Letters With The Departed
Funeral is not for the dead, it is not about dying, it is for the living and about living. The dead is gone, the living gathers to garner consolation, courage and empowerment. It is a gathering to share and commune the harvest of meaning. Life is an assiduous, continuous mining of meaning and refinement to derive and manufacture values. Humans create their worth through their own making. We are all creatures of meaning. The funeral is a thanksgiving for the departed, and a remembrance and cherishment of what we are all living for in the first place.
The only reason why I hope is because I cherish this story, and I do not want this story to end. — 2018.01–21
1. I Am Not Here
2. They Do Not Want Us To Suffer, They Want Us To Be Happy
3. My Mother’s Last Lesson For Me
4. Defiance Against Suffering
5. The Hope Of Rising Again In A Better Version Of Our Story
I Am Not Here
I had been contemplating time to time again on the loved ones I had lost, I kept wondering where they would go into the afterlife or if we would ever meet again.
In a winter of Germany, I got into a brawl with some thugs who had been extorting kids in the neighborhood. I incurred some wounds during the brawl. When the wounds were healing, a piece of dry skin peeled off from part of a cut and it crumbled. A thought came to mind, and I cut a lock of hair and looked at it. The hair was part of me, but cutting it gave me no pain. Similar to the peeled wound, not because it is separated from my body, but because the nerves were no longer in activation.
This body that comes with a face, we call ‘us’, of which we labeled ourselves with canorous names — Is it really ‘us’ or merely a representation and an interface to communicate with this physical world? According to the first law of thermodynamics, “Energy can neither be created not destroyed — The energy balance is zero”, then where does our energy of conscious be transferred or translated to?
The physical separation of which we called death between living and the deceased is dreadfully sorrowful. Such events had affected me profoundly in many stages of my life. I do not have an answer to them, neither can I make much meaning from the biblical lessons that were taught to me. They told me that in faith of God and science, there will be a reunion — that we shall meet again. We were told that death is only an illusion, and that it is merely a transition. It’s hard to view this as taught, and even to this day I am traumatized by the departure. I really don’t know. However, I know what remains of the departed as called, are not them. They are not there. They are part of the past. They were there.
I can only hope that faith will bring both the living and the dead beyond those bleak graves.
— On Cher’s belated godfather, 2003-05.13
Who does not want to believe there is a god, everything will be solved, everything will be so simple. All our worst fears and incurable tragedies and sorrow will be addressed. Who doesn’t want to believe that, but it does not help if we just sit around and wait for a savior, while we clearly know no ship is coming to our rescue — or as what commonly known — salvation. God? We have to do it ourselves. — 2018-01.21
They Do Not Want Us To Suffer, They Want Us To Be Happy
D.,
I would very much like to cure your sorrow, not just to comfort it, but I know I can’t. I won’t tell you things I do not know, you know me well enough. I would like to tell you God is there, but I am not sure. I would like to tell you Jesus Christ is watching, but I have no evidence. I like to tell you Floyd is smiling from above, but I know it sounds like a fairy tale — which I would want to believe as well — very much desperately. However, what I can assure you is — Floyd wants you to know he wants you to have 4 things. He wants you — D., his daughter, to be strong. He wants you to be happy. He wants you to be at peace. And he wants you to have hope.
I know this because there is one thing Floyd and I share — We are fathers. And I know he wants me to tell you this. This, I am sure. So, can you do this for him?
—To D., Re: Floyd’s demise, 2014-06.22
My Mother’s Last Lesson For Me
Teresa (my mother) is perhaps the reason why I am against racism, exclusion, parochialism and isolationism. She showed me that no one should be segregated, and everyone should be included — equally. She lived as what we can truly term as `catholic`, meaning — all embracing. Everyone is important to us. Think of them as how you would think of your own — daily. No borders — starting from your mind.
In her final days, she made me realize a lesson I was looking for the past decades. Upon knowing she was dying, she showed no signs of fear of death. Death is not fearful, the process of experiencing the struggles when you are dying perhaps, but, sadly, no one was there with her during her last minutes. You can still face death with moral courage and clarity. She taught me by living it and dying with it. The nearing days should not confuse us from the real challenge and fear of — hopelessness, abandonment, regret, sorrow, loneliness, emptiness, depression, suffering and unbearable loss, not death, but to fear living without courage, without joy, without meaning and without hope. Her hope was just the next day, and then the next. She refused to suffer that fear. She lived to see the next morning, and she died in the daylights, not darkness.
— 2021-08.22
Keep reminded that — they do all they can because they do not want us to suffer. My mother went one step further, she does not want anyone to suffer.
People should be admired and inspired, not for and by what they have or have not, but how they love and are being loved. — 2021–08.23
Defiance Against Suffering
For some time I had been wondering about my mother’s stoicism — that stubborn refusal to suffer, that defiance to be subjected to suffering in tribulation. Her “refusal and defiance to suffer” was not denial, it was defiance.
