A Hopefully Useful List of Things To Do

The kids started e-school this week. How strange to be at school and yet not at school. To be listening to lectures and taking notes in their own rooms and then emerging to meet each other at Arbitrary Lunchtime. To feel like the only student in their virtual classroom because so much of the teacher- interaction is one-on-one now. To miss the commute which, inconvenience aside, psychologically demarcated where and when school began and ended. Everyone is saying that this is the new normal now; we will surely adjust. Still, I miss Old Normal, don't you?

These are hard times, friends. No one will dispute that. It's a mad, mad world out there, and some parts of it are scary. But for some people, it's also a mad, mad world inside, particularly if you're not accustomed to working from home (or being at home full-time with the kids). I took stock today and realized I've actually been a stay-home Mom for 15 years. For 11 of those years, I have also worked at home, albeit by choice, not necessity, and in a self-employed freelance capacity. Now it was true that some seasons of those 11 years were more professionally stressful than others, such as when I was collaborating with publishers and clients of other organizations - I remember weeks of working through illness and fatigue to meet deadlines. But there was always the option to step away from commitments without any adverse consequences. It was a sweet deal - and a privilege I didn't take lightly - to watch my kids grow up while I dabbled in something I loved doing and sometimes got paid for.

However, I also remember that all that work - whether hobby or paid gig - happened on top of being a mom and wife, plus cooking, supermarketing and keeping house. And until the kids were intellectually engaged in their respective schools, they were home with me, underfoot and eager to learn, to see, to ask, to do. Those were wonderful days, but they were busy days.

This blog is a record of some of those days and the adventures therein. Many of the other blogs I followed at the time were of families with kids of similar ages, and it felt like we were a sisterhood of moms jumping off each other's creative springboards. Then, there wasn't Pinterest or Instagram, or even cameraphones, and all our activities were documented long form, with time-consuming DSLR photoediting. Completely inefficient, but hey, that was a time when the crafting blogosphere felt far more intimate - and leisurely - than it does now.

I've occasionally been asked how I juggled a household of toddlers and preschoolers while running a creative enterprise and I've typically replied with practical ideas, because those were what I imagined the askers wanted. Recently, though, my replies have been a little more existential. Perhaps it's from losing Dad and recognizing that since becoming a mom and an immigrant, I've moved through the last decade feeling not quite intact, in spite of all the other ways in which life is still full. When I look back at that transition from Singapore to Minnesota, I often think of the word derailed. That it coincided with leaving the workforce and having babies added to the madness, surely. At the time, I didn't recognize the inherent loss in that madness, so I lifted my chin and threw myself into acclimatizing and embracing my new and - rather exciting, if I am honest - normal. Three years into that new normal, however, I imploded. Several sessions of therapy later, I understood that grief was not limited to bereavement; it had many other names and swelled out of many other kinds of emptiness.

And here's what I've been suspecting for some time: normal life is a series of losses. Growing into adulthood, graduating, leaving home, marrying, finding a job, having kids, launching those kids, retiring and finally, saying goodbye to parents and partners: these are anticipated milestones but even the positive ones are inexplicably bittersweet because they are reached at the expense of leaving other things behind. I don't say that to be a downer; I offer the idea instead as a prelude to hope: if losses can be recognized, they can be grieved, and we can then move forward.

This week, as I scrolled Armaggeddon-esque headlines in my newsfeed and sarcastic social media captions of parents losing homeschooling battles, I recognized it: folks all over the world were reckoning with grief. The obvious ones - the literal deaths and fears of deaths - as well as the more subtle: non-routines and non-restaurants and non-freedoms and non-compartmentalized identities. Suddenly - and not necessarily by choice - we were all stay-home parents, separated from kith and kin, having to be all things to all the people in our single living/working space. Suddenly, travel to care for an elderly relative at a moment's noice was no longer a given - a half hour drive could just as well be a 29 hour flight across the Atlantic ocean, or until further notice. Suddenly, we could no longer rely on teachers, neighbors, daycare providers, the library. Suddenly, we could no longer step out of our homes and find ourselves in familiar places in which we knew what to do, where to go, how to buy. Suddenly, strangers on the street felt foreign, were no longer readable. Suddenly, we were bereft.

And if that is not the definition of loss, I don't know what is.

There was a NYT article about this last week. And here's another one on NPR and this longer one with practical advice here. I am so glad the media is giving words to this strange, ambiguous loss of what-was and the dread anticipation of what-could-be. There is an odd relief in being in this together, in hearing the vocabulary of grief on other people's lips, I think. We have lost much, friends, and no, you are not going crazy. 

