Hit and run post

Baby & Seppo are sleeping. I should go to sleep as well soon.

It’s the new year. Lots of crazy things happened at the end of the year, much of it negative. I didn’t get to do a retrospective and a resolution post. This won’t be one either.

I do have a couple of to-dos I took care of tonight though. I paid some bills. I bought a ticket for my mom to come out for the baby’s baek-il (100th day celebration) later this month. I started an evite for it, but realized I need to get a guest list together before I send it out.

Things I still have to do: finish the thank you notes from the baby shower, and include a small photo of the baby. I wish I had everyone’s physical addresses on file, so I’ve very slowly been gathering them. The influx of Christmas cards helped, but it just reminded me that I’d like to start sending out Christmas cards as well.

I’ve also been working my way through a will & trust estate planning packet, which I had started before Thanksgiving but never finished. This would be good to finish before the week is up. You don’t want things like that hanging over your head.

The baby is just about 10 weeks old. He’s changing like crazy everyday. He babbles up a storm every morning, after every nap, and any time I try to engage him in conversation. He’s very game. 🙂 He is trying to use his hands now. I don’t think he quite understands what is going on with his appendages, but he’s quite curious.

When you engage him on his activity mat with his feet near a post, he’ll get excited seeing the effects of kicking at the post — the entire set of dangly toys move! He stares at his feet while wiggling his toes. When you put something in his hands, he instinctively pulls it close to his mouth. He used to just touch his hands to his mouth, then he started to suck on his fingers/half his fists, and now he’s interested in getting other things in there.

He didn’t use to drool until about a week or a week and a half ago, but now any time he is intently staring at something or trying to bring it to his mouth, he starts to drool. Haha, what a goofball! Today, he laughed out loud when Seppo blew on his belly! And when I kissed his cheeks! Aww, the small little moments, they make my day.

I spend so much time with him trying to read him that I’m pretty decent at figuring out if he’s bored or hungry or tired or has a wet diaper. I think Seppo’s getting a little bit sad to find himself less adept at interpreting the cries, since he has less time with him during the day, but he’s doing great in every way. Seppo continues to give me morning breaks any time he can, bonding with the baby while giving me some luxurious sleeping-in time.

I am trying to brainstorm some ideas for work when I have free mental cycles. I had an idea earlier today and I forgot to write it down! Crap, I think I forgot. Ha.

This year, a lot of our friends are getting married. P&C, K&N, and A&K are all getting married in June! Wow! C&S are getting married on 10/10/10. 🙂 We hope to be able to travel to their weddings.

My sister, her husband, and their two daughters want to visit the Bay Area sometime in the summer as a vacation as well as to meet their new relative. I wish my son could grow up near his cousins! I loved having my cousins around when I was growing up.

Yikes, it’s late. I better get to bed. I wish I could remember what the work idea was. D’oh.

First Christmas and life with our two month old baby

It’s hours away from our first Christmas with the baby.

He doesn’t just smile now; he laughs and giggles and squeaks while kicking his feet around. Even when I’m at my most tired, after the third fitfull night in a row followed by as many early mornings, when I hear the little one gurgling and cooing and giggling, I feel a smile spread over my face and stretch into every corner of my body.

He’s so much fun! He’s always been communicative about his basic needs, but in the last week, we figured out that when we are able to really pinpoint his tired cues and help him wind down to fall asleep, he’s extra happy when he’s awake, he eats eagerly and efficiently, and sleeps better through the night.

The odd thing, which seems to jibe with something I read in one of the books, is that the better he naps during the day, the better he sleeps at night. This is the opposite of how it works for us adults. I think this is because if he is too tired, he won’t eat until he’s full because his sleepiness and tiredness is bothering him too much. So he goes to sleep then he wakes up feeling really, really hungry, but he’s tired enough that he is upset at waking up. Hunger and sleepiness battle on, and he wakes up crying and doesn’t eat his fill because he is too tired. Wash, rinse, repeat in 1.5 hour blocks.

When he is well rested during the day, I can feed him at night until he is really satiated and catch his sleepy signals just as they start. Then he goes to bed, sleeps longer because he is full (between 3.5 and 6 hours!), wakes up to eat when he is hungry, but he may not be crying because he’s well-rested and his hunger isn’t intense, so he can go back to sleep fairly quickly after a light feeding.

