life is elsewhere

Many years later, I would still remember in 5 days of my life, I had a family of five. For 5 days, I was a proud mom of 3 beautiful daughters, Fifi, Aiai and Momo. The brief moments we gathered in NICU nursery, we were five. Fifi dictated her father to lift her up and move from Aiai’s incubator to Momo’s, and back and forth, so she could get a good look at of her two baby sisters, to see how they look alike yet so different (in size). She’s so proud to become a big sister to two baby girls. The next weekend she came back to NICU, only one incubator stood alone; she’s got only one baby sister left. I wonder if she would still remember, when she grows up, one Sunday afternoon in January, in Evergreen hospital at Kirkland, we were a family of five and she’s a proud big sister of two baby girls.  When death came along, it took more than just a life, it changes so many things in so many perspectives, and shatters so many dreams, small and large-dreams for the mom and dad to walk with adorable twin girls in a a double stroller, dreams to have 3 daughters around when we grow old, dreams to take a greater responsibility in raising a big family. I wonder if Momo will ever recognize her identical twin sister in her inexplicable dreams where she sees the split image of herself. I’m certain there is some special connection between them and only she feels her lost sister, without being told. In such dreams, will she weep? Will she run to embrace her dear sister for her sad mom who wanted so much to see her lost daughter in dream?  

Friends sent flowers, lilies, lots of lilies, white, yellow, pink, for the passing of an young and innocent life. I organized the pictures taken from our two cameras. I found many ones with Matti on the third day of her life, when she’s on the last day in consciousness. It’s so obvious now, seen from the pictures,  that She’s in pain, her slightly frowned eyebrows, her swollen lips, all saying the pain she’s suffering. But she was so calm, with a maturity unequal to her 7-month age, like she knows her fate, like she sees what’s coming on her. After that night, she never opened her eyes. I remember that last happy visit. We called her names, she turned over trying very hard to open her eyes and look at us gently. We were so happy and busy on taking pictures and touching her hands and talking to her. Overjoyed by her responsiveness, we did not see the shadow of sadness on her face, not until now, after she’s long gone, and left her mom staring at her beautiful and sad pictures days and nights.

We took Fifi to University Village. We haven’t spent time with her recently since the twins were in trouble. It was a very nice day, warm and sunny. My heart hurt when thinking of my little Matti lying alone in a small box at the funeral home. She was brought there yesterday, Banton funeral home at Kirkland. We picked a small pinky urn of heart shape for her and signed all the papers that documented her death. The Funeral director was a nice and warm gentleman and reassured that she’s in a good hand. We could not get her home until later next week though. I felt a sudden chilly when I walked out of the funeral home, like I’ve been experiencing since Matti died. We were having lunch at blu-C sushi. Fifi was enjoying her meal of Udon and eel. When I look across our table, I was startled to see the profile of the funeral director, with the brown mole under his left eyes, that’s him. We said hello to him on our way out and he told us it’s his first time dining here. My heart beat so fast, I know it’s the message from Matti again. I think Bin realized it too and he hold my hand so tight. “Did you get to dream of her?” Bin asked me when we walked out. “No, I can’t. I can’t see her in my dream”. My tears came streaming down, “but I feel her everywhere”  

Do you know owls don’t have teeth so they swallow the whole mouse; their digestive juice in stomach will pick out the meat so later they just spit out bones and hairs? Do you know Male Darwin frogs hatch eggs in their stomach and shoot baby frogs belch out of their mouths when they are ready? Do you know tapeworm can grow up to 60 feet in your intestine? I didn’t know any of these until we saw “Animal Grossology” exhibit at Science Center today.  It’s our special event to celebrate father’s day–not a poetic one, but certainly a fun one! Fifi has the greatest father in the whole world-he turned down his advanced career opportunity at Boston and decided to stay on in Seattle so we could enjoy quality family life. We are so lucky to have him around and so happy we don’t need to move to cold Boston.