As I was thinking of all the children suddenly being home with their parents 24/7, I reminisced about  when my girls were little and we would burn entire days playing and crafting. As so many of you had reminded me then, those years went by unfairly quickly and I am so, so glad we stayed in the moment and relished them. In the spirit of paying it forward, I thought I'd unearth some of those activities to share again here. Perhaps some of you are new visitors who have never beheld the mania that was ikatbag circa early 2000s. Or perhaps, suddenly faced with hours on your hands and small children climbing the walls, you're googling stuff to keep them busy. Here follow lists of things that my kids and I did back in the day, beginning with the simplest and moving toward the utterly insane. Some of you may be thinking, "These ideas sound like a huge time commitment," and you'd be right. I was always partial to activities that would independently engage the kids for days and days after the initial prep so I could do meals and other chores while they entertained themselves. Our pretend-play setups were often born of this strategy. This kind of time may not be realistic for many of you who are working from home, so use these ideas as you are able or so inspired. I hope some of it helps.



Intentional Learning

First up is a list of sneaky-learning things disguised as games and cardboard crafts. Quite a few of these we enjoyed particularly when the kids were preschool- and pre-preschool-little. Now, I am aware that cardboard packaging is currently not highly esteemed because of its non-immunity to the coronavirus. If you can sift through the confusing advice online about how long to let Amazon boxes and takeout cartons sit out in the garage before unpacking them so they're non-infective, more power to you. The hoarders farsighted among us might even possess a cardboard stash predating the outbreak, which is even better. One should always use cardboard with respect but especially now, is what I'm trying to say.

1   Cardboard shoes

2   Felt boards



3   Cardboard fractions


4   Marbling paper


5   Cardboard catapult (and projectiles!)

6   Bookmarks for coloring

7 Princesses for coloring

8   Alphabet copy books

9   Popsicle stick baskets

10   Popsicle stick mini easels

11   Activities with simple electrical circuits (batteries and bulbs)

12   Making a board game

13 Card Game

14   Cardboard Houses

15   Flextangles

16   Mystery Solving

17   Cardboard Spyware

18   Stand-up mannequins

19   Cardboard cookies

20   Cardboard cake slices 

Pretend Play Scenarios

I'll be frank: these require pre-planning and some serious prep work. That said, they are some of my kids' most-loved activities. Not only were they engaged for days and weeks after we first created them, the kids returned to them again and again and diversified them in other settings. Totally worth the time and effort.


1   Garden/Dirt

This is the first iteration, a stand-alone dirt bed made with foam.



A later iteration, using pool noodles in a cardboard box, was a faster build, and just as versatile.

2   Lemonade Stand (simple vendor stand)

3   Greengrocer Stand (more elaborate vendor stand)

4   Cardboard Box Aquarium



5   Carville



6   Cardboard Ships



7    Travel



8   Cardboard dollhouse

9   Germ Warfare

10   Swords

11   Transportation - Busytown

13   Art Museum

14   Vet Clinic

15   Portable Magnetic Bakery

16   Garden Center

17   Mini Mail Center

18   Maildrop & Postal Service

19   Pirate Ship

20   and add-on Treasure Chest

21   Pizzeria

22   Hot Dog Restaurant

23   Finger Puppets

Toys to Make

Unlike those in the first two categories, which the girls and I made together, and the process of which was as engaging for them as the ensuing play, the toys in this third list were made by me. They were deeply satisfying to design and render in their respective media, but they were not speedy projects. I included them here for those of you with little ones to whom to gift these and who have time - but perhaps not also those same little ones - on your hands.

1   Stick horses

The first iterations here, along with horse food,



the second iteration of the unicorn here,



and the detailed instructions here.


2   Felt confections -

Roll-and-cut-out cookies here

felt donuts and cookies with removable frosting here

and an idea for collapsible and portable baking trays here.

3   A tiered cake to stack and decorate here

4   Two projects to make with the small felt circles from the centers of the felt donuts:

wiggly caterpillars


and clowns.

5   A method for turning characters into softies

6   A rag doll with a removable dress

7   Tutorials on how to make bags without a pattern

8   Wooden confections -

Doughnuts

an ice cream parlor

and a wooden bake shop

9   A doorway puppet theater

Tents

When the girls were little, tents and forts would keep them occupied indefinitely. Then, table tents were all the rage, so I made one. When I realized later that the ceiling of the table top was a limitation, I used a collapsible tube frame for our second tent. Finally, as our home grew more crowded with accumulated playthings, I made a space-saving hallway version with tension rods. The very last tent - a playhome for Jenna's bear draped over a kid's table - brought us full circle.

Table Tent


  Collapsible frame tent


Adjustable tension rod tent

Mini table tent

Clothes
There are clothes tutorials all over ikatbag (choose the "clothes" label in the sidebar) but because I custom draft to fit my kids, many templates in those tutorials are size-specific. This is a series of simple skirts to make as we look toward the warmer months, and which are multi-fit.

Process
(for want of a better label). These posts are about teaching kids to do stuff in general. A lot of it is philosophy but there are some actual how-tos. Most of this is what I learned from simply being with my kids and trying to help them achieve in their areas of interest. They ended up learning quite a bit, but not always the direct result of my instructing.

1   Teaching kids to sew

2   Teaching kids to run a business

3   Teaching kids to make (and design) softies

4   Kids sewing independently

5   Starting to sew in general

Self-portrait, 2009

6   How to mass-produce

Cardboard Ideas
This post has instructions on working with cardboard in general, as well as this inspiration panel, with links to some of my earlier projects.

