(St.) Cecelia
Well, Cecilia, I’m down on my knees,
I’m begging you please to come home.
Simon and Garfunkel1
Somehow, some way, that horrible weekend came to an end. I managed to complete my presentation for the other college on time and even answer posts in my online class. And within two days, I was able to complete my lecture for the class, even though I knew that under less crippling circumstances, I would have been able to finish it in half the time. Maybe, then, it wouldn’t be too surprising that I would manage to complete my textbook in a few years despite the increased level of caregiving for my father whom I did not realize was already suffering from dementia. (He had always suffered from poor judgment.) But I didn’t know any of that then. All I knew was that the book was already late, that there was still a long road ahead—I’d only completed the introduction—and I didn’t know if my grief would ever let me finish it.
Of course, none of these issues were anywhere near as seemingly insurmountable as dealing with the immediate aftermath of my mother’s death. There was the cremation to deal with. The obituary to be written. The memorial service. The insurance forms to fill out and bills to be paid. All of this was left up to me since Dad had never dealt with family finances: the vast majority of it had been handled by my mother, including his own taxes. And I’m ashamed to admit that I was not much more competent than Dad in these affairs; up till then, my experience was strictly limited to handling my parents’ stock portfolio. I had only begun to do my taxes that year...as if I had the premonition that it was time to grow up because Mom would not be around forever; fatefully enough, I completed them just nine days before she suffered her first stroke. Who would I seek for help on family finances now that the very person who handled them was gone?
Thinking about this led to a few thoughts on Mom’ arrival in the US. She came here 55 years ago, I told myself. English was her fourth language. She didn’t complete college. And yet, she learned to do our taxes, pay the bills, find proper insurance, and sort out our finances all on her own. She used to say, “the buck stops here,” because she knew better than Dad how much we had. Without Mom, I’m not sure we would have been able to attain any degree of comfort. Be like Mom, I told myself.
And yet, it felt like such an empty injunction without her presence even if I could hear what she used to say on countless occasions in her accented English whenever I found myself in a predicament: “You have to do what you have to do.” In order to feel closer to Mom, I had to think of taking over the finances as a tribute to her. Except that she wouldn’t be here to praise me, to tell me that everything was fine and how thrilled she was. Strange how I still felt like such a child.
I don’t recall exactly which day it was—a Tuesday or Wednesday—that we went to the funeral parlor to discuss the cremation and the obituary, but I do remember it was another overcast day. I felt proud of myself for not having collapsed in tears much the same way a child feels proud of not crying when she gets a shot.
Although Dad and I rarely agreed on anything, we seemed to think that the Qinghua dark blue and white urn was the most fitting and elegant. For a brief moment, I was attracted by a dazzling pink and turquoise blue cloisonné urn, but Dad preferred the first one. I appreciated it though when he said “you decide. If you like this one, that’s ok.” I don’t know if it was because Dad was so understanding about it—or because I thought that the latter, with its brighter, louder colors, was better suited for me than Mom—but I decided to return to our first choice. In retrospect, it was a near-ideal choice when I suddenly realized in a conversation I had with my aunt Janet in Alabama that Mom loved navy: she had always wondered why Mom sent her mostly navy dresses before looking at her closets and realizing that a solid portion of her clothes was indeed navy. It began to dawn on me how little I really knew Mom even though we were almost inseparable over the last thirteen years or so. I also had to ask myself, did I want a necklace with her ashes? Too modern for my tastes, I thought—yet maudlin and mawkish into the bargain. Would I wear it? And what if I lost it? I settled on a miniature urn for my bedroom which reminded me of some earthenware Mom and I had bought at a country fair in England when she was visiting me (what a great time we had, buying lamb and pheasant pies). Then we were asked to bring an outfit for her to be cremated in. Did we want to see her one last time?
I knew that I couldn’t bear to see her corpse: it would only make me feel raw and lonely all over again—at a time when the grief was beginning to sink in ever so inexorably. It would be like Mom departing for the airport only to return temporarily because she’d forgotten something: the time together would be too painfully brief. And yet, another reminder that she was dead and gone for good.
When the urns were delivered to us the first Saturday after her death, it was raining—which made it feel as if a divine entity were still mourning the loss of Mom. At around 11:40 that morning, both cats ran to her bed. Did they know “she” was back—and welcoming her home again? It was probably sheer coincidence, but I desperately wanted to find some meaning—as I did on other occasions. If I could allow myself to believe that there was somehow a “grand design,” there would be a better possibility of seeing her once more in the afterlife.
