Greetings on these last days of January,

May this find that the first month of our new year has been kind to you!

I anticipate for some of you, you didn’t have the privilege of dancing with polar bears.  (smile, grin). For others of you, who found themselves gliding across the dance floor of winter with significantly minus windchill temperatures like me, may this find that the cold offered you the gifts of coziness, warmth, and restoration.

Despite the challenge of having a German Shorthaired Pointer who found her love of being outdoors and the polar bear vortex incompatible, which translated to cabin fever and pent up “gotta goes” waiting to spontaneously combust (smile, laugh), among all the gifts of the extreme cold was Nature’s reminders sing, joyfully sing. 

As my boots crunched against the frozen snow, in that squeaky way a footstep sounds when it is too cold to see one’s breath and nostrils begin to feel like they are staying closed with each inhale, I was in awe of how I could hear the birds singing in the trees.   In gratitude for me refilling the feeder, sure. And there was more to their lyrics. They know that life includes moments of suffering, and they were choosing happiness in how they were responding.

As I hurried back to our entry door, I thought less about just how crisp the air felt in my nose and found myself bursting into a giggle thinking of polar bears dancing in the snow.

It’s pretty cool – no pun intended – how much our perspective can change when we choose to see a frigid polar vortex as playful dancing bears.  

Thanks to my singing friends with wings.  

Namaste’

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Mary

The delivery driver brought their usual – egg rolls, fried rice –including the pineapple version, Beef and Broccoli for Henry and Pad Thai for Mary. She feigned eating while she watched Henry consume his meal as if it was two weeks ago when they last ordered from Eathai. 

When it was BFC. Before F*&#’in’ Cancer.

Much like most things for Mary, for most of her life, she was about creating her own language, her own path, her own way. She wasn’t about referring to her diagnosis as The Big C or the C word, nor how she was now on a journey nor was she battling a serious health condition. 

Mary knew her share of battles. She knew how to confidently command a boardroom from the moment she entered until the second she victoriously exited. After deftly and usually mercifully defeating naysayers, opponents, and kings, as some sitting around the negotiation table believed they were.

Mary knew when she exited the room where her doctor had sat at one side of the table and she, along with Henry, on the other side, that she wasn’t in combat.  This wasn’t two executives from one corporation sitting across from the president of another convincing him why he should consider merging his kingdom with theirs.  There wasn’t room for negotiation.  She didn’t hold any chips.  No aces up her sleeve.

Mary wasn’t staring into the eyes of the opposition preparing for battle.  

Mary was certain her preparation needed to be to die.

Part of her wanted to shout at Henry for acting nonchalant, like her body was another nearly impossible deal she would ultimately seal in her favor. I’ve never been at the table with F*&#’in’ Cancer! she screamed internally as Henry took another bite of broccoli.  Part of Mary was comforted by Henry’s confidence in her. Thank you for saying I will make it 11%, she thought as she watched Henry add more rice to his beef broccoli mixture.

When Henry got up to rinse his plate, Mary yearned to ask him, hold me.

Mary remembered being eight years old. Patricia was five. Their dad was away on business and just after dinner, the doorbell rang. Their mom answered it to find a police officer standing at the doorway. Mary couldn’t hear what the officer was saying, but she could see her mom put her left hand to her mouth while her right arm wrapped itself across her stomach. 

The officer had removed his hat before speaking, so after what seemed like several minutes but was probably less than ninety seconds, the officer raised his downturned head, spoke something, and when her mom nodded, he slowly put his hat back on, turned, and quietly left.    Mary heard her mom say “thank you” as she watched her at the doorway for another eternity, and then she turned and called to Patricia and Mary.

“Girls, could you come here in the living room, please?” 

“There has been an accident. It is your Aunt Emma. And your cousins. Teddy and Susanna. And Uncle Theodore.”   Aunt Emma was their mom’s older sister. Teddy was two years year older than Mary. Susanna was six months younger than Patricia.

Mary could barely hear her mom’s voice by the time she spoke their uncle’s name. When Mary saw tears start to run down her mom’s cheeks, Mary felt conflicted between being mad and scared. She had never seen her mom cry before. But she had often witnessed what she would later describe as meekness, when she wasn’t vehemently exclaiming, she had grown up with a mom who cowered to kings. 

Patricia scooted closer, put her tiny hand on their mom’s leg, and offered her stuffed rabbit. “Mommy, do you want to hold Thumpy?” 

