#i am just always fascinated (read: depressed? frustrated?) by the fact that women characters are just.... not allowed to be complex

[shen-daozhang]

Me: oh yay a 0.5 timeline Erha fic Me: oh nice Song Qiutong is in this ---- Fic: *portrays Song Qiutong as a heartless, raging bitch* Me: *immediately closes the fic*

[stevedonnellyfaith-blog]

The Face of Grief (Post 59) 10-15-14

                        I started to write about a piano this week on Wednesday but was also finishing C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed and the book had such a profound effect on me that its subject interrupted my concentration on the other matter.  For me writing works best when the work writes itself.  When a particular subject encroaches on my piece of mind, it is usually best to submit to the invasion and not resist otherwise the act of composition becomes like listening to Charlotte Church in my left ear while My Charona plays in my right – humming along is not an option.   So, for this week, the piano will remain silent and ignored.  Instead I will write about grief.

C.S. Lewis, former atheist, brilliant writer, and one of Father Jerry’s favorites, wrote quite a bit of excellent Christian literature.  A confirmed bachelor, Lewis married Joy Davidman Gresham late in life in a civil ceremony to prevent the divorcee from being deported from England at the onset of cancer.  With her disease in remission, they later fell in love and remarried in the Church of England.  Soon after their remarriage Joy’s cancer returned and after several years she died leaving Lewis alone once again and grief ridden.   Because Lewis was who he was, he captured his impressions of grief in four old exam books that he found lying around the house.  

A Grief Observed is short and did not turn out as Lewis intended.  He sought to create a portrait of his grief, but he found that his grief was not a static creature but instead changed over time. He stopped after four chapters because he realized that the transformation of his pain would likely continue throughout the rest of his life, but his literary characterization of his initial grief would be all that was helpful to his readers.  He stopped at about sixty pages, exhausting all the discarded exam books he had lying about his house, called it done and published it under a pseudonym.  Lewis died only three years after Joy with whom I presume he was reunited soon thereafter.

His short book remains an incredibly helpful legacy to anyone who has suffered through the excruciation of the death of a loved one.  While his writing is not an elixir capable of curing the pain of loss, it is helpful to see how things mellowed for Lewis especially in his relationship with God. It took a genius to write the book and an incredible amount of character to publish a work of such intimate feelings. It seems to me that because of Lewis’ perspective, A Grief Observed might be more helpful to men, but as I have explained before, how women feel is very mysterious to me. It may be potentially more helpful to women, in fact.  If you think you need it, read it.  It is about 60 pages that are very readable if the English flavor of the Narnia books didn’t bore or bug you.

There was much that was helpful in the book for me, but there were also parts that seemed to be for other people.  Lewis describes two types of pain: one that is intermittent (like an air raid) and one that is constant and draining (like an artillery barrage). As a severely wounded serviceman in World War I and as a British civilian during the Nazi air blitz, Lewis spoke from experience about the two types of military actions.  From a pain standpoint his grief was likened to intermittent pain caused by extraneous thoughts or external random triggers, but he never suffered the endless waves of pain and depression that he watched Joy experience.  His experience is similar to mine in its intermittence if not in its intensity, as I too have never been subject to the barrage of unrelenting pain.  Like Lewis’ experience with Joy, I have watched my wife suffer through that type of prolonged pain.  Pam battled a deep depression for several years and then suffered another extended barrage when she fought confusion and fear in the first several weeks after her first craniotomy.  Both experiences left me in awe of my wife’s bravery and resilience and also in the power of the grace of God.

It is important for military officers to understand people’s body language and motivation, and by habit I study people’s faces and posture.  It can be a fascinating and distracting occupation.  I might notice a beautiful young girl in the choir or an alter server who resembles how I imagine the Virgin Mary to have looked at that age. Then I might notice that her posture indicates that she has low self-esteem and has no conception that God has chosen for her to resemble Our Mother – usually at that point Abby, or one of the kids, will remind me that the greatest miracle in the world is actually taking place on the altar if I would care to focus my attention properly. I sometimes lose focus in Adoration and end up praying for a person I notice whose face is covered in quiet tears. I imagine this is just a case of Jesus putting my ADD to some helpful use.

Anyway, I once sat through an hour long church function mesmerized by the face of a young woman stricken by grief.  Her plight was very disturbing to me, because I could tell that she was suffering through one of the prolonged attacks of pain through which I have never suffered. Her face was very beautiful which made the tableau especially troubling to me as she struggled not to move any of her features lest she lose her composure.

The situation was the worst of all situations for the male gender – identifying a serious problem and then standing by in total impotence.  Failure to intervene is frustration beyond frustration, but good manners, common decency and in some cases restraining orders prevent men from randomly comforting other people.  Superman and real heroes like policemen, firemen, priests, nurses and school teachers are allowed to break that rule in extremis situations.  For the rest of us men, not being able to attempt to fix an identified problem leaves us with a feeling of inadequacy that we demonstrate by getting angry with someone not involved in the situation over an unrelated issue. Trust me it all makes sense to us.