I can be very cynical about my recent job loss and my last employer, like my good friend Matt said “hey, it’s good for you. You should thank them for letting you go”, or as I would comment “among all things they did to me, the layoff was the nicest one”. Yes, that’s how bad I felt about working on my last job, which lasted for 10 months, and about every two weeks, there would be some stupid/nasty happenings that made me think “things could not be worse from now on”, but the company has the talent to unfailingly top the precedent. The fact that they ended the job for me, in one way, was the worst that could happen to an employee, but on the other way, was quite liberation for their employees. I had been stuck in a dreadful job in the worst economy ever, living in the fear of losing my job. And when the moments come, humiliation was all I felt.  Unfair, unfair, that’s so unfair, that’s all I was thinking at that time. 4/22, that was the day, Bin flew to the East Coast, I cried to him before his flight took off, and then put on a smiling face to attend the Fun Party at Fifi’s daycare… IT’s only been a month or so, but all felt like a blur, including the whole 10 months of ordeal, the dim office stuck in the Mezzanine level, countless deceptions and disappointments, sleepless nights in front of computer working against deadlines… Totally burnout, I felt like survivor- the irony is that it was the evil’s hand itself that pushed me out of the fire, and retuned me to life. Experiencing the pain of losing job like millions of Americans do today, the healing was actually brief and pain free- I got to do so many things that I missed out while totally being consumed, physically and emotionally,  by my last job. I got to live my life for a while, and I felt blessed and stronger. Now I am back to work as an independent consultant. While still doing work that I like, I don’t need to deal with stinky office politics like the last one for a while. Will see how this phase of my career plays out- there will be bumps on the road ahead, that’s for sure,  but I am a phoenix rising from the flame of death(=hellish job + layoff), I am fearless.       

she’s celebrating with Ethan, her favorite baby buddy in the whole world! she loves ice in her water more than her birthday cake.

I hate shooting in shopping malls, especially during holiday seasons, and hate it most when I happened to shop in that mall when it happened-so all stores were closed and I could not shop for the holiday. Even worse, while some people, like me, were pushed out of the mall with the big crowd, other people, like my husband and baby, taking a nap at the comfy couch at Macy’s and were locked in the store at the shooting. While it’s kind of poetic that we had to wave at each other through the glass door of the Macy’s entrance and talked on the cellphones saying silly things (like I miss you baby), catching cold by standing in the chilly wind (left the jacket at baby stroller) was not that romantic. At the end, when hundreds of people were released from the basement of Macy’s, every one of them carry a couple of big shopping bags. Every store loses for the mall closedown, except Macy’s, and maybe Northtrom, for locking customer for an hour long, so they had to shop to kill time, I guess. Turning on TV when we got home, we learnt that one teenager died and one wounded in the shooting; the shooter, another teenager was at large. They got into sort of fight at the food court and one started to fire a couple of rounds. That was a new, chic and fabulous food court at SouthCenter mall; we just dined there the exact afternoon, about 1 hour earlier. Too bad we missed the shooting, missed all those movie-like scenes, where people screamed and ran in panic. I told the story (in a kind of dramatic way) to a friend who moved here from Atlanta, and who just shrugged it off “it happens in Atlanta everyday”.

Look at the two bright young parents-no wonder their baby is a genius, who took this photo when she’s 19 months old. This was taken at Capilano park, Vancouver.  Our favorite picture so far, and Fifi’s first masterpiece ever. She’s been born a little world traveler and sees so many places with us since she’s little. She’s sincerely curious and happy on new things she sees and experiences. She enjoys food everywhere she went, and eats well on her own, so we could enjoy all the exotic food. She sleeps as soon as the car starts or plane takes off-I bet she can be a journalist or rock star when she grows up-since she adapt herself so well on all the long flights and road trips. And now she has developed this new photographing skills and her dad and mom can finally get into the same picture again.  

My very best friend from job left the company today, and I was too busy to give him a proper goodbye. So I want to dedicate this post to Matt-if you happen to read this post and you would know that I come back to blogging, as you’ve encouraged me to. Don’t know how long I can keep on going. But if you keep reading, I might be able to do it a little longer this time. Keep me posted of your new job and life too!

it’s like surrounded by the whole world.