Taking Thumpy in her left hand, and scooping Patricia onto her lap with her right arm, their mom held Patricia tightly as she told them that Aunt Em, Teddy, Susanna, and Uncle Theodore had died.

Mary, frozen in place on the sofa cushion, watched her mom and her sister holding each other. Their mom was gently rocking Patrica, cooing softly “ssshhhhhhh, I know, sssssshhhhhhh, it’s going to be ok, honey.  Mommy’s here.”  

Now sitting in her and Herny’s high-rise, Mary sat on the sofa cushion, frozen in place, watching the waves roll across Lake Michigan. When her phone alerted her to a text message, she smiled. Of course it would be her sister. Patrica had that uncanny way of reaching out when Mary was especially thinking about her. Or needed her.

Patrica had known Mary was meeting with the doctor about her biopsy results. She was texting to hear how it went. She figured it was good news since Mary hadn’t messaged her. 

Patrica’s soft, loving voice sounded like their mom’s when she answered Mary’s call. Or maybe that is how Mary wanted her to sound.

Mary’s voice became less and less audible as she told Patricia the news. “Stage IV, lymph nodes, radical mastectomy, chemo.”   Mary’s voice barely audible by the time she said “10%.”

She heard Patricia softly coo “Oh, honey.”  Then “I love you.” 

When Mary began to cry, she heard Patricia say “ssssshhhhhhhhh. It’s going to be ok.  I’m here”.  

It would be a couple of weeks later when Patricia sat at the table across from the second king – Mary’s oncologist – demanding a second opinion while she also let him know his bedside manner sucked. Mary recalled another memory observing her mom sit across from a king, letting him know under no uncertain terms what he would and would not be doing.

Perhaps Mary had it wrong all these years, she thought her mom too subservient. Maybe what her mom had was grace under pressure until the most important battles warranted a fight.  And then her mom – and her sister – donned their armor, went headfirst into battle, and always came out the victor with what mattered most.

Hello dear readers.

May this find 2025 has started out peace-filled and generously kind to you, and for you!

And that life is visiting through daily experiences countless reasons to be thankful.

As these turkeys are offering on a particular wintery day.

As I talk with you from inside a warm home, I am thankful.

As I talk with you about to enjoy a delicious homemade soup, I am thankful.

As I glance over at three loves of my life, I am oh so very thankful.

As I think of how fortunate I am that you join me every other week, and that together we are in curious anticipation how The Creases Now Speak will continue to unfold, I am thankful.

Overflowing blessings wished to all of you as 2025 continues to unfold.

Namaste

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak – Mỹ

It was a couple of days after Mỹ wrote the letter for Edward when her mom Linh told her it was time for Mỹ to give it to him. For a brief moment Mỹ felt ashamed knowing she had not written the letter the way Linh had asked her to, but then Mỹ remembered her father’s words and she knew she had choosen well.    

She couldn’t ask Edward to take her with him to the United States, leaving her mom alone in a war-torn country.

Nor could Mỹ add any more pain to Edward’s family. Mỹ didn’t speak English, but she understood enough words and she could read faces.  She knew how eyes communicated grief. She had been looking into her mom’s – and into a mirror at her own – since her father was killed at the start of the war. Even before Edward showed her a picture of his brother who had also been killed in action, Mỹ knew Edward had experienced significant loss.

Mỹ also recognized the face of fear. She could feel it in Edward’s hesitancy around her. She could see how it wiped Edward’s smile away when he pointed to the picture of his father. She experienced it when Edward leaned towards her in what she thought would be his kiss only to have him quickly turn away as he muttered “I can’t.”    When she placed her right hand on top of his left hand, he looked at her, looked down at the picture of his father, looked back at Mỹ and with eyes full of both fear and sorrow, and through a choked-up voice said, “If only.”  She barely heard him as he looked down while she fought not to choose reaching for the tear rolling down his cheek, “you weren’t Vietnamese.”    

Mỹ pulled her hand away knowing what Edward was not telling her. His family would never approve of him helping her and her mom; his choice was pleasing his father. She would not be angry nor sad. She could not judge someone for choosing a parent over any other choice.

Mỹ’s mom had instructed her to ask Edward to take both of them with him to the states when he returned home and help them arrive safely to her Uncle Hien.  Linh said to mention she had a small savings, and though it wasn’t much, it would be his to help with the expenses.  