For even more ideas, check out the Parties link (it's also under my blog banner). Not that I'm encouraging you to break rules by hosting large gatherings at a time like this (please don't), but each party is themed, and has links to games and activities, most of which are insane, naturally, (like this one), but some are also mildly educational (like this one) and even fun (like this one).

Stay well!

Elastic might be the new TP

and I mean that in a good way.

Emily and I have been sewing masks

and we have discovered that elastic cannot be had for love or money in Minnesota. We are using what we have at home. We managed a quick stop at SR Harris to pick up some more just before the store locked down along with so many other businesses. The elastic shortage is itself not a good thing - no shortage is, at a time like this - but the reason for it is. The sewing community is coming together to make these fabric masks and the scarcity of of the narrowest widths of elastic is indication that sewing folks are putting their time and skills to good use. 

Let me confess that I was initially extremely skeptical. Not of the goodness of sewing folks; never. They, given just the hint of an inspiration, would sew anything for anyone,  and in designer cotton, to boot. I was hesitant because I didn't know where these masks would be put to use. If they could be put to use. When I was in Singapore in January and the Covid-19 cases were beginning to rise in the South East Asian region, these masks were already in the markets. Like, literally sold in marketplaces, 3 for $10 and cheaper. People had for months been walking around en-masked. On trains. In malls. While running for the bus. Perhaps Singaporeans were already conditioned after SARS and the annual haze that sent them indoors for weeks and resulted in outdoor Phy. Ed being axed in schools. Anyone and everyone owned supplies of several varieties of masks, industrial, medical and now, fabric. If you wore a mask in public in Singapore, no one would bat an eyelid.  

(Unless the print were hideous and wrongly-oriented, the fabric snob in me would've said two months ago.)

So when the stories began to appear on social neighborhood apps ("I'm so-and-so and I'm making masks, anyone got 1/8" elastic to donate?") I did not jump on the bandwagon. 

Mind you, if there were anyone in the cosmos who'd gleefully mass- produce anything, it would be me (and my children). But I needed to be sure. Who would be using these masks, I asked. Do the hospitals really need these? More importantly, would using these masks endanger medical people rather than protect them? So I waited, and continued to watch the social media frenzy unfold: folks bemoaning the lack of elastic, folks wishing they'd paid attention in Homec class, folks trashing other folks who dared to suggest the possibility of selling these masks for meager profit.

And then the local hospitals started to ask for help. They would much prefer the commercial masks and N95 respirators, of course, but even handmade fabric ones would do. And the fabric stores began putting kits together and giving them out to anyone with time and ability to sew. And the national news covered the growing movement. And the medical professionals qualified. And the international community picked up the momentum.  

And their reasons were compelling: rather than replacing them, the fabric masks could be worn over existing medical-grade masks to extend their viability, for instance.

So Emily and I cut fabric and what elastic we could find and made over 40 masks in two days.

This first batch is for her classmate's aunts who are nurses in Iowa.

I finished a second batch yesterday for our neighbor's daughter, who is a nurse in Connecticut.  

Now, I'm taking a break from mask-sewing to wait to see what is needed next. It could be more fabric masks. But it could be that the real masks and respirators are finally reaching the hospitals and clinics and they no longer need fabric stand-ins. Or it could be that other organizations still do - organizations who aren't in the frontline but who care for vulnerable populations regardless and for whom medical-grade PPE isn't a priority.

Here is what I know at the moment: my local Joann Fabrics does not have mask kits. What they are handing out curbside is "enough fabric for you to sew 4 masks. No elastic. The fabric is sufficient for the ties, too - some medical organizations have said they actually prefer ties to elastic." Those were the words of the person on the phone when I called to ask yesterday.

I also know that there are multiple mask patterns floating around the internet. Some are recommended by medical organizations as being purportedly CDC-compliant, like this one. Some are contoured without pleats or designed to allow for filter inserts, like this one. Whether we sew masks to donate or for our own families, thank you for letting us use your patterns for free.

Finally, I know that there's nothing like the real thing, so the priority is to get real medical-grade protective equipment to the medical workers. If you have Real Masks at home, please donate them and sew some fabric ones for yourself and your family instead. And let's hope that the hospitals and other crisis centers get huge deliveries of real PPE as soon as possible.

Someday when this is over, we will look back at the spring of 2020 when the oddest things were in short supply. Toilet paper and eggs. Potatoes and onions. And elastic. And we will smile and remember that it was when the sewing community came together on the tenuous hope that we might make a difference in a world gone mad. It will be a good story to tell and retell. 

Interestingly, amidst the scarcity of so many other essentials, no one has reported a shortage of stash fabric. This is because - and it is a known fact - we all have surplus. Even I, who do not quilt and do not in general even like working with quilting cotton, somehow have an abundance of it. Well, for once in our lives, we are not ashamed, are we? And who knows if perhaps we hoarded precisely for such a time as this?