More challenging still was the planning of Mom’s memorial service. I myself had never attended one. And since neither Mom nor Dad practiced any religion or belonged to any church, I started to panic: although I was soon relieved when one minister from the Taiwanese association—a woman not much older than me who was very friendly with Mom—decided to officiate. Another member of the group, a piano teacher, offered to accompany the choir. I recall that sunny day in our family room as we tried to pick out music for Mom, so reminiscent of happier occasions when they visited her this past year and now, but so different now without her presence. The pianist suggested “A thousand winds”: a song that was originally written in English with music composed by a Japanese musician. It seemed appropriate to me given Mom’s fluency in Japanese and her fondness for the culture. The tune seemed vaguely familiar too: wasn’t it a theme song for one of Mom’s favorite Japanese TV programs? When I discovered that the poet, a Mary Elizabeth Frye, was inspired by a young woman who had lost her mother, it seemed even more fitting. (It has since been determined more recently by Notes and Queries that the author is an entirely different woman—Clare Harner Lyon.)
But then again, the circumstances of Mom’s illness and death seemed….so supernatural, for lack of a better word. If I ever believed in superstition, the date of the memorial service would have been just one more fateful date. Here, let me backtrack a bit. Mom’s first stroke and her death—the two most significant events of the year fell on “unlucky days” according to Taiwanese superstition. Because the number 4 sounds like death in Taiwanese (and Cantonese, as I’ve been told), it is considered unlucky. Sure enough, Mom’s first stroke happened on April 24, 2014: 4/24/14. She died on October 4, 2014: 10/4/2014. That day also happened to be Yom Kippur: a Jewish holiday set aside for the atonement of personal sins, and thus the holiest day of the year. And now, the day of her memorial service, November 22nd, happened to be a saint’s day for St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Since Mom’s Christian name was Cecelia and she was a classically trained musician herself who came to appreciate other forms of music, it seemed very appropriate. It was equally appropriate from a Buddhist perspective: it would be the 49th day after her passing, a day when rebirth is supposed to take place. It was as if Mom had chosen that date.
Again, these were probably all coincidences, but in my effort to find meaning—and some promise of an afterlife—I wanted to believe that there was a grand design.
Over the course of the following weeks until the end of December, when the semester ended, I was actually thankful that I was teaching: my class was the only thing preventing me from becoming overwhelmed by sorrow, even though it was, of all things, a class on death and horror. In many ways, the class felt like a reprieve, a return to life, as I found myself fired up by the students’ enthusiasm; despite whatever setbacks I had encountered, literature and history still gave meaning to my life. Posting answers to my students lifted me at least temporarily from my misery as I found new issues and perspectives to explore even if I’d already taught some of these works at least five times. (For instance, was the figure of Dracula inspired by Oscar Wilde—who was incidentally Bram Stoker’s rival for his wife, Florence?) But just as C.S. Lewis acknowledged in A Grief Observed, musings on the loss of his wife, having “resources” doesn’t always take the sting away from grief. At night, before settling into bed, I’d ask myself how the rest of my days would ever pass without Mom. I smiled wryly at the thought of an undead Mom returning for a visit, yet I wondered how long would it take me to forget the texture of her skin? The inflections of her voice? (Anyway, Mom would never be a vampire. She was far, far more giving than taking.)
And yet, the pangs were already there, though not as frequent as they would be in 2015. Seeing her empty seat at the table was enough to trigger tears on a nightly basis: I didn’t have to wait for the holidays as so poignantly described by Tennyson in his grand poem written on the death of a best friend, In Memoriam. And just as C.S. Lewis acknowledged, having “resources” in the form of work and other daily activities doesn’t always remove the sting from grief. All too often, as he claims in A Grief Observed, reflections on the passing of his wife, there comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this commonsense vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace.” It was no different for me when I sat down to prepare for the class’ reading of Varney the Vampire, I couldn’t help but recall the very first time I read it….it was a much happier time over twenty years ago in the summer of 1994 when Mom had just returned from Taiwan and I was about to be accepted at Oxford for graduate study. Sure, I was nervous as all hell but pleased that Mom was nearby: at least, if I got bad news, I thought to myself, I could turn to her for comfort. And then as I tried to resume work on my Rights of Man textbook, memories of October 2012 sprang into my head as I recalled Mom reading numerous drafts of my book proposal which I finally submitted in the middle of the month. I could still hear her saying, “somehow, this version is easier to understand.” And so I sent it out to the editor. Those recollections quickly led to recollections of the following week when Hurricane Sandy passed through, extinguishing our power for two days. Mom was so thrilled that I prepared for it as well as I did: but how could I not when I had to deal with that thunder blizzard less than a year ago? Yet, Sandy was that much less terrible, not only because the power outage did not last anywhere near as long, but because Mom was around. Somehow our candlelit dinner in the kitchen felt cozy; I didn’t feel frightened and all alone. How enjoyable it was to walk with Mom to the library where I charged up our phones. It was just like my childhood days in the Bronx and Cranbury, New Jersey when Mom and I took long walks to the library.