What her mom didn’t know is Mỹ had overheard her telling Aunt Cà she would find a way to let Edward know she wouldn’t be making the trip with Mỹ and Edward. For Mỹ, the only choice was to stay with her mom and not have shame or guilt also find residence in Edward’s eyes when he would be compelled to say “no” to the request. His soul was already carrying enough burden.

Though Mỹ knew her eyes would always try to conceal her own shame at having disobeyed her mom, especially each time she allowed herself to recall her mom’s face when Edward didn’t come to the coffee shop anymore after she gave him the letter, Mỹ knew she could not bare to carry a heart full of grief if she left Linh in Vietnam.  

Mỹ handed him the note four days after their near kiss. It was the first time she had seen him since then. He had struggled to look up at her when she brought him his coffee. When she brought him his bill, she also left her letter. She had gone into the kitchen to retrieve an order for another customer and when she returned, Edward was gone. In place of the letter was money for his coffee. That was the last trace of Edward Mỹ had.   That, and her memory of him. 

Even when Mỹ heard her mom crying herself to sleep for several nights after it was obvious Edward was no longer in-country. Even when her mom began moving through each day with despairing eyes, their nightly nine-minute ritual ceased because Linh no longer held a hopeful spirit. Even as Mỹ held her dying mother’s hand as Linh prepared to take her final breaths and leave this Earthly plane, saying to Mỹ Con xinh đẹp của Mẹ, đó luôn là con. My beautiful child, it has always been you.

“Every day since you were born, I have cried, not wanting the day to come when I would need to let you go.”

“I am sorry my beautiful child, please forgive me. For it is only now that I see when I lost half of my heart, I lived my greatest fear as my reality that I was destined to lose my whole heart. Fate wished to be kind to me instead, and I was not able to see.”  

My beautiful.   Until this last breath, you, I love.”

Even when Mỹ conceived a child who would make her a mother for the first time from the body of a man who did not have Mỹ ‘s permission to enter hers.

Through all of her grief, sorrow, and shame, Mỹ always knew she chose well staying in Vietnam.  

Here we are dear readers!   All of us standing at the door, about to close one door on 2024 and cross the threshold through the doorway leading into 2025.

How are you?!

Are you looking outward, ready for what will unfold in the vast unknown of the next 365 days? 

Are you looking inward, at the past 364 days, not sure you are ready to turn and set your wings in flight?

Let me say, which ever direction you are facing, it is okay.   

The most important thing as the hours move closer to 12:00:01 is that you are being kind to yourself with whatever you are feeling.  

May Grace also whisper to you dance, for in that dance between opposites, I anticipate all of us find ourselves throughout the days in any given year looking outward and looking inward.   Soaring our wings and other times gripping something to hold onto. 

It is the beautiful joy of being.   Of experiencing a sacred gift we’ve all been given.   The gift of life. 

Before I convey my wishes, let me first look to the past 364 days and say thank YOU!   For your readership and your encouragement.   If I had the ability to handwrite a thank you note to each of you I would.   (My students can affirm I am not just saying that! {smile})    May you read these words and feel the gratitude they hold for YOU. 

As you cross the threshold into 2025, my wishes are that you enter and that in the vast unknown ahead you will dance with Peace when Uncertainty enters onto the dance floor.  That Joy will stand up and take your hand when Sadness or Worry is holding you in an embrace.  That Gentleness will show you how to two-step with ease when Harsh is trying to introduce dance moves you don’t want to learn.  That Faith and Trust will fight for your attention when Doubt and Fear are striving to convince you they are better dancers.   That Forgiveness will show how to start your dance from your soul when Anger or Insecurity wish you to only dance from your mind and your past experiences.   And that with all the dance partners, you will know that it is all a choreography from Love.    

Namaste’

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Laura

Once Laura typed J, my favorite nephew, she stopped. Usually, too lengthy investigative articles were her challenge. Now, no words flowed.

Instead, memories flooded Laura’s mind faster than she could gather to perform her usual puzzle picture process. That was one of the things Abby was always declaring she loved about Laura; how Laura reflected on a question and then waited for recollections to provide the answer(s).  Laura wrote the recollections in a journal Abby made for her, then she retreated into their sitting room, where she pondered, utilized different colored pencils to sketch connectors between the memories, and journaled until the remembrances shaped into a clarifying picture.