Thankfulness and Some Old Tutorials

Hello, all -

Sorry for being so frightfully behind, but I believe new year greetings are in order. Yes, in spite of it being already mid-March. So er . . . happy new year, everyone. I hope the first quarter's been kind, disease crisis notwithstanding. On our end, Minnesota's normally-inert denizens have just begun to join the loony bin of toilet paper hoarders. On one hand, we expected it (thank you, sensationalist media). On the other, Singapore was several months ahead of the US in all things virus. So seeing the news headlines this past week felt a bit like watching a rerun. I didn't freak out then when I was there visiting Mum and the madness was first unfolding in Asia, and I'm not inclined to freak out now that it's found its way here. But yes, I did go to Costco. I needed Pillsbury dough crescents, Laughing Cow cheese and socks, so I braved the crowds - and survived (although sadly, I forgot the socks). Incidentally, I sure hope Costco doesn't run out of socks, people. We here in the land of never-ending winter need our socks. More than we need our TP, let me tell you. 

Anyway, I hope you guys are all stocked up on the things you need to cope with the school closures and home telecommuting and whatnot. Enough for yourselves and to share. I wish everyone wellness and calmness and gratitude for suddenly and unexpectedly wide-open schedules. Let's make good use of the extra time we have with our kids and spouses, shall we? And let's keep praying - we can make jokes about bathroom tissue and the nuttiness of paranoia but some things are indeed out of our control and those things understandably scare us. Quieten your hearts and look up, if you can. Live a day at a time, knowing that there is grace and providence apportioned for the hours between each sunrise and sunset. 

Speaking of grace, I was deeply moved by the responses to my last post on Dad. I remember expecting to feel a Great Difference after I'd finished writing it, as if my healing might inexplicably advance several levels as a consequence, but nothing happened. I was exactly the same person, and sadder, if anything. Also tired, as if finding words to describe things was an exceedingly physical exertion. As much as writing that post was cathartic for me, reading your stories in the comments was even more healing. How similar our experiences were, whether we had recently lost or were remembering a long-ago goodbye; certain things will always be fresh. I was particularly struck by how surprise continues to be an aspect of grief: we automatically return to the status quo of being intact and are startled when we remember that our loved one is actually no longer here. Even years after the fact. I like that it suggests we aren't made for separations and farewells, or that love isn't something that vanishes with changing circumstances. I wrote in my journal a random thought that death is "the beginning of a way to continue that relationship with different logistics."

I will stop musing here and switch topics presently but I want to thank everyone who'd read that post and shared a little bit of themselves in return. I've taken this week to write back by email, blog replies and Facebook comments and each response has helped me process things a little bit more and take another step forward. You guys are kind and thoughtful and good with pain. I don't mean that lightly. Thank you.

Also, I have more stories to share. 2019 - and the first part of 2020 - was a difficult year for me, and Dad's death was a big part of that, but there were other things, too. So there might be more posts to come, all part of this journey I've found myself undertaking. Finding words for it all is helpful for me personally but the idea that it might help others to read those words is oddly uplifting. 

Now, though, let's talk about something else: sewing and tutorials.

Do you remember the fabulous sewing website Sew Mama Sew? It's been through some changes in recent years but back in its heyday, it was an incredible resource of tutorials, patterns, contests, instruction, commentary, guest posts and generally awesome inspiration for seamstresses of all skill levels. Over the past decade, I've had the honor of contributing tutorials to their blog, and have enjoyed collaborating with Beth and Kristin, the two ladies at its helm. Lately, though, the Sew Mama Sew website has vanished. Does anyone know what's happened?

Since I've been off the grid awhile, I only realized this when folks reached out to me to ask about those featured tutorials which they can no longer access. I'm aware that Sew Mama Sew still has on online presence in the form of a Facebook page and a Twitter account, which continue to be regularly updated. The blog itself, though, is nowhere to be found. Which is a sad thing because so many of us loved that blog and have learned so much from it. I've tried reaching out via email and leaving comments on their Facebook page, as have countless other readers, but we have not heard back.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I had five tutorials on Sew Mama Sew (hereafter "SMS"), and as per their conditions of publication and compensation, these tutorials have not appeared anywhere else, not even here on ikatbag. But with SMS now out of action, readers are asking how they might find those instructions. I understand their frustration and I would like to help. Here are two possible ways.

One, because I retain copyright of all my tutorials, I can bring those tutorials home (i.e. republish them here) but ideally, with the permission of the good people at SMS. I've left a comment to let them know and I'll wait a reasonable amount of time before going ahead. If in the future, the SMS site comes back online and those tutorials are once again accessible to everyone there, I'll take my own posts down here on ikatbag so that SMS once again retains exclusivity. Easy-peasy.

Two, the fabulous husband has found a way to access the SMS archives with the help of the Wayback Machine.  I posted briefly about this eight years ago here. He was able to extract those guest posts and save them as PDF downloads. This makes me very happy because you guys will be able to access those five tutorials in their original format on the SMS website (so nostalgic!). The downside is that one or two photos are missing, but I'm confident that you'll be able to mentally bridge the gaps without too much difficulty.