Sunny October days brought back memories of my first semi-lengthy separation from Mom when she had surgery not long after our move to Cranbury. I don’t recall why she needed surgery—even she couldn’t remember a few years ago—but the memory of that October evening when she told us of her impending hospitalization has long been firmly imprinted on my mind. We were eating at a nearby chain restaurant, Buxton’s the night she brought it up. Although I knew that big 9-year-old girls were not supposed to cry, I burst into tears. Did she have cancer? Another sort of terminal illness? She denied it, saying it was nothing, just a routine procedure. I felt a little more at ease but remained uncomfortable. I noticed that Mom still had a lot of veggies on her plate. “Mom, maybe if you eat your broccoli and carrots, you’ll get better and you won’t have to go!” You see, Mom has always made it seem like vegetables were the be-all, end-all recipe to good health. “OK, OK”, she answered, fearing I was causing a scene as people turned to look. But the plans went ahead. She called her younger sister, Janet, who was then in Tennessee; hating children at that time, even though I myself was barely out of childhood, I dreaded the thought of her bringing her 2- and 4-year-old children. I recall crying as Mom left and trying to run after her as aunt Janet restrained me. Even as I wound up liking my aunt over the course of the two weeks and deciding that my cousins were not that bad after all, I still missed Mom and was upset when her return was delayed. What if there was something deeply wrong that Dad was hiding from me? However, I must have gotten somewhat used to it because I was so busy playing with my friends that I forgot she was returning that day. In fact, I don’t even recall what I did that evening. But I do remember feeling so thrilled the following week. How good it was to have her home—even if I had to admit that I found myself missing my aunt and the wonderful bedtime stories she told me.
That autumn of my mother’s surgery was such a beautiful one, with splendid yellow, red, and orange leaves brilliant against blue skies—just like now. Even on cloudy days, especially after a shower, I noticed how the leaves seemed to glisten and sparkle like so many sequins. I thought about how Mom and I used to admire fall on the East coast, whether it was New Jersey or Connecticut. The air was crisp and everything seemed the same: except that this time, of course, Mom was not coming back. And then I would think of the song to be performed at her memorial service:
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
Do not stand
By my grave, and cry—
I am not there,
I did not die.
To this day, I feel grateful to all those who reached out to me in those early months. Aunt Janet called me at least several times—she who babysat for me during Mom’s surgery more than forty years ago. She would always regard me as her own daughter, she told me. Vanessa continued to call. And closer to home, members of the Taiwanese association visited and gave us rides. “Whenever you need me, I’ll be here.” Other more distant friends and relatives reached out to us as well.
On the day of the memorial service, I was surprised at the number of people who attended: I hadn’t expected more than 15, let alone over a hundred guests. Yes, I felt a miffed when a cousin to whom Mom gave so much not only showed up 20 minutes late but didn’t give a speech as she promised. (Would she have done this to her white, wealthy friends or in-laws, I wondered.) Oh well, let it go, I thought to myself. There are more important things to worry about. But overall, I was pleased that the service went as smoothly as it did. I was happy when I discovered that my pizza order was not inappropriate—something I had ordered on account of my fear that we had already spent so much. Was it demeaning to send Mom into the next world with such casual food? It wasn’t until weeks later that I found out that my choice was indeed oddly fitting. As Dad and I ordered pizza one night, he told me that it was the only Western food that Mom would eat during her first years in New Jersey.
So while I felt lonely without Mom, I did not feel terribly depressed just yet. Thanksgiving and Christmas passed uneventfully even as I couldn’t help but contrast this year with our holidays the previous year. How nice it was to spend a day preparing a solid feast and dine on our fancy china in the dining room. How entertaining it was to see Charlie beg for food, going from lap to lap.
But this was only the eye of another storm. 2015 would turn out just about as badly as 2014 as I found myself constantly triggered and bombarded by memories. Yet, it gave me a chance to reflect on my relationship with Mom over the years.
This song is supposed to be an allegory on the nature of musical inspiration, according to Simon—for those wondering how about how quickly she goes to her next man while the narrator is washing his face.