Abby, filled with such childlike eagerness, had handed Laura a beautifully wrapped package on their first wedding anniversary twelve years ago. Abby had found a fabric design of puzzle pieces randomly scattered. She had then glued the fabric onto the outer front and back covers of a journal in decoupage style. Though Abby did so on their first anniversary because paper was the traditional gift, Laura has been able to count on a decoupage journal every year since.

Laura reached for her journal, grabbed a pen, and like the pending email response, no words flowed. She couldn’t transfer the memory from her mind to paper from when she was nine years old, standing quietly holding a glass of milk and a plate of homemade cookies she had brought to her father while he was working on one of his journalism pieces.  He had stopped typing, turned, and looked up at her silhouette, with one of the broadest grins she had ever seen him display only to witness that same smile quickly vanish as he turned back to his typing with a perfunctory hey Laura, what do you need?

Nor could she write about the time she was a sophomore in high school, anxiously awaiting to share with her father the feedback she had received from the journalism teacher about an article she had written. Outstanding work Laura! You have real potential! The Chicago Tribune will be lucky to have you on their staff one day!

After dinner, Laura handed her father a copy of what she had written, including the words in blue ink by her teacher. He took it to his desk, pulled out a red pen, and began marking up the paper with strikeouts and notations. A few minutes later, when he handed his edits back to Laura, he said pretty good Laura.   I don’t think I’d go so far as to say Chicago Tribune ready, but there is potential.

Laura didn’t have any recollections of her father saying I’m proud of you.

Laura continued staring at the blank pages as she recalled a memory of her mother sitting at their breakfast nook staring out the bay window. Her right index finger and thumb were turning her wedding ring around and around on her left finger. A few moments later, Laura watched as her mom placed her hands in her lap, looked down, slowly placed her right hand over her left hand, and then after what seemed like minutes, laced her fingers together, raised her interlocked hands to her chest, and bowed her head.  Laura tiptoed back out of the kitchen before her mom raised her head back up.

It was this same memory Laura thought of when Abby placed the wedding ring on her finger, then took Laura’s left hand with her own left hand, already wearing the ring Laura had placed on Abby’s petite velvet soft finger.  Abby intertwined her fingers with Laura’s and counted to eight as they stood in front of their intimate gathering of guests. Unity. Solidarity. Infinity.

That is what Abby’s fingers felt like threaded with Laura’s.

Laura pushed aside the memory of her father’s right-handed fingers laced together with her mom’s left hand as her mom lay dying. She also refused to remember the tears running down her father’s cheeks.

A recollection of Joshua sitting next to her father in the study suddenly entered Laura’s mind. She could vividly see her sixteen-year-old nephew holding a framed picture and her father’s hand touching Joshua’s left shoulder. Every one of them – Joshua, her father, mother, Laura – they were all trying to figure out how to say goodbye to Stephanie as Leukemia raged bolder and mightier than Stephanie’s immunity could defeat.

Joshua and her father didn’t hear Laura come to the doorway, and sensing she was about to interrupt something sacred, she quietly stepped from the doorway but felt compelled not to walk away.   She could hear Joshua say I don’t know how to say goodbye grandpa. 

Her father’s reply was usually we don’t get the chance to do so.  Life usually chooses for us.

If feels like life is choosing this time, too, Grandpa, Joshua’s cracking voice tried to speak. If mom didn’t have Leukemia, I wouldn’t have to tell her it’s ok to go. 

Laura almost peeked back into the study when it seemed quiet for too long. Then she heard her father say My brother, your great Uncle Donnie, was killed in action during the Vietnam War. His death was my first loss. He was my best friend.

Your Aunt Laura reminds me a lot of your Uncle Donnie. She has his smile and his passion for justice. My brother was the natural born writer of the two of us. Donnie was determined he was going to be a journalist for the Chicago Tribune someday. I chose journalism, I guess as a way to keep his dream alive.  Your Aunt Laura, she has Donnie’s natural writing gifts.

Laura quickly closed the journal and turned to the computer.

J, my favorite nephew

I will help find this missing woman.

Let me talk with Abby – my wife, about when we can fly to the U.S. I will also talk with my boss about working remote. In the meantime, send me whatever info you can find in your grandpa’s belongings.

Love you,

Aunt L  

Hello!

May this find that Hopefulness is sitting beside you as we near the end of 2024 and stand at the threshold of new beginnings.