More importantly, with regard to the woman in pain, I can think of nothing constructive to do for her other than to pray.  Sometimes in these situations I pray that Pam will intercede for the person as well. She always understood my frustrations and inadequacies.  She also surely has a much better vantage point on whatever the woman’s situation is and can ask pertinent questions of Jesus that might possibly be answered more directly than I am accustomed.  If the woman is still in pain, I hope that other IHM parishioners notice her and pray for her as well.  My family has discovered how powerful our parish is when it sets its collective mind toward intercessory prayer.  Someday, I hope to see the young woman again once she has received some solace.  I expect that she has a pretty smile that Jesus loves to see.

[dalhousiediaries]

A Suicidal Rant.

♪ Currently listening to: Playlist: Café montréalais by Spotify ♪ 📚 Currently reading: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki 📚 

Writing about suicide has never come easy for me.  

Or maybe it has, since every time I sit myself down to write about something, that’s the first thing that comes to mind.  Perhaps I’m fascinated with death and the idea of the paradoxical “life-after-death” belief so many people possess.  But, who hasn’t thought about death once in their lifetime?  I’m no exception.

I’ve been really thinking about this topic, whether to post it up on this blog (dalhousiediaries) or whether to start up a new blog entirely, a new personal blog to post content with topics like this, whenever I feel the urge to write about something philosophical or I guess, whenever I feel the powerful urge to write the deep thoughts that linger in my mind.  The unspeakable content that rests only in the deepest and untampered portions of my brain.

Personally speaking, as a child I never really thought about the afterlife, or what would happen to me after death.  It seemed so laid out to me, almost mechanical.  People would mourn, a funeral would be held, a celebration of life that has passed, and then I guess, people would get over the fact that I was no longer breathing on this planet, in this world, living in this time. However, as I grew older, that changed.  Not the actual process aforementioned, but the sociological and the emotional process of “getting over someone”.  I say this because I’ve felt this firsthand.  

Living in Halifax, being separated from my family and friends back home was basically like dying socially.  I was no longer present to take part in hangouts, physically be there to make new memories and the only way people could interact with me was through the Internet.  You’d think a lot of people would contact me and at least, try to keep in touch, but when everyone’s busy getting their own life together and amid their own worries, I don’t particularly blame anyone for growing distant.   It’s just interesting, in the beginning of the semester, so many people missed me, talked to me, and even cried about my departure – just like a real death had occurred.  It really made me think “is this what would happen if I died?”.  Of course, time stops for no one, and as the months went on, perchance my friends had realized I would be back soon enough or had gotten swamped by the amount of work they had to do in their respective programs, I had stopped receiving such messages and contact from friends back in BC.

I’m not upset about that at all.  Despite what it seems like.  It’s just interesting from my point of view, almost like a simulation of life on earth after my death – only on a much, much, smaller scale.

Why am I writing about this? Did something happen to make me contemplate my own death? Am I suicidal? No, I am not.

I’m currently reading a novel called A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (a tantalizing read, might I add).  The novel talks quite a lot about one’s inevitable demise, whether it be intentionally sparked or a natural one.  The setting is partially set in Japan around the 1940s(?), and the other half set in modern-day Whaletown, BC, a very real place on the Cortes Island.  The novelist, Ruth Ozeki, encounters a Hello Kitty lunchbox that acts as a safe keep for the diary of a Japanese girl, Naoko Yasutani, who narrates her daily life through purple gel pen ink and a DIY diary.

The perspective switch between Ruth and Naoko is not only well done, but gives a different insight and contrast between the two characters, and their very different lives, despite the same ethnic heritage.  The reader follows Ruth as she reads the log of Naoko, following her life page by page, discovering information at the same time as the audience.  It’s as if Naoko’s reaching out from the right side, while Ruth and the audience are reaching towards Naoko from the left – hoping to collide in the middle.

Okay so, why did this book spark my interest in death and suicide again?

It’s a topic that Naoko toys with a lot in the novel, or I guess, in her diary.  She writes about her and her family’s experience moving from Japan to Silicon Valley in the States due to her father being a computer science programmer or some sort like that, settling down in Sunnyvale, California, where she spent the majority of her life there.  Her family dynamic is drastically flipped on its head when her father gets laid off, and Nao (as she’s commonly referred to) and her family emigrate back to Japan.

Nao gets bullied relentlessly by her classmates. Her mother spends all her days watching the jellyfish in the aquarium before getting an office job. Her father becomes a hikikomori (ひきこもり), spending his days in the park, feeding the crows.  Feigning work in the early days of returning to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Nao’s father, Haruki as his name is revealed, decides to commit suicide by jumping in front of a train, the Chuo Rapid Express, which apparently; is one of the more popular methods of self-execution according to a self account Ruth finds whilst searching for the history and the current whereabouts of the Yasutani’s.