I realized this about my mother these 2 days after she died. She told my wife years ago something, and I began to piece it together. She always stood on my wife’s side whenever we had rough quarrels. She told her — “S., there is nothing to cry about. Don’t cry. Look at my life, I am so messed up, but I refused to be sad. I defy it !”
I think she got that from my first grandaunt. My mother said my first grandaunt saved her, as her own mother did not care if she were to work herself to death for money. First grandaunt was the closest kin as a real mother to my mother. My mother got her living philosophy from her.
I do, indeed, always feel that first grandaunt (大老姨) was my real grandmother. My mother kept saying she insisted to be the person to carry me home from the hospital after I was born. First grandaunt gave me a nicknamed of “Little Prime Minister” because I had a high forehead like the current minister then when I was born. When first grandaunt departed, I struggled when I heard the news. I was in Korea at that time.
My first grandaunt worked as a matron in a mental asylum. Once, some patients at the mental asylum broke her head when they went on a rave, she refused to be angry. Often, she would even stop other mentally and physically burnt-out caregivers from hitting back the patients. My mother said, first grandaunt always shared about the troubles of her colleagues and her concern and compassion towards the patients.
First grandaunt was an outlier of her time. She divorced her husband against the norm of her time in protest and refusal to abide by his ways on her. Her husband was not a bad person. He was not a philanderer, nor a gambler or alcoholic. It was likely that he was just not in favor of her taking the onus of taking care of her family, and he was not participating in her moral cause. One of her sisters, little grandaunt, was blind. First grandaunt insisted to carry the responsibility to take care of her blind sister for life instead of abandoning her at a nursing home. Likely, she took too much that her ex-husband could not handle. In the end, she managed the entire family on her own. She even gave my mother a refuge, pulling her out of a job as a helper when she found out about the abuse from her employer.
My first grandaunt was passionately and compassionately proactive, she also came to our place when father and my mother argued violently. My mother left the house in the middle of a fight, and my first grandaunt managed to tame my father. That was a daunting uptake, because my father was a war refugee with PTSD.
I never realized my mother was emulating her until she shared with me on what happened with parts of her past. So effectively, first grandaunt was the teacher to my mother that helped her to salvage the family of brokenness.
It came clear to us on the values she demonstrated though living them. She showed that meaningful kindness must be proactive. Proactive Empathy should lead to Altruism, but that takes one more thing — courage. One needs courage to be compassionate, but even more daring to be proactively compassionate to steer oneself into action instead of lip-servicing. Altruism is proactive compassion.
She taught us hope, courage, and proactive altruism through our mother, and that these are the vital elements to take charge of one’s own fate. She taught my mother that life can be unfair to us, but we cannot be unfair to ourselves. We should defy suffering. We can defy suffering.
— 2021-08.24, Re: 违命抗天 (wéi mìng kàng tiān)
A part of us dies with those who had passed on as they depart, as they are part of our story.
The Hope Of Rising Again In A Better Version Of Our Story
It is ok to fail school (examinations), it is worse to fail in life. — Father to Mikail, 1984
My father once said in his dialect — “Prosper yourself, deprive others, you are a lowly person. One should prosper others, if you have that fortitude — deprive yourself for them. A valuable person produces values”.
Joseph (my father) may be a monster, yet because he was never given a fair chance. He knew it clearly, though he lived a life of turmoil — A real valuable person do not hoard values, they produce and provide it.
We haven’t really figured out what life is about. The reason to the meaning of life is — to mine for it. That was why my unreasonable challenge to Joseph was unfair. In one of our heated arguments, I asked him for the answer — “Why do you bring me to this messed up world?”
My father’s first brother had masters in accountancy. Not many people had masters in 1950’s.
My father was the second son of the family. He was a child soldier and war refugee. He had post-war PTSD, he was violent and abusive.
My father’s third brother is medical professor. He retook certification when he moved to another country and is a specialist in 2 medical fields. His wife is a doctor too, but she gave up on re-certification as it was too hard for her. He was known to have photographic memory. Later, he told us that my father’s mnemonic abilities was even above his.
My father’s fourth brother is professor in history, politics and sociology.
His fifth brother was a PhD in engineering, and an inventor of teletext. He had foreseen the internet in the days when computers were not common in those days, he gave people remote access on TV to “surf”.
His sixth brother was a pioneer of a defense department. He halted his PhD for the assignment, and got silver medal from the president as a recognition.
See a problem there? We used to say that he was born at the wrong time. Later known that he hid his third brother and stood for the war drafting because he was afraid his brother will not survive the battlefields, not to say to fight as a child soldier.
My father led a troubled past all his life. To him, war was never over. He knew all too well, the next moment is never guarantee. Life can take a very bad turn. One moment he was the son of a wealthy family, the next moment he was pushed to the front of the killing fields.