We’ve established a fairly regular routine where he wakes us up at 7am, pretty much regardless of when he goes to sleep. I usually end up feeding him in my sleep 15-30 min before that, not realizing it is morning, then he makes it clear he’s not going back to sleep. He is content to play in bed with us for a good 20-30 minutes. Seppo takes care of him when he gets fussy until just before he has to leave for work, which is really, really, truly, sincerely wonderful for me. He also does nighttime diaper changes. Even though I vow I’ll let him sleep, I find I’m befuddled by the break in routine when the baby wets himself at night (he’s been holding it many nights lately, or hasn’t let a slightly wet diaper bother him) that I’m sluggish and don’t know what’s left or right, up or down.

When Seppo leaves, I play some games with the baby’s hands and feet, talk/sing with him, and, lately, read to him. He’ll usually look sleepy again by 9:30 or 10 in the morning, so I either rock him to sleep or put him in the sling and go about fixing myself brunch, which puts him to sleep in 5 to 45 minutes, which is when I eat. He’ll nap for an hour or two, then wake up to eat like a fiend at around 11 or so.

After he eats, I burp him and let him quietly get adjusted to being awake again. When he starts to get fidgety, the games begin anew. I play old Korean games I remember with his hands, fascinated by how much he pays attention and enjoys the process. I sing nursery rhymes, both Korean and American. I walk around with him, showing him new things and noting how he stares or laughs or lunges in his completely uncoordinated way.

Sometime between noon and two, depending on if he managed to get a morning nap, he gets that sleepy look on his face again, so I help him fall asleep. How successful I am at this during the day is what makes the difference between an easy day and a bad day, because if he’s too tired, he’ll cry and cry and be unable to find relief.

Anyway, if things go well, we repeat the morning’s routine. On a really good day, he will take two or three naps totalling 5 hours or so. This means he’s ready for his long block of sleep between 7pm and 9pm. He’ll sleep around 4-5 hours usually, then eat and be back asleep within 20 min. Next time, he’ll wake up in about 2-3 hours, then in 1-2 hours.

On bad nights, he’ll wake up every 1.5 hours and take more time to get back to sleep.

On days he naps a lot, I manage to squeeze in an hour nap which is awesome. While I’m rocking the baby to sleep or walking around the house with him in a sling, I watch tv. I also watch tv in the late afternoon, while reading books to the baby.

It feels like I should be able to do so much when he naps, but he wakes himself so often during the day that I’m constantly on the watch. Getting him to fall into deep, long sleep at night takes a good hour or three.

On great days, I do a load of baby laundry, load/unload the dishwater, and cook dinner. On bad days, I will have eaten only crackers and chocolate all day, been desperate to pee because the baby looks exhausted and has been fussy and on the brink of sleep for hours, and forgotten if I had brushed my teeth.

On great days, Seppo comes home to the dinner I made, and I can let him rest up a bit. On bad days, Seppo comes home, sees the look on my face, takes the baby and gently pushes me toward the bedroom to take a nap. Seppo cooks dinner or we order out and I try to recover in time to get the baby ready for nighttime sleep then spend 2-3 hours getting him there.

On average days, we manage to hang out, coo over our awesome baby, watch tv, and catch up on our days.

All in all, people are right when they say it’s hard work. But figuring him out more and more makes life easier. And he puts giant, crazy, face-splitting grins on our faces. Everyday, he does some new cute thing. It’s like puppies and kittens in fluffy towels times a bajillion. He makes me squeal, laugh, cuddle, and kiss him all day.

I get tired during the day and I get frustrated at times, but I never get mad at him. When he is upset and fussy, I feel bad for the little guy because I know he’d rather be happy too.

Tomorrow is Christmas. It’s his first. I regret that we didn’t get a tree and that we didn’t get him a cute little Santa or reindeer outfit so we can show it to him when he is a big kid. I want to really live in the moments of our lives as a family, to really create and cherish memories and traditions. I know we do it in our everyday; I just wish I had had the foresight to get things together earlier.

I suppose our traditions will have to live on in things like the songs we make up to sing to the baby, such as my favorite, “Driving a Car”. It changes every time, but generally goes like this:

[hold baby’s hands and make gestures while singing]
Driving a car,
Typing an email,
Driving a car,
Mowing the lawn!

Driving a car,
Beating up babies,
Driving a car,
Taking a shower!

Driving a car,
Skiing cross-country,
Driving a car,
Punching a bear!

Driving a car,
Writing a blog post,
Driving a car,
Flaming a troll!

