22nd Anniversary

It's hard to believe that Dad has been gone these many years.
I've only visited his grave twice.
It took me more than ten years to get over his passing.
I had a difficult relationship with my Dad from day one.
Right now I only want to remember the good things about him.

Dad was fifty two when I was born.
Others often mistook him as my grandfather.
I never met my grandparents. Dad was seventeen when he left China.
Those were wartimes and he never returned.
I regretted not knowing much about him.

In his quest for sons Mom gave birth to eleven children,
eight girls and three boys. He was faithful to Mom and was a good provider.
He was a builder but one day he fell from the roof.
He was about sixty then and never worked again.
In his spare time he taught my brothers martial arts.
Since no girls were allowed,
I observed them from secret places and learned a few moves.

All my life I tried too hard to be a boy.
In my twisted thinking Dad may like me if I passed off as a boy.
So I spent most of the time with my brothers and their friends.
We played the street games, trapped birds and caught crickets in the field.
I was one of the boys.
But in Dad's eyes I was a rebellious girl,
a tomboy at best.

There were very few good memories of Dad and me.
I remembered when I was around eight or nine year old,
Dad often asked me to go to the sundries shop.
All he wanted was a bottle of stout.
He then poured me a small cup as some sort of reward.
It was bitter at first but tasted good over time.
Those were the tender moments of me and my Dad.
It's kind of twisted I know.

from Janmadiney, translation: Amiya Chakravarty

On that birthday morning,
With deference
I lifted my eyes to the sunrise.
I saw the dawn
Consecrate
The white forehead of mountain ranges.
I beheld
The great distance
In creation's heart
On the throne of the lord of mountains.
From ages, majestic,
He has preserved the unknown
In the trackless forest;
The sky-cleaving, far-away,
Encircled
In sunrise and sunset.

On this birthday,
The great distance grows in my heart.
The starry path is nebular,
Mysterious;
And my own remoteness
Impenetrable.
The pilgrim moves, his path unseen,
The consequence unknown.
Today
I hear the traveller's footsteps
From my lonely seashore.

it's a girl

i wonder how mom felt when i was born?
Dad had already line up a family to take the newborn if it's a girl.
two of my older sisters were given away in the similar arrangement.
somehow the deal fell through and i was kept.
i was the youngest of eight girls.

(i love you mom, tho i've never said it out loud.)

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket —safe, dark, motionless, airless— it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

- C.S. Lewis

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy,
the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
- C.S. Lewis

making memories

We were walking the dog one late evening which was not the norm.
The familiar trail looked very different in the covering of the night
and appeared somewhat magical.

As we approached our favorite bend where the street lamp stood,
i exclaimed, "Look, this is like the picture where Lucy first enter Narnia!"
My sixteen year old said, "Mom, that was exactly what i was thinking!"

so we took some pictures for our own Narnia moment
with my sixteen year old being the photographer and me as Lucy.
Thank you Son for going along with a Mom that was not so normal,
and thank you too for the other two boys (and my dog)
for putting up with yet another of my memory making attempts.

退一步 海濶天空

There was this Chinese saying: take a step backward, the sea is wide and the sky is vast.

I felt that I was backed up to a corner, so I told God,
" I can't step backward because I am in a corner."
He said, "Step forward then, I will lead you to an open spacious place."*

God never cease to amaze me with His interventions in my life.
During my quiet time, I knew right away what He wanted me to do;
i took a hard look into my heart and confessed my resentment, bitterness, unforgiving, fear of rejection to Him.
I thank God for His perfect timing and His dealing with me.
He is merciful and loving towards who he had made.

*Psalm 18:19:He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

where are you?

When God asks, "Where are you?” it means He's coming after you.
Have you ever felt like that?
Lately, I felt like He had backed me into a corner, looked hard into my eyes....
At time it's really annoying,
because He is so "in your face ".
Why can't He leaves me alone?
But thank God too, for He will not leaves us to ourselves or where we want to be.
(At time I can stay at the corner just as well, refusing to move an inch.)
What it is that I’m holding onto stubbornly refusing to let go?
I do not know, or I do not want to know.
Sometime, it is very painful if you have to take a hard look at yourself.