If the SMS site has indeed been shut down for good, eventually - and unless there's violent objection from the SMS folks - I would like to rehome those five tutorials here. This way, I can keep an eye on them and answer questions about them that you guys may have. But until we know for sure what the fate of the SMS site is, go ahead and download these recovered versions of those tutorials here. You'll notice that the pdf tutorials are formatted as a somewhat long and continuous pages rather than the standard 8.5 x 11. This method avoids inappropriate page breaks that chop photos in parts, for instance. Also note that the Wayback Machine essentially takes screenshots of url sites at random points in time, so any embedded links are dead. What this means is wherever there were template docs accompanying those tutorials, those download links won't work and you will have to download them from here instead. That all sounds stupid-confusing, so let me just list the tutorials and the accompanying templates below and trust you to navigate the links to find what you want. Hopefully, this will be in time for those of you in particular who've been wanting to sew the Flat (Spring) Bunnies for Easter.

Spring Bunnies
SMS tutorial
Template

Cloverleaf Bag
SMS tutorial
Template

Morphing Wallet-Totes 
SMS tutorial
Template

Raccoon 

SMS tutorial

Template

Cylindrical Pencil Case
SMS tutorial

Happy making, friends!

Finding words

Nine months ago, my Dad died.

I remember the day I received the news. It was an afternoon in May. I'd just finished the final edits to the Pop Pouch pattern and listed it in my digital store, the announcement post was about to go live here on ikatbag and the only thing left before the big launch party was to stock my shop with the sample Pouches. I was at my desktop, about to upload the first Pop Pouch photos to Etsy.

And the phone rang.

When you are an immigrant living away from your family of origin and your parents in particular, you often think about all the ways you're not with them as they go about their lives and you yours. You think about them getting older and the possibility of them getting sick. And about them eventually dying and you finding out, as must happen, you tell yourself, because that's the way life is. If you're living especially far away so that one world sleeps while the other is awake, you also think about the logistics of that Finding Out. In my mind's eye, it would be a phone call in the middle of the night because isn't that how it always is - terrible announcements arriving at inconvenient times, the hearers thrown into a frenzy of panic and instantaneous mourning?

The postulating ends there, usually. After all, the Finding Out is the worst case scenario, the bogeyman in the closet, the climax of the nightmare. You never really think about what comes after. The dream always ends. You always wake.

So, the phone rang.

It was my uncle, calling from Singapore at some unearthly hour. Someone in the background was wailing. 

I remember going very still, and somehow removing myself from the computer and finding myself in my bedroom. On the other side of the shut door, Jenna and Kate were doing whatever they usually did to unwind after a day of school. I remember talking to Mum and fighting my own mind to believe what she was saying because if it were true, I need to fly home.

The thoughts came to me in a torrent then: you need to call the husband at the office, you need to call the brother in Australia, you need to get the kids together and tell them Grandpa's gone, you need to cancel their diving class that evening, you need to make sure they have something for dinner, you need to pack, you need to produce a funeral out of thin air, you need to make Mum better, you need to get online and book a ticket - does Delta or United have the fewer stopovers and dangit don't I lose two days flying from the US to Asia, you need to find people to drive the kids to all the activities they have after school for the next seven days, you need to pray that your passport isn't expired, you need to not fall apart, you need to breathe, you need to sink to your knees and beg for peace, you need to remember what his last words to you were and if they were happy words or not, you need to move, move, move.

I remember calling people and making arrangements. I remember the neighborhood being mobilized, the church being mobilized, the in-laws saying we're coming, we're going to help, we'll be there for the kids. I remember the i'm sorrys and oh, nos and what can i dos? I remember the set of my jaw, the tension in my face, the way my entire body hummed with cold dread. I remember looking but not actually seeing.

I don't remember crying. Or feeling.

I flew solo to Singapore on an overpriced last-minute ticket. On the first leg of the flight, I sat next to a lady who asked me where I was going and words came spilling out: My Dad died, I'm going home for the funeral. I didn't think about whether it was cruel to spring news like that on a stranger trapped in her seat, but she talked to me for the next two hours and made me tell her stories and talked about her own family and kept me from going crazy. When the plane landed, she hugged me and told me to take care of myself. If I'd had the wherewithal I'd have said I don't know if you know God but today he used you to help me and thank you for letting him and please have a good life, but I didn't have those words. The second leg was 17 hours nonstop from San Francisco to Singapore and I measured out Benadryl and melatonin and made myself sleep.

And then I woke, and it was time to write. A eulogy - words I didn't have, couldn't conjure about someone I barely believed had suddenly disappeared simply because someone else on the phone had said so. 

God, help, my mind said. Bring to memory all the lessons from Sunday School and the stories and the verses we learned by heart when we were yea high.

Nothing. Not a Psalm - not even the one about the shadow of death and fearing no evil.

But in the yawning silence, an urgent thought: Jesus wept. 