As part of an end of semester project, some of my students taught all of us the power of a soul circle. They guided all of us to draw a circle in the center of a piece of paper and place our name in that center. Then, in whatever sizes we wanted to make, we were instructed to draw circles surrounding that circle and on each of those write the names of people – human and fur – who are important to us.  Then, inside each of those circles, we wrote why each of these people were important to us. Among the values in this exercise includes pausing and reflecting with gratitude on all the support that surrounds us.

You often hear me express “see and see again. Hear and hear again. There is always more than we initially hear and see.”     

Like this picture for example. What do you initially see? The opening in the rock? The tree branches? The sunlight streaming through the trees? What do you hear whispering within when you look at this picture?

For me, in this moment, I see each of the branches as something I could write on about the importance of each person as part of my soul circle. I look and look again and see the branches as intentions I wish to set for the year ahead. I listen further and see a threshold to the brightness beckoning ahead.

Like a blueprint showing the way to a hope-full life.

Namaste,

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Kaylen

Kaylen was nine years old when she witnessed what it means to experience irreparable heart break.

It was at the annual Mills Family Revival, as her grandmother liked to call their weekend long family reunion. A time to recharge and renew. Individually and in their collective bond. Mental recalibration and spirit restoration. A time to remember that love conquers, withstands, endures, and is stronger than anything that comes on their paths trying to invoke doubt, fear, shame, or inferiority.

Even death. For her grandmother made sure that the weekend included a lighting ceremony to honor their ancestors. Those who had passed from this earth from natural causes and those who had died in chains. The ceremony would always conclude with everyone gathering in a circle around all the children from the ages of newborn up to thirteen while her grandmother spoke of how special each of them were in this world, how each of them had a destiny to do great things, and how they needed to make sure life did not end with them.

“See these lit candles? These are the lives that walked in darkness for each of you to shine. If you dim your light in any way, it diminishes these flames. You must continue the future generations so that the stories of those who lit the way don’t fade.    My dear children, you are the ones to ensure they did not endure shackles and whips in vain.”  

As Kaylen stood internalizing her grandma’s words deeper than last year, and the year before that, and each year she has stood in this circle aware enough to listen to her grandmother’s words, she heard the sudden piercing, anguished, wail “Nnnnnnnooooooooo!”  

Kaylen’s Aunt Nia, five months pregnant, was bent over, falling to the floor, while her Uncle Aaron, aunt Nia’s husband, was wrapping his arms around her trying to soften her fall, hold the weight of her pain, keep her from falling off the edge into the abyss she was about to fall into.    

As the wail deafened the frantic commotion surrounding Kaylen, she could faintly hear frenzied movements of feet and shouts “call an ambulance,” “get a blanket,” “here, honey, squeeze my hand. It’s going to be ok”.    All the frenzy Kaylen was hearing sounded so far away as she kept hearing her Aunt Nia’s sobbing unlike any crying Kaylen had ever heard and hoped she would never hear again.

Kaylen’s aunt had been trying for a few years to have a baby, become a mom, fulfill Kaylen’s grandma’s words to carry life forward. Kaylen only knew this from overhearing her mom and Aunt Marissa talking when aunt Nia and Uncle Aaron shared they were pregnant.

Her mom had exclaimed to Aunt Marissa the next day, “Glory be! They have tried for six years. All that fertility work no longer in vain.” 

Aunt Marissa responded, “All those calls! So happy she was late. And so sad when Aunt Flo would come.” 

“When she called after her second miscarriage, I thought her and Aaron were going to stop trying. She talked about friends who didn’t have children and were happy.    She talked about places her and Aaron wanted to travel to.”

“When she called me, she was worried about disappointing momma that she couldn’t keep life going forward.”   

Kaylen didn’t fully understand what her mom and aunt were talking about, but it sounded bad.    Really bad. Disappointing grandma.

Letting the candle flames go out.

Not keeping life going as grandma insisted.

Kaylen stood watching her aunt in a fetal position on the floor, listening as her wails turned to low deep moans then to an eerie silence just before the paramedics hurriedly reached her side. As the paramedics checked her aunt’s vitals, she heard Aunt Nia say in a monotone robotic voice that didn’t sound like hers at all.  “There is nothing to check. It’s gone.”

Aunt Nia looked like Kaylen’s rag doll as Uncle Aaron and one of the paramedics helped her to the stretcher. Her arms and legs just hung from aunt Nia’s body, moveable only at the hands of Uncle Aaron and the paramedic. As they wheeled Aunt Nia away, Kaylen saw blood on the floor where her aunt had been.