Thank you, thank you; I know. 🙂 I also sing “You’re a Baby After All” to the tune of “It’s a Small World After All”.

Briefs

Week 3: Baby started to stay awake and aware longer. He would stare at everything. This is also around when he got baby acne.

Week 4: I think this is probably when he stopped pooping at night.

Week 5: He started to vocalize a lot quite suddenly. He also started to smile in response to external stimuli. He laughs when you poke his cheeks or bop his nose. It’s quite adorable. He’s starting to kick his feet to push up/forward too.

He’s changing so fast!

Already on to mom & dad

He will not put up with our shenanigans. Note his face after Seppo makes his belly button speak. This was on his 12th day. I think his face looks pretty “grown-up” for under two weeks. WARNING: You can see the stump of the umbilical cord in this, but it is pretty small, not like a dangling cord or anything like that. You may still not want to see it, so I am giving you fair warning.

The longer posts are still coming, but I want to try to get into a habit of posting little bit here and there and not letting the days pass without trying to preserve some of the little moments.

An addendum to the last post

Just as a note, it occurs to me that I’ve talked to many people this past week: some people that I talk to often and some that I rarely talk to. And I hope no one that I spoke to thought of the last post as, “Stop calling me, you freak!” I enjoyed every call and every conversation and every wish for luck as friends & family reached out to give me a last minute pep talk. It’s been fantastic and I’ve never felt so loved and well-supported.

And I really, really appreciate it! And enjoyed every minute.

I’m going into hibernation not because I don’t want to talk to you guys, but because I am quite suddenly, as of yesterday, very, very, very tired and sleepy all the time and have been falling asleep randomly (and still have those pesky official calls and last minute things to do around the house).

I’ve read that could be one of the signs of impending labor, so I’m trying to rest up the body as best as I can. 😀 That’s all.

Thanks! I hope no one misunderstood and thought I didn’t want to talk to you. I just need to switch off for a bit.

Random ramblings, again

Been sleeping on the livingroom recliner the last couple of days (minus yeterday), which is much better on the hip & pelvis.

I started a blog post titled “Nesting, Nagging, and Nurture Shock” but didn’t finish it because I’m too tired and it felt like it was going to be a long post.

I have something on the brain about “wanting to give what you felt you lacked” when it comes to parenting and other close relationships, but much like the prior attempt, it seems like it’ll take too much time. The basic gist is that people perceive what they wish they had when they were kids, and try their best to make sure that their kids don’t feel that same deficiency.

As an example, if you felt that you were never praised enough, you might tend toward overpraising your child. If you, like my older brother, always felt like there was never enough to go around such that ever penny earned (whether by him or my parents) went toward necessities, then you might tend toward excessive buying of toys/clothes/etc. for your progeny, even if he/she doesn’t have any desire to have whatever it is you are getting them.

I think it is difficult not to see your own blind spots. I wonder what my own blind spots will be. I know that with my little brother, my older sister bought him a ton of cute little clothes when he was little, and maybe that reflected how we always had second-hand clothing growing up and how that made her feel when others perceived this. My older brother brought home a new toy almost every trip outside the house. He still buys him all sorts of things: new cell phones, laptops, stereos, computers, food, clothes. There’s nothing wrong with it, but often he buys things that the little bro never even showed an iota of interest in, because he thinks he might want it.

What did I do and what do I continue to do with him? I do the same thing in my own way, which is to try to give him what I wanted. When I was really small, I really, really wanted books. We didn’t have books in our home (except for a bible and a homemaker’s encyclopedia) until I was about 5 or 6. This wasn’t because my parents didn’t want the best education and literacy for their kids; it was because back then, the home finances were such that my mom would talk down the guy who sold mung bean sprouts the equivalent of a penny from the cost of the 10 cent bag.

I remember when my mom bought two 30-book sets on an installment plan from the door-to-door bookseller. One set was for me & my sister, and the second set was for my older brother. I remember when the bookseller came to the door, and we looked at the sample books from two different kids’ books, in addition to the older, more history-oriented books for my brother. One set was full of pictures and didn’t have a lot of words on the page. I could read it right away. The other set had only about one black & white half-page picture every 20-30 pages, with a couple of color illustrations in the front. Each book was probably about 200 pages and were collections of stories from different countries.