It would be the shortest verse in the Bible that would ultimately come to me; I suppose a mind paralyzed could hardly yield much more than that. Still, it was a good verse - preachers' choice for sermons about the Messiah's empathy in the face of human loss. It certainly resurrected other losses - terminal relationships, derailed careers, leaving home - old scars suddenly searing bright with a phantom ache. But also with the faithfulness of a God who had brought every one to completion. I have never abandoned you. Not then, not now.

Later I would write in my journal, "I am in shock and I only know two things to be true: God loves me, and He does not waste pain."

I opened my laptop and muttered, "You can do this. Write."

I wrote.

Somewhere between ocean and sunrise, I finished it. And later, when the plane had landed on soil that had inexplicably ceased to be home, I read it at the memorial service. Herein are his accomplishments and virtues. How recent and relevant they are. How well they have set him apart from other men, common men, older men still walking the earth stooped and frail. How utterly illogical that he - so much younger, stronger, funnier - be the one done now. 

Partway through the reading, I began to suspect it wasn't a eulogy I'd written but an argument. And that I wasn't a daughter adoring her departed father so much as an attorney building a case before the universe. I was angry, so angry, but I didn't recognize it at the time, because I didn't yet have the capacity to feel.

The rest of the service was beautiful and filled with gentle words - comforting, hopeful words about celebrating a life well lived. I don't remember them. I remember instead knots in my head and heart, wound tight as if they would shred the hands that tried to work them. I remember thinking death is ugly, isn't celebration, why are these words pretty and bright and blue sky and beckoning shore? These words don't match.  

Authors John W. James & Russell Friedman, founders of the Grief Recovery Institute, observed, "We're taught to acquire things, not what to do when we lose them."1

Minutes. That’s how long it took me to lose my Dad. On his worktable lay his tools and solvents and fishing reels where he’d left them when he went to bed that night. And for days after, spare parts and more reels continued to arrive from eBay to my mailbox and doorstep in Minnesota. He and Mum would've been here in person just weeks later. He'd unpack those packages, meet the cats, pick berries and spend the summer hanging with the kids, reading on the deck, trawling garage sales. Where are the other words, the congruent words, the ones about disruption and horror, of unfinished projects and unspoken thoughts and pain that came out of nowhere. Why are we taking a shortcut to fond reminiscences and thankfulness? How can we hope now in legacy and glorious reunion when we barely believe the goodbye? Not yet; we need to stay in the moment, we need to be honest, we need to be authentic, we need the dark words. 

In the days and weeks after, it became my quest. Not healing and meaning and closure, the quintessential goals of victorious bereavement. Not even to explain the nuts and bolts and pros and cons of dying one way or another. Simply to describe. To be able to precisely say what it was that was so large it could utterly derail a perfectly ordinary spring afternoon - and all the lives it touched - from thousands of miles away. To give it a name and bring it out of the shadows. To map out its fringes so that I might possibly begin to grasp the scope of it. To delineate losing - and specifically, losing suddenly.

It’s strange - I’ve written this blog for years, and the words have always come easily. I've dissected nebulous sewing concepts and spewed cultural angst. I've written about identity and countries and discovering humor in the losing (and finding) of both. Yet after the phone call - and for many months after - I had no words. None at all. I’d been rearranged; I was a stranger unto myself. 

But slowly - ever so slowly - the words found their way to me.  From memoirs and expert how-tos. From delicately nuanced fiction. From friends, family and strangely intimate forums whose people knew, who got it. From therapy. From the camaraderie of a grief support group. From the kindness of strangers on airplanes and the keen and patient observations of my husband and children. From obscure online articles that popped up in my news feed weeks after I’d desperately typed “grief” and its unhappy variations into the search field. 

Grief. 

Not at all the same as sadness, although there is some of that, tucked benignly in its underlayers. And not the same as mourning, although the world might see some of that, too, when we are ready. Grief is different, is more, is hard to pigeonhole. And there are so many kinds: normal, complicated, ambiguous, disenfranchised, compound, traumatic, anticipatory. It was a relief to say them, all those names, all those words. 

I gathered some of the words and saved them in my journal.

“Perhaps one of the most unfair aspects of grief is that we are forced to change the direction of our love. We are forced to shift a fundamental part of who we are, at the very moment we are not ready and are unprepared. Loving a person who can no longer receive it is heartbreaking.”2

"Sometimes we need help making the decision to say goodbye to them in life and move our loved ones into our hearts in death."3

“In reality, any death is a collective loss because it reminds us all deeply of the fragility surrounding us on this earth.”4

Four weeks after Dad died, I made myself stay in the pain long enough to describe it.

"I have spoken to Mum for 28 days and he has not been in the background. He has not sneezed his mighty sneezes. He has not smiled his impish, cheeky smile. For 28 days, I have been on FaceTime with Mum and he has not been on the screen, shared its space with her face. I don't understand what that means.