Kaylen looked up and around. Everyone was so sad. Kaylen wondered if she should start crying, too, like her mom, her aunt Marissa, her cousin Tasha. Kaylen saw her grandma walk over to the lit candies, put her hand to her chest, and then saw her grandma’s shoulders begin to move up and down. Her grandma was sobbing. She had never seen her grandma cry like that.

She’d only seen her grandma cry from laughing really hard or when Kaylen or one of her cousins would give their grandma something homemade one of them had crafted.   Their grandma would put her hand to her heart and exclaim “what do we have here? For me!”  She’d then hold whatever it was in her hands staring at it for what felt like minutes, a tear would start rolling down her cheek, then she’d scoop them into a big hug, expressing how much she loved it and them.   

Kaylen watched as a candle flame went out near where her grandma stood. Last year when the candle flames started extinguishing, Kaylen asked “shouldn’t we light them again Grandma? “.   Her grandma knelt and put her arm around Kaylen. “It’s ok my precious child.    Each of them decides when it is time to rest. If we relight them, we are not letting them rest in peace.”  

Kaylen’s grandma looked at the extinguished candle flame, walked over to the matchstick on the table, then returned and relit the candle.

Kaylen didn’t know how to name the sudden pit in her stomach.  

Many years later, Kaylen understood that pit meant that once a wail like that takes place, peace is allusive for the rest of life.

And family ceremonial circles never take place again.

Hello dear readers,

How is your October starting out for you?

I love every season –Spring, Summer, Winter, and though I don’t like to show partiality, there is something about Fall that steals my heart every year! 

I read this quote recently by Viktor Frankl. For the meaning of life differs from person to person, from day to day, and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.

In the moment I saw this fallen leaf, I found myself thinking breathtaking! The vibrant yellows! What a beautiful footprint this leaf has just made. We should all hope to light up the world this way.

What I also thought about is that this leaf doesn’t know the meaning I found. It doesn’t know how it fulfilled one of my mantras in the words of Elsie De Wolfe “to make everything around me beautiful”. For when I choose to see life this way, I am giving meaning to my life. Yet, simply by this leaf being, it made a difference in my life.

Like us humans do in every moment.

Even if we don’t know how we do.

How about you? In the moment you see this leaf, what meaning starts to speak?

May each 86,400 moments of every day hold what means the most to you.

The Creases Now Speak

Linh

Linh knew the day would come when she would have to completely let go of Mỹ.

From the moment Linh knew a tiny life was growing inside her and every day for the next two-hundred-and sixty-seven days until a part of her exited her womb, Linh began grieving. In the first days after Mỹ was born, when Linh expressed to her sister Càhow her stomach ached, her sister would assure her it was simply her body adjusting from having carried a child inside for nine months. Linh was certain it was more than that. The umbilical cord had been severed, separating her and her daughter. Her body was yearning for the missing piece that made it complete.

The night Linh told Mỹ about the letter from her brother Hien, Linh laid in bed holding a framed picture of her beloved Bảo. If only her husband was lying next to her right now. He would hold her as she anguished that the time had arrived to let her precious little girl go. Bảo would remind her that beautiful things are not meant to be held onto. “No person is ours to take” he would whisper into her ear, just as he whispered to her the day she held newborn Mỹ in her arms, already feeling her sorrow for the day she would need to let her daughter go.

Bạn biết rõ điều này Linh yêu quý của tôi, Bảo spoke into her left ear as she folded herself in a fetal position in his arms while their infant daughter was sleeping in the cradle next to their bed. “You know this well my cherished Linh.”  He went on to say “if someone gives to us their heart, then we can gently hold it in safe keep and treasure the sacred offering for all eternity. But we cannot grab into our clutches that which is not offered to us as a holy gift.”  

Linh did know this well. When she had to make a choice. To choose between her parents and Bảo. To obey her father and not marry Bảo. Or act upon her heart and become Bảo’s wife. She knew that Bảo would never forsake her. She learned that her father would renounce her as his flesh and blood if she chose not to adhere to his command.

Perhaps that is why she began grieving the day Mỹ was born.   Linh wanted to make sure that Mỹ would feel how deeply she was loved by her mother. Linh didn’t feel nor see her own mom struggling when Linh walked out the door of the home she had grown up in carrying her belongings in a small burlap knapsack.  As she stood at the doorway an extra few seconds hoping to catch a glimpse of her mom, Linh couldn’t recall ever feeling her mom fraught with sadness that Linh would be out of sight for a time.   Her parents didn’t offer their hearts to Linh so when Linh crossed the threshold to outside and the life that awaited her, she made sure not to grasp the door handle as she closed the door behind her.  