I honestly don’t remember which set I wanted more — being a kid, probably the picture books — but my mom ended up getting us the more verbose one, and I am so glad. I’ve read every story in every book many, many times in my lifetime, probably upwards of about 30 times each. I loved the stories and still remember most of them. I read my way through them then through my older brother’s history book set. His books were probably more like 350 pages each and discussed various historic figures from around the world. This must have been before I entered the first grade, but after I learned to read, which wasn’t until I was about 5. I learned to read late for America, but in Korea at the time, I don’t think people tried to get kids to read until just before school (which starts at age 7), despite the enormous academic pressure that immediately accompanies the start of school.

What was I talking about?

Anyway, I loved and still love to read. I used to go over to my neighbor’s house and read through their kiddie science books while my sister was playing house with the girl who lived there. I was fascinated by the worlds opened up within these books, the knowledge they shared, the stories they told. I was so hungry for reading & knowledge that I even read the homemaker’s encyclopedia (1000 pages of stuff my 6 year old self didn’t really understand) that belonged to my mom.

When I came to the US and eventually learned to read English, one of the small things that my parents always made sure to budget for whenever I wanted to order books through Scholastic Books in my school. I wanted to order every time, and I got to get three books each time. If money were not an issue, I would have gotten at least half the books every time.

So from the time my little brother was an infant, I always wanted to get him books and educational toys. I realized at some point that I was also ignoring his actual wants and needs in favor of my own when one year, when I told him I was sending him a birthday present, he replied, “I bet it’s something ‘educational’.” I could hear the air-quotes in his voice. Of course, I was mad at him at first for being such an ungrateful little twit and told him so 😀 but I did stop to think about what I was doing. I was doing the same thing that my older siblings were doing: giving him what they wanted, instead of really seeing what it is that would be good for him or even what he himself wanted. So I started to talk to him more about what he was actually interested in. My gifts for him almost always still border on the nerdy/educational, but at least are geared more towards his fields of interest rather than my own.

And on this brink of becoming a parent, I think to myself, I don’t know what my blind spots are. I know the biggest thing I want for our son is for him to grow up to be a moral, responsible, self-sufficient person who leaves behind him a world slightly (or much) better than he found it.

I think in the core of that wish is the thing that my adult self see as something I want(ed) more than books, more than learning, and that is the ability to live out my own life. I love my life and I love my family dearly, but there had always been a sense of obligation instilled in all of us to take care of each other. And see? That’s not even a bad thing. I’ll even say it’s a great thing, and it’s the thing that pulls families and friends together, knowing that there is a commitment and desire to care for each other through thick and thin. I wouldn’t trade the closeness I have with my family for anything. Each member of my family sacrificed hard to make things work for the whole, and that is why it functions and grows.

But I don’t want our son-to-be to make every major decision in his life with that thought weighing heavily on his mind. I want him to know that we, his parents, will be able to take care of ourselves and that he can be free to pursue his own purpose in life. I want him to feel the freedom to make his own way in life, instead of being predisposed to always choose the responsible option. And in many ways, I know I want to be grossly irresponsible at times myself.

So will the blind spot come in the form of accidentally having him think that he shouldn’t care for our well-being, that he’s the only important entity in the family, that he can live capriciously? I certainly hope not. Because it’s a blind spot, it’s hard to tell where it will be.

I ramble, therefore I am.

Time passing too quickly!

I can’t believe it’s already been weeks since my last real blog entry. Do you remember being a kid and looking forward to something like two days away? It felt like you could feel every minute and every second and that those two days were never going to pass.

Nowadays, months pass at the blink of an eye. It’s kind of scary how fast time goes.

I’ve been kind of reluctant to post at length about my pregnancy in the third trimester, because I feel like I’ve been whining and whinging entirely too much already, in person and on Twitter. Also, it’s not like I didn’t want to get pregnant and start a family! I didn’t just enter this phase of life because it seemed like it was the next thing to do; I did because I consciously and purposefully wanted this to happen, for us to have a family.

And so complaining about it feels akin to deciding I want to have a leg removed then complaining later that I can’t walk very well anymore. I know it’s different, but it’s also in some ways the same.

Am I looking forward to motherhood? Yes, most definitely. Am I super-excited for this child-to-be? Without a smidgen of doubt. Did I know there would be difficulties that came with pregnancy? Yes, yes indeed. Do I know there will be both lots of good and lots of bad that comes with taking on such a huge responsibility for someone who will depend on me for decades? Yes, although not all the details.