"But where is he - Dad? The soul, the essence of him, the particular vibrations of the air that is the sound of things only he says? Where is the change he brought to the world, the earth, by having participated in it, given and taken for 76 years? Where is he, exactly? How can he be displaced here so that a hole remains, without reappearing Elsewhere? How is matter conserved? Or energy, the will, the ideas, the affections and disgusts, and the bestowments of those affections? And where do ours land, who are still determined to love him?"

Last month, Frank Bruni, NYT Op-Ed columnist, wrote of losing his mother more than two decades earlier, "A person is here one second, gone the next. Breathing, not. Able to love and be loved, then only to be loved. The transition is instantaneous, no matter how drawn out the prelude to it. There’s no way to prepare for it. No way to process it."5

Here is irony. I am a trained and licensed (but lapsed) counselor. Decades ago, early in my training, I counseled a middle schooler whose father had had a heart attack on her birthday. In my memory, I thought I’d spoken with her in kindness but I came across the transcripts of our session a couple of months back and was stunned at how bland my empathy had been. How much I talked. How uncomfortable I seemed with simply sitting with her in her pain. How expeditiously I’d wanted her to see that she'd been coping well, that she had such powerful resources and gorgeous memories of their time together. 

I don’t believe I did her harm but some things you don’t really get until they happen to you. Yet when they do, it further surprises you how little you actually know even in the sameness.  People who’ve lost people over long and ravaging illnesses. People who’ve lost people to catastrophic aneurysms and cardiac arrests. People who've lost people because of suicide and natural disasters and someone else's carelessness or malice. People who've lost children and babies and dreams of babies. Similar outcome, yet a thousand distinct shades on a million disparate spectra. Utterly different griefs.

And all so jeopardous that we resort to metaphors to even broach them. Grief is a journey, we say, is a tree in a storm, chapters of a story, relentless waves, a grand adventure, metamorphosis. These depictions sanitize and comfort, but they are not the true words, do not say what we who have truly lost need them to say.

C.S. Lewis, in grieving the death of his wife, famously observed, "No one told me how grief felt so like fear."6 I found that to be true, albeit in a more literal sense than Lewis had meant it. All bereavement is wrenching but sudden, unexpected loss is a special kind of thief. It steals the person you love and the safety of knowing how death works, of believing you can see its approach, can set your clocks, prepare your affairs, muster your defence. And it lurks in corners long after, whispering if I can surprise you once, I can do it again.

Herein lay an epiphany: only after I’d found words for the trauma of his death - the dark words - could I access the particular sorrow of losing my Dad. Even now, nine months later, the memories are only just surfacing. Hidden and unreachable, those everyday things I once shared with this man, but here they are at last - a story one day, a dream another, a memory of a zipper lesson, an echo of an emotion on my birthday, his face and mannerisms in a stranger, his voice in my head, his wisdom in my soul. Slowly I am exhaling. I think the healing has begun; I am finally coming undone. 

And I am ready to tell you about my Dad.

With LiEr, circa 1970s

This is the wonderfully funny man who told hilarious and irreverent stories of his rebellious youth, who as a child ate baguettes spread with butter and (very stinky) shrimp paste because there wasn't a lot else to eat in post-WWII Singapore. Who chose a teaching career because he was a champion of the underdog and because it gave him free afternoons and extended vacations to spend with his family. Who built all our furniture from plywood which, because it wouldn’t fit on a bus, he and mom carried on their shoulders as they walked the miles between lumberyard and home. Who never met a sport he didn't like - or eventually pick up - and whose dream it was to watch a live MLB game in a bona fide American baseball stadium (and which he happily fulfilled multiple times in MN). 

With my mother Mae, Twins Stadium, 2011

Who in his heyday was the coach of the national softball team of Singapore and later its umpire-in-chief. And whose sport-related injuries later redirected him to darts, snooker and archery, the latter which he so loved that he coached it professionally in his retirement years. 

With Jenna, Indonesia, 2018

Who remembered and gleefully recounted the earliest stories I wrote and illustrated as a wee child, vile and embarrassing though they were. Who was a devoted husband and adoring (and very jokey) grandpa. 

With Kate, 2011

Who built the kids’ picnic table and easel, which we use all the time at their birthday parties and craft fairs. Who never owned a car because he loved taking the bus and watching the world go by outside his window. Who in my childhood was always drawing, painting and manipulating any medium on which he could lay his hands. Who taught me the old arts of silkscreening, papier mache, lettering, basketweaving, macrame, decoupage and woodworking and the kids paper marbling and the ingenious use of clothespins and popsicle sticks in doll furniture and baskets. 

With Emily, 2011

Who sewed zippers better than I ever could and introduced me to the wonderful world of utility fabrics and bagmaking. Who could've easily been remembered for everything he did were it not for how amazing he also simply was. 

With Mae & the grandkids, Indonesia, 2018

Who, himself touched by much early loss, remained surely but gently flawed yet generously, ferociously tender. Who deeply cherished his family - and made sure we always knew it. Who joyfully stewarded his talents. Who taught and inspired just by being. Who had such a curious wonder about his world that he, in the words of Cassie Beasley, "thought inexpensive things were just as interesting as expensive things"7. Who rode his bike to the beach in the early mornings to fish as the sun rose, then gave away his catch to strangers on his way home because he didn't like the eating nearly as much as the casting. Who had just discovered the joys of repairing and restoring vintage fishing reels as a newfound pastime and growing source of post-retirement income.