When Bảo reached for her right hand as she stood at the doorway of his parents’ home while she held her meager belongings in her left hand, Linh felt him clutch her fingers. She knew she had chosen well. She had chosen a life of eternal love.

Which was why she couldn’t leave what her beloved Bảo’ had worked hard to create for them.   She couldn’t sell the coffee shop.   He had put his heart into establishing this business for them; their family unit was his holy treasure. She loved her daughter more than life itself. Yet she would not have been given the sacred gift of motherhood if it weren’t for her beloved Bảo who taught her the depth, breadth, and width of love. 

As Linh clasped the framed picture of Bảo tighter to her chest, she prayed for strength when the time came to send Mỹ to the United States to live with her brother. As the tears fell onto the glass shrouding the image of Bảo, Linh willed herself to trust what her beloved had taught her when he didn’t return home alive from the war.   That love does not die when someone is physically gone. Not all love ends when a door closes.

Linh set down the picture frame and tiptoed to the living room. She slowly opened the drawer to the hutch that held stationery and envelopes. She pulled out two sheets; a second one in case tears stained her initial message on the first sheet.

Dear Hien,

Cà, Mỹ, and I miss you so.

We are safe.

I will be sending Mỹ to the United States. Dear Cà and I will not be coming, but please don’t worry about us.  We will stay well.

There is an American that I am planning will bring Mỹ to you. Once I know when, I will write again.

My dear Hien, she is the third that makes me whole. Please take good care of my precious little girl. 

Your sister,

Linh

Dear Readers, hello!

I would like to ask you the same question I asked a stranger recently. What is one thing you do that brings you joy, not work related?

(smile)

And then I will offer you the same sentiment I gave to this sweet individual when he replied anything sports. 

Good, I’m glad you have [fill in the blank with whatever you answer]! Because your joy matters!

Doing things that bring you joy matters!

Recently I was paused at the stop light of a busy city intersection, cars preparing to or actually turning left, right, and two lanes heading straight, in all four directions.   As I sat stopped several cars back from the intersection, I was also observing those holding signs requesting someone’s generosity. One particular individual was smiling as he walked up and down the sidewalk, displaying his brown cardboard sign with his hand-written message.  Unlike others also walking the sidewalks, the largest letters of his sign didn’t request financial assistance.    His sign read, please at least give me the finger.

An individual who simply wanted to be seen. He was choosing that even if how he was seen was unfavorable, at least he had still touched another life.

I ponder how many people noticed this gentleman. I am choosing not to put energy towards wondering how many people act on his message. I hold intention that people pause and look long enough to see his smile and be positively impacted by it. Like I was. And am.

A couple of days ago I stood waiting for the airline ticket agent to call our boarding group, when my ear began expanding to hear the conversation taking place next to me between an elder woman in a wheelchair, the woman with her that I learned was her daughter, and the two gentlemen ready to assist them to their seats on the plane.   I listened to the joy, pride, and love in the elder woman’s voice that she has been married sixty-five years. When one of the gentlemen asked her if she still loved him, without hesitation she replied absolutely.

Then I heard the purpose of their trip. The elder woman’s son was asking his sister to bring their mom to him and to hurry. That the trip they had planned the next morning needed to be moved to as soon as possible. He didn’t know if he would make it until they arrived if they waited to leave the next day.  The specifics not shared but the reality that a son and brother were dying was present as we all stood in this space waiting for the flight.

The plane was delayed in reaching our next destination by approximately twenty minutes. I heard the daughter inquire with the flight attendant what their connecting gate was and how long the travel from our arriving gate to where they needed to go. A gracious inquiry with only a slight nervousness in her voice, focused more on knowing a plan of action in her tone as she engaged in dialogue with the attendant.

When we began deboarding, the elder woman and her daughter were in front of me and as we reached the doorway, the daughter turned to the flight crew and thanked all of them for their help. Gratitude flowed from her being. If I didn’t know the part of their story I did, I would have thought, such kindness.   Knowing their story, I was inspired by their graciousness and how they were flowing with a travel that I could only begin to imagine what feelings were present every step they were taking.

They exhibited a light in the presence like the gentleman with a smile and a cardboard sign in his hand.