He had a fresh start in life when he fled the war. He hid his past and started a family. Further hardships and heart breaks never failed to catch up. He lost his first wife and dragged 2 daughters along as a single parent, until he met my mother.
As my father thought my mother had drank alcohol which could had damaged my brain, he decided that a younger brother had to be born to take care of me. I was clearly not a very bright baby. He was aware and sensitive to health matters like that. So he decided to bring a smarter version to take care of this moron. We can’t see where the rest of the story is going, but for sure, our parents gave all their life for progress, most likely not material, because we have seen enough that it does not help much at the end.
That day finally came. The monster left — that was the first thing on my mind when his heart stopped, yet I felt sorrowful how he became like that. The only thing he left for me is the scar on my head and 2 pieces of happy memories that I can find — looking for sweets in his pocket when he came home from work, and he once took me for a long walk. That was when I was 3. I kept looking for the sweets naively, and though was not able to find it, I repeatedly do so daily. He placed one there one day. I was contented and finally relented.
When my father’s heart stopped, it was the loudest deafening silence, that to this day I can’t get it out of my head.
I reflected for days after Joseph left. We, humans, are trapped in this little mind and tiny, short parochial lives of ours. In certain “Buddha moment” or some called the “moment of Zen”, we do realize that our tragedies are never unique, never ultimate, nor anywhere near exclusive to be considered even significant if at all we understand the human story.
Even to the very day that they have to die, most people don’t even know what they are living for ….. — Joseph (Mi’kail’s father), 1983
Beauty is perhaps the first dawn we draw hope from, from the depths of our most tragic bitterness. — Re: Whatever memory that is left from my father’s ashes, 2018–02.27
My tragedy is not unique, it is not the worst. I have met people with untold horrendous tragedies compared to mine. I cannot be selfish. Above all, I can weep all I want - but it will change nothing - I cannot turn the tide nor bring back anyone. The dead and broken will not mended. If it helps, I can weep and roar to my death, but it will not make anything better. Or we can put that tragedy to work - to honor the departed, knowing they do not want us to suffer, and understanding their wish for us to continue searching and building hope. I can only live forward and work for a solution somehow - somewhere out there and afore us. Hope, like respect, has to be worked on and earned for, we cannot pray nor beg for it.
- 2021Post the analysis, and towards the synthesis to address the tragedy, when the world problems are beyond human, how many dare to go beyond human, and be beyond human? When our problems are beyond ourselves, how many are even willing to go beyond ourselves?
Our very first step is to look out of our own window beyond this narrow confines, and hear the cries outside this house, and beyond this village. Step out and walk out. If we find ourselves a bit heavy, perhaps, it is time to focus on how to put our ego down. The gravity of our hearts perhaps hints those who are the most willing and assiduous that the limiting factor is still there. And perhaps by taking that first step away from ourselves, we can see clearer how the rest are indeed suffering the same. The next question is — how far would we go from here? How beyond human, and beyond ourselves are we willing to be, to find that cure, not just the common consoling comfort? How many will become doctors?
People are not born strong, they are brought up strong. — 2018-11.07
People can become better versions of themselves — this is what I love, but they won’t — this is what I hate, and only if they knew — this is what I weep for. — Re: Joseph (Mikail’s father) left, 2018-02.13
Human mortality is a tragedy, more on which human has already accepted their fate, instead of re-writing it. — 2018-10.17
Indeed, Joseph was a victim of his story. Joseph did what he can for us, of whatever little he could make sense of — of life itself. As humans, we are all very poorly prepared. He was a victim. I really wanted to tell him, it wasn’t easy being his son.
This pain is very real to us, because it is our story. It becomes us — the way that Joseph cannot walk out of his story.
How many psychologists need to change a light bulb?
Answer: 1. The light bulb must be willing to change.
- Migail to Mikail, 2018-11.10
This is not the way our parents want us to live. They want us to be well. They started us as “a project” likely under the chaos of time. It may had been an accident that we were brought here, but it is not a mistake.
Do not wait for someone’s heart to stop, only to let that deafening silence tell you it is really all too late. — 2018–02.13
I want Joe to be happy, and want him to wake up in another universe from this mortal nightmare, and continue a different version of his story. If there is a god, … If there is no god, we have to have the will to create this god, because it is the very salvation and hope we believe in and live for in the first place. — 2018-02.13
Departures should come with a promise of reunion. Despair should come with a promise of hope. They should be sparked with a plan, and worked forward. — 2018-02.13
Death suspends memory in time for those who had left, but the quantum states (mind and physical bodies) cannot be denied by the course of time of its existence. The question is will these quantum states be reconfigured once again in the future or if time reverses to revisit those memories? — Re: Reunion of minds, 2017–12.31