Hello dear readers,
As we walk up the steps to the doorway of August, I am embracing the message from this dear hoppity friend, the rabbit.
For a few weeks now, this little cotton tail friend has been just that for me. A messenger to be still, no need to be in haste, and trust and have faith, despite whatever external commotion is taking place. Even when two “beastly” creatures are running rapidly past this little friend, each “beast” with a nose that, if they chose to make full use of, could stop them in their tracks and lead them back to where this little one remains still.
After observing my new friend not hop away in haste, I became certain there was communication taking place between the girls and my rabbit friend lovingly conspiring to bring me the message I was in most need of remembering. No need for haste. Trust and have faith.
I think of the phrase peace in the chaos. Whether that chaos feels like it is coming at us externally or from within in how we are responding to what life is bringing, there is this place we all have innately in us to be still and trust all is and will be well.
And, if we decide it best we move on from the place we are standing in at the moment, we can always hop away. (smile)
I will close with a quote from Julian of Norwich. All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Namaste’
-Christine
The Creases Now Speak
Edward
It was three weeks after Edward met Abby and Kaylen when he decided he felt well enough to join the other residents for lunch. Edward had been eating in his room if he ate at all. His appetite was decreasing in proportion to his sleep increasing.
Edward had walked from his room to the dining hall, his oxygen canister in tow, for now Edward used oxygen to assist him with more comfortable breathing. After all the stimulation from people chatting and the clanking silverware against the plates, Edward felt a wave of exhaustion and decided it was best to have assistance back to his room.
As Maggie, the CNA, was wheeling Edward through the sitting room just outside the dining hall, Edward heard a kindly voice say “Hello Mỹ. How are you today?”
Edward immediately asked Maggie to stop and when he turned, he saw a casually dressed strikingly beautiful Vietnamese woman kneeling before an elderly Vietnamese woman in a wheelchair.
When Edward asked Maggie if she knew who the two women were, Maggie explained Mỹ was a resident, and the woman kneeling was her daughter Bian. Mỹ had dementia, and some days she knew Bian. Other days she did not. Bian sensed when her mom didn’t recognize her; on those days she called her mom by name.
Edward asked Maggie to wheel him closer and when he felt he wasn’t intruding, he spoke. “Excuse me ma’am. Hello, my name is Edward.”
Bian looked up, smiled, and then stood as she extended her hand. “Hello Edward. I’m Bian. This is my mother Mỹ. Mỹ, can you say hello to Edward?”
When Mỹ, looked up, Edward recognized those deep brown eyes that reminded him of skipping stones in the creek behind his house where he grew up. Edward wasn’t sure any of them could hear him when he said “Mỹ! I can’t believe…after all these years!” He wasn’t even sure he had said the words out loud. Disbelief was the overarching sensation he felt in his weary body.
With an expressionless face, Mỹ looked into Edward’s eyes before a smile erupted, and she slowly said drawing out the letters in his name. “Eeedddwwwaarrrddd.”
Bian spoke. “Mom, you know this man?”
Mỹ nodded her head but said nothing else.
Edward started to explain. “I met your mom and your grandma when I was a journalist in Vietnam.”
“You ARE the gentleman in the picture! The one who Grandma Linh wanted to bring mom to the United States, to live with Uncle Haim.”
Edward nodded. “Yes, that is me.”
“Mom told me she wrote you a letter that went against Grandma Linh’s wishes.”
“I still have the letter your mom wrote.”
“You do?”
“My grandson only recently translated it for me. I carried it in my wallet for fifty-two years not knowing what it said. It was my reminder.”
“Reminder of what?”
“My guilt and shame I didn’t bring your mom to the U.S.”
“Mom wasn’t going to go with you, even if you had asked her to go. That was mom’s disobedience to Grandma Linh’s wishes. Grandma wanted her to leave Vietnam and told mom to write requesting you take her with you. Mom told me she couldn’t write it that way. She knew she needed to stay with Grandma.”
Edward was quiet for a few moments, trying to process Bian’s words. Mom wasn’t going to go with you.
“You are Mỹ’s daughter. Did she have other children? Is she a grandma?”
“I have two brothers. Both still live in Vietnam. Both are married, with five children between them. My husband and I have two children.”
“When did you and your mom come to the U.S.?”
“I came when I was eighteen. Mom only a few months ago. When her dementia started getting worse.”
“Has your mom had a good life?”
Bian paused, thinking about her mom’s rape just after Edward left Vietnam. About the choice her mom made from the center of her heart to stay with Grandma Linh. Bian thought about her father, not her biological one but the man who adopted her as his own from the moment she was born and loved her as his daughter until the day he died. How he provided for his family and worked hard so that Bian could go the United States, meet Andrew, get her dream home on the shores of Lake Michigan. How all that her mom taught her about choosing well enabled her to be a receptive student to how beautiful life is, even when or especially because of things like cancer that interrupt and sometimes take a child’s life.
Bian looked at Edward and nodded her head. “Mom chose well every day. She has had a good life.”
Edward nodded his head, “I’m glad.” He then looked at Mỹ who was looking off in the distance, physically present but her mind elsewhere. Perhaps in the same dream state Edward found himself in more these days. Edward hoped the characters appearing as her mind said goodbye to each one were bringing her peace, gratefulness, and most of all love.
Edward knew their brief encounter after fifty-two years was bringing him peace, and for that he was grateful.
Edward expressed his pleasure in meeting Bian, wished Mỹ to be well, and let Maggie know he was now ready to go to his room.
Later, as Edward lay in bed, his eyes closed, he could see the glistening water of the creek where he had skipped many a brown stone. His brother Donny was standing on shore. Donny looked at him and waved. Stephanie was wading in the shallows, shrieking with laughter at the cool water against her ankles. Patricia was sitting on a stump, extending her hand to Edward.
He walked to his wife. She smiled, “I’ve been waiting for that soon.”
Edward and Patricia began walking hand in hand.
Love. Pure, uninhibited in its beautiful flow, enduring about all else.