telling me that guinea pigs make great pets. If you’ve been following this blog, you may recall that my daughter was pining for a more exotic variety of pet. First she wanted goats, which I considered getting for her for a hot minute before coming to my senses. Then she decided she wanted to have ducklings. I was about to get her the ducklings, when I discovered hawks and foxes in our backyard. Remembering my friend’s advice, I finally convinced my daughter that guinea pigs would make far better pets. I made absolutely no move to actually get them for her however.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day we all had a day off from school and work, and I had scheduled dentist appointments for the kids. As we left the dentist’s office my son asked me if we could make a quick run to the pet store so he could pick up some marine salt for Darwin, the mudskipper…(Don’t all these stories start so innocently)?

My daughter was in a foul mood, having just had a recalcitrant baby tooth yanked out of her head and sealants placed on her molars ahead of the braces both she and her brother are scheduled to get next month. At the pet store, she grabbed me by the hand and dragged me to the back corner of the pet store. And there they were…two unfathomably adorable baby guinea pigs. Obviously, they came home with us.

My crabby girl perked right up. img_2640img_2635img_2655

We played with them all day long. They were so cute, my daughter and I could only tear our eyes away from them to look at each other with these expressions on our faces:

Not everyone in our household finds them to be so irresistible:

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“Aaaaagh! Take it! Take it! Take it!”

Now when I get home from work, my daughter takes me by the hand and says, “Come. Let’s have some guinea pig therapy.”

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And it works like a charm.

Now I totally get why Tina took those guinea pigs to work every day…because as everybody knows: therapists need therapy too!