So let there be no doubt, I have my eyes open about this. It won’t be all sunshine and roses. It’ll be hard. It’ll be, at times, heartwrenching. From what I hear, at times, I will feel the most helpless and worthless I have ever felt. Yet I know I want this, and I eagerly look forward to welcoming our child into the world and knowing he will change our lives forever.

So why all the complaints? How dare I? I knew about the awkwardness, the trouble sleeping, the swollen joints and limbs and such, right?

Yet, the things that have been hardest have been things I hadn’t really known the details of. For instance, I knew many people had swollen legs and feet during pregnancy, my own sister included. But I hadn’t known how that would feel, that it would make the joints feel arthritic. I think bracing for that expectation would have helped when it happened. Same for nausea… While I’ve always had issues with carsickness (and my pregnancy nausea felt a lot like this), I hadn’t realized that when things are bad, it’ll constantly feel like the 2 minutes or less right before you actually run to the bathroom to barf, up to the actual moment of barfing.

I also hadn’t realized why bending over and reaching things on the ground would be hard. I think I always imagined it would be like when someone has a large gut, but in many ways, it’s very different. What you have is a giant, very tight & firm ball of water that is pushed deeply into your torso, displacing your organs from their normal places. This means that bending requires that you shove this ball, which feels far more like a fully inflated basketball than something like a beachball, further toward your internal organs in the inner side and into your ribcage on the top side. My ribcage is already pulled apart, with the ribs sort of digging into the sides of the ball. I can only really bend about 15 degrees before hitting extreme discomfort in the organs and ribs, and another 15 degrees before it REALLY FREAKING hurts. It’s then another 10 or 15 degrees before I actually can’t go anymore without breaking a rib or tearing muscle. So to put on shoes, I have to kind of squat while standing, pick up a shoe with one hand, lift up the opposite side foot, and swing my shoe toward my foot and hope it hooks.

It’s humiliating and painful.

I hadn’t anticipated how humiliating things like that would feel. At times, it makes me laugh, but at times, I feel so ridiculously helpless and dependent. I am clumsy and helpless and look quite ridiculous.

It’s funny, because I don’t find the shape of other pregnant women ridiculous, but I hate seeing myself.

I hate the shooting, sharp pain in my hip and pelvis when I get up from lying or sitting down. My hip joint pops loudly, accompanied by pain so intense I often see stars. And apparently, this is normal. 😐

Today, a coworker said that when you read someone’s wedding vows w/o the context of personally being involved in their relationship, it’s hard not to have it sound utterly cheesy and corny, no matter how well they tried to express themselves. I think, for me, hearing about other people’s pregnancy experiences hadn’t really struck home.

The other really stupid thing that I’ve gotten really upset about is that my hands and feet are so swollen. Yes, I’ve mentioned the pain, and it’s debilitating at times. My hands suck in particular because I can’t use my pectoral muscles to help me get up or do any normal movements I want to engage in on a minute by minute basis, so I need to assist myself with hands, but they are already in pain. My feet & legs hurt so much from the plane ride that I wanted to cry the entire ride back from Hawaii.

And, of course, I need my hands to type for work and things like this. Luckily, typing isn’t terrible because my fingers are sort of clawed into position by the swelling anyway, so thank goodness for small favors.

Anyway, the real reason for being so upset at the hands and feet is this: I’ve always been vain about them. While, objectively, I know they are not the best looking hands & feet on earth, I’ve always thought they looked nice and cute/elegant. I don’t have the nicest eyes, hair, mouth, figure, whatever. But I do have nice hands and feet. Or I did.

Now when I look at them, they are so hideously deformed that on top of feeling stupid and clumsy and ridiculous, I don’t have this small vanity to make me feel like something special.

I know. It’s utterly stupid. But there it is. It upsets me to the point of crying at times. Like I am doing now.

Damn.

I also cried when I saw how bad my stretch marks look. And when I realized that the changes to the… uh.. mammary region can be quite hideous and happens during pregnancy, not when you breastfeed. I wish I had known, just to be able to brace for these permanent changes.

I know a lot of this is hormones. I know I’m stressed because there is so much to finish up work-wise before I go on leave. I know I have a lot on my mind. I know I’m under physical duress.

Yet. Yet. Yet, I feel like crap and like wallowing in self-pity.

Which I hate.

Bleh.

At the same time, there is so much going for me. Our kid is healthy, as healthy as we can know while he is still inside the womb! This, more than anything else, is the best thing right now.