And who had never been in a hospital with a serious illness until he had a heart attack nine months ago that was over in minutes. 

Ah, there are the dark words, sneaking into our resplendent memories and shading them bittersweet. How politically incorrect. I concede that not everyone will welcome them in their grief vocabulary as I have. And some will feel drawn only to the bright words and fix their eyes on the light so that the shadows lie only and ever behind them. Before I lost my Dad, I was a light-gazer. But now I know an odd truth about dark words: do not fear them, because when you find them, they will set you free. This is emotional resonance, and it is immensely powerful.

"And who had never been in a hospital with a serious illness until he had a heart attack nine months ago that was over in minutes."

I am thankful that my Dad had never been in a hospital with a serious illness. I am thankful that my Dad sat in his chair that night, exhaled, lifted his gaze and took the fast pass home. I’ve often written about the losses of leaving Singapore but there is a flip side too: living halfway across the world from Dad and Mum in these last fourteen years has required me to be intentional with our opportunities to meet and spend time together. That clarity is one of the unexpected gifts of loss, and when I look back on those years, I see full days, meaningful, edifying conversations and not a single wasted moment. And I am thankful that when my Dad died, he'd been doing what he loved and was excited about. 

Almost ten years ago, I made this shirt for Dad. I'd always suspected he was somewhat leery of it - the blazing color, the shameless self-promotion; which self-respecting Asian father would dare wear such a thing? After Dad died, I remembered this shirt and thought to take it back to the US as a keepsake. But I couldn't find it, and eventually Mum told me why it was missing from the house: he was wearing it that night. I remember howling out of a raw devastation that on top of everything else, I'd lost even that. 

Now, I see it differently: that early morning when he woke and made his journey home, Dad was wearing my words.


So now I rebuild. Even as I miss him - so many layers of missing, one for each of the myriad of nuances in his relationship with me, and with others in his life. Without him in it, the world feels a little less funny, a little less clever, and altogether quiet and dim.

With Kate, 2008

The day will come when I will be a light-gazer again, when I will fix my eyes on glory and nothing less. That Dad and I will meet again is certain, to which end my aspiration will be to have lived my own life in honor of him and his. And at the very end of time, I will answer the question Samwise asked Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, "is everything sad going to come untrue?"8 

I believe it. It will be a good day, and the wait will have been worth it. Until then, however, I will continue to search for the words, both the dark and the bright, because grief is both. As it is so many other dichotomies also: the swell and the ebb, the peak and the valley, the roar and the silence, the old and the new, the pain and the love.

Pain, which Kessler noted, "is evidence of [the] love,"9  love which, as God Himself promised, "many waters cannot quench."10

Come, then, swell and ebb. 

I am grateful for the words.


References:

1 John W. James & Russell Friedman (2009). The Grief Recovery Handbook, 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition, p.24

2 Jamie Cannon (2020/2/3). Stop Saying 'I'm Sorry for Your Loss.

3  David Kessler (2017/6/9). https://buffalonews.com/2017/06/09/grief-evidence-love-says-bestselling-author-coming-wny/

4  Jamie Cannon (2020/2/3). Stop Saying 'I'm Sorry for Your Loss.

5 Frank Bruni (2020/2/12). New York Times Opinion

6 C.S. Lewis (1961) , A Grief Observed, p.3

7 Cassie Beasley (2015). Circus Mirandus, p.274

8  J.R.R. Tolkein (1965), Return of the King, p.283

9  David Kessler (2019). Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, p.92

10  Song of Solomon 8:7

Joyful Christmas

True, this is several days after, but at least I made it before the end of the year, so it still counts, right?

How was everyone's celebrations? I hope you had safe travels, warm homes and full hearts. Christmas for us this year was a little crazier than usual because we added some travel to the mix to see family. Which, when one also has pets who need to be cared for while one is away, is a substantial item to add to the already-full to-do list. 

Anyway, I decided that I needed to slow down and savor the richness of the Advent season, so I pulled out my wooden blanks and paintbrushes and made these trees. I've made these with my girls before, long ago when they were still little, so I felt all nostalgic painting a whole new batch late into the night this year. It was oddly cathartic, in a way sewing or cardboarding can never be - there's something about the detailwork, I think, and the smallness of the project and the feel of wood in one's hand. 

These were gifts to my family and friends in Singapore this year - a little wooden tree for each household whose people have been in my life for as long as I can remember. If I'd had more time, I'd have painted twice as many, because when one starts to take stock of all the folks one has been loved by, fifteen doesn't even come close. 

Blessings and good thoughts to you guys this Christmas and the new year! May the days ahead be full of peace, good health and crazy-creative inspiration, buoyed by rich, happy times with all the people you love. I hope 2019 has been a year of glorious memories, and that 2020 will be same, and more. 

See you next year!