I had understood why Haruki Yasutani would want to commit suicide, his shame from lying to his family about finding a new job, the fact that he had fallen from such a successful position and left with nothing, the stripping of all pride and dignity spending his days feeding the crows at the nearby park, feeling sorry for his wife and daughter especially for not being able to support them.  I guess you could say, he was spiraling into a deep depression.

I, unfortunately, could tie this with the current situation with my father.

I now realize why this topic has been on my mind for so long, why this situation with Nao and her father captivated my interest and cultivated my thoughts to yield this fruit of epiphany.  I suppose I can conclude that I’m writing this, and have been writing about this topic for months because it’s a very real situation that I simply cannot ignore anymore.  Am I venting? Yeah, I think I can say that I am.

Though I’m frustrated, I know someone who’s even more frustrated with themselves – my father.

He’s not dead, readers.

But there’s something that tugs at my heartstrings and some evil spirit that puts in unfavourable thoughts in my daily life.  What if he had died?

It’s natural to see your parents or guardians suffer, to struggle through with the adulty-responsibilities we all have to one day face.  Having said that, there’s nothing wrong with suffering a little bit, to have a bit of hardship in your life to harden yourself into a better person.  The more experience one accumulates over their lifetime, more often than naught, they are more valued, wiser, knowledgeable and so on.  I don’t doubt that at all.

I strongly believe in strength acquired by difficult situations and times.  After all, I have had my fair share of disturbing moments in life, times that have disrupted my, at the time, established rhythmic pattern that made up my daily (mundane) life.  It’s like an iron sword in the making.  The more you forge and burn it in fire, the more strengthened it becomes, or it could take on a different shape entirely and the blacksmith may decide in last minute haste, to produce a sickle or a dagger instead.  Of course I’m no ironworker or familiar with blacksmithing, but there’s my poor attempt at creating a relatable metaphor.

I can confidently say that my parents have seen their fair share of difficult times, for Heaven’s sake, they immigrated to a foreign land with no family other than themselves and me, little to no money and what connections do you think a middle aged Korean couple would have overseas in the land of the maple leaf, hockey, and apparently endless winters, the land Koreans called Kenada (캐나다) rather than the rounder sound that native English speakers called, Canada? I’ll tell you that they had no connections.

I’ve always appreciated the work my parents have put in their life here in Canada.  I’ve always admired the strength they’ve showed over the past 18-19 years, or maybe it was feigned strength in hopes that their only daughter doesn’t catch on to their fears and sense the very real struggles and hardship that living as immigrants unfortunately brings to the table.

Recently, and mayhap this is just me putting up my father’s dirty laundry for all to see, but my father has been acting drastically different – even he’s saying he’s “no longer the same dad as [he] was in the past”, which of course I’ve noticed the change as the years flew by – living with the man for 18-19 years, one would hope I noticed the changes.  He’s a man that would do anything for me, well not anymore I guess but back in the earlier days, I suppose.

The whole reason why we have Sien (my dog) now is because I’ve pestered him for years to get a dog, to which he promised we would when our family became homeowners – a promise that seemed farfetched now, but in 7-8 years we had become just that, homeowners. Along came the dog in another 3 years or so.  Initially against the idea, he gave in just to see me happy, and perchance he noticed my own change in personality, he wanted to see me change positively, secretly praying the dog would aid in my transition back to the positive daughter I once was.

But anyway, my father explained to me the other day, in blind rage, a firm voice with an angry tone yet one can sense the slightest bit of tremble at the back of his throat, that he was changing, like an adolescent in the middle of puberty, like how my mother would one day go through menopause. This is a phenomena I’d like to dub as manopause.

Over the years, I’ve heard some pretty unsettling things fly from my father’s mouth.  Like him asking me whether I’d approve of him dating other women, getting a divorce with mum, or what would happen if he had enlisted in the possible war that might occur between South and North Korea, and if he had died.  He had asked me about the matter of his demise on numerous occasions, each with different executions – from his death in the war, to him killing himself, and how.

I always knew what to say to his questions; his life was his own and if he wanted to get a divorce with mum because he’s had enough, that’s good on him and he can go for it, if he wanted to date other women, sure – only except that I had to pre-approve of my potential step-mother before their relationship escalates.  But when it came to his death, I never knew what to say.  Or more like, I didn’t want to say the wrong thing that could possibly, even if there was a slight chance, intensify his desire to carry out the action.

Anyway, I’m pretty content with what I’ve written and though it wasn’t originally what I had intended to write about suicide and my unruly fascination with it, I feel like this took priority.  If this triggered anyone, I’m sorry – but it really needed to get off my mind and keeping it private or unpublished seemed to defeat the purpose of writing it down in the first place.  Maybe, this is my silent cry for help.  That maybe God is reading this, and can restore peace into my father.

He had told me, again in blind fury; “At least you’re gone in Halifax.  At least you have somewhere else to go here.  I have no where to go.  I’m stuck, stressed.  But it makes me feel better knowing that you’re over there”.

In the odd chance my dad is reading this, because occasionally my mum will read my posts and share them with my father;

Sorry Dad, I love you.