It is always choice, isn’t it? In how we choose to see. Others around us and our own stories.

And now for those of you who are starting to connect to the characters in The Creases Now Speak (smile), let me introduce you to Bian.

Thank YOU. Thank YOU for being the readers YOU are. Because of you I am inspired to keep listening to a story that is finding me.

-Christine

The Creases Now Speak

Bian

Mỹ named her first born child Bian, pronounced Bee-Anh. In Vietnamese, this girl’s name means secret.

When Bian was six or seven, she asked her mom why she chose that name, Mỹ cupped Bian’s face gently into her palms, and whispered you hold the secret password to my heart. Mỹ then took one of her palms, cupped it around her daughter’s tiny hand, and placed it between her breasts. Speaking her favorite nickname to Bian, Người quý giá của tôi, my precious one, many think the heart is on the left side. It is here, in the center.

Mỹ then gently turned Bian to face the window. Leaning close to Bian’s left ear, Mỹ went on to say those branches represent the movements of life. Life delivers and you must choose. You will make choices that move you left of your center, and right. Know this, my daughter, if you always place love as the center in your choosing, you will not be wrong. All branches make that tree whole.

As Mỹ wrapped Bian in a hug, Bian felt her mom’s wet cheek. As your grandfather once told me at your age, always choose well. Người quý giá của tôi, may you always choose well.

Bian recounted this memory as she sat in the three-season porch overlooking Lake Michigan, cupping the mug of warm tea between her palms, preparing to watch the sun rise. This was Bian’s favorite way to begin each day, a ritual she had been doing since the home attached to this three-season porch was only stud walls on a poured basement. Her husband Andrew laughed at her when she insisted on driving to their dream home construction site every Saturday and Sunday for her sunrise tea.

His laugh echoed adoration for her. As if she needed any further proof of his love, it was because of her husband that Mỹ was now occupying one of their guest rooms. Or maybe it was time Bian called it her mother’s room. Mỹ had been staying with them for eight weeks now. As Bian set her mug on the end table next to her and placed her right palm at the center of her chest, she felt that knowing current course through her body that Mỹ’s stay would be permanent. The forms of her stay would change, but Mỹwould not be returning to her own home.

Bian watched the brim of the sun’s orange and yellow hat start to rise. She sat exhausted as she watches the sun’s promise of a new slate in which, this coming evening, she would be able to create and splash with colors from this particular day in her life. Her mother had taught nothing was meant to be held onto, so Bian didn’t keep a journal, nor did she keep many photographs.   But she did keep a secret art studio that only Andrew knew about. Her children thought the windows they could see from outside were simply part of the master bedroom.

Each evening Bian reflected on the day, and then painted. She didn’t keep every picture she made. It is enough for her to express her gratitude and love for the day she had been given, and then let go. She stacked the used paper in a small bin, unused side up, and then once a month, when volunteering at Lurie Children’s Hospital, Bian would give the bin to the volunteer coordinator who made sure the paper along with crayons and markers were available for young children fighting not to lose innocence against the enemy of terminal disease.   If a child were to look closely at the painting on the other side, they would see the words you can and you are loved.

The words Bian repeated continually to her cousin, Binh. Before he would teach Bian the truth of her mother’s words. Nothing is meant to be held onto.

Bian watched the cheeks of the sun now reach eye level with the horizon and she wondered. It was a more restless night for Mỹ. A symptom of her early stages of dementia,  Bian heard her mom cry out no, please don’t, followed by deep sobs. When Bian hurriedly entered her mom’s room, and rushed to her bedside, Mỹ opened her eyes, cupped a palm against Bian’s face and softly said “my secret child. You gave me life he tried to take. As quickly as she had been sobbing, Mỹ closed her eyes and began snoring.

What did her mom mean you gave me life he tried to take?

Bian grew up the oldest of three in a small village in Vietnam. She thought about her two younger brothers. Both obedient, respectful, hard-working. They adored her mom. Neither of them had given her mom rebellious attitudes. Both took good care of Mỹ before Bian and Andrew brought her to the United States a couple of months ago.  

She thought about her father. The kind and humble man he was. She was certain he never hurt Mỹ.

Who is he that her mom spoke of in the night? Why did her mom cry out please don’t?

Bian watched the sun’s full face looking back at her.

Should I pursue this? Or let this go? Bian pondered as she heard her mom’s words that were placed permanently in the center of her chest. My precious one, may you always choose well.