Our family & friends & coworkers are so supportive and cool, not just regarding the pregnancy, but as people I love in our lives, people I can count on. My work is putting very little pressure on me regarding the return date from my leave that I proposed. And at the same time, I know they would take me back in an instant, no matter when I come back, earlier or later. And they’ve already said that they’d be open to a flexible schedule when coming back. How much luckier could I get?

And today, our coworkers threw us a surprise baby shower! I can’t believe how thoughtful each note in the card and each carefully chosen gift was. I am truly, truly blessed to be among such good people.

Seppo is truly the best husband I could imagine. He is patient, kind, giving, and loving. All throughout the pregnancy, he’s really stepped up where I couldn’t pull my weight, he’s been a shoulder to cry on, and he’s been strong where I’ve been weak. He’s going to be such an amazing father. Our kid is going to be so lucky! He makes me laugh when I need it, holds me close when I need it, and buys me ice cream when I want it. 🙂

Many of our friends have recently had children or are expecting. This is yet another way in which we are incredibly lucky. Because many of us are making the transition together, there is a lot of sharing of woes and good times. And a feeling that we are building a big family.

Despite all my stupid grumblings, nothing is seriously wrong with me. Even though I had tested with quite low progesterone levels in the past, it was fine when I actually got pregnant. I had braced with the fear of miscarriage, knowing my sister had one quite late in her pregnancy, and that my mom had multiple pregnancies that she never spoke to us about (I believe there were at least one abortion and one miscarriage, but there are also two more she won’t talk about). All our tests went extraordinarily well. I didn’t get gestational diabetes. I have great blood pressure, which is a fairly good indicator that I don’t have preeclampsia. I have a great doctor that takes time to answer all our little questions.

All this is amazingly wonderful. I can’t believe we dodged pretty much every major bullet. In the end, all I have are various discomforts and some emotional distress, but nothing that is actually terrible and/or won’t pass.

I know these fleeting moments of self-pity have passed in the past. And this one, too, shall pass. I think it’ll be a lot better once I stop going to work, because it’ll be one fewer source of stress.

To combine or not to combine…

I can’t figure out if I should combine my regular blog (this one) and my “Made of Family” blog… That one is nominally supposed to be a shared blog between me & Seppo *cough* but it’s hard to really segregate out parts of my life from blog to blog, especially since I’ve been blogging less frequently in the last year.

Hmm.

I think I might also migrate this back to inciteariot.helava.com and to wordpress, because I love to overload myself with optional non-projects when I have a ton of real projects to do! Hahahah! Hahah. Ha.

Ha.

While I’m here, I might as well do a short little update. Earlier in the month, I turned 33. Seppo, my little brother and I went out to Lake Chabot, armed with books and some bahn mi. Here is Seppo, who has fallen sleep in the sun. The sun makes him sleep. What a strange instinct. I’d like it to be known for all posterity that Seppo made his pregnant wife and her 15 year old brother row around in the heat while he slept.

Ok, he rowed us out and only fell asleep for a little bit, at which point my little brother and I acted silly by rowing ineffectually.

Thursday, I did a biggish release for my project, so I took some time on Friday to drive my little bro and my coworker out to Half Moon Bay. It was a fantastic day for a short jaunt to the beach. Here is a pic I took of the water and my ginormous belly:

On Saturday, we drove the little bro to the airport after downing some awesome xiao long bao (Shanghai soup dumplings), then headed down to Laguna Seca, where Seppo went for a ride with our coworker. Here is Seppo before the ride:

Here is Seppo after the ride:

We stopped by Monterey Bay on the way back up and had an early dinner. Sorry, no pics. :p

In memory of my grandmother

Dear Halmoni,

Although people will say, “She lived a long, good life,” I wish you were still here. I wish I had been able to see you one more time, hold your hand, and tell you what a wonderful childhood you helped give me.

We used to go to your house in the summers and winters. I often tell people that my time visiting you and my other grandmothers were like an idealized world of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, with farm life and clean, clear streams you could drink from, and kids running around, getting into the kind of good, clean fun that ends up in cuts, scrapes, dirty clothes, and memories to last a lifetime.

I remember still, after three decades, sitting in your lap and making you clap. I remember all the pictures of us you had posted on your wall. I remember the treats you had tucked away in the back of your lower drawer and in your pockets every time we came to visit. I remember your paper-thin skin and marveling at how fragile it looked. I couldn’t wait until I was your age and had all the dignity and fragile beauty that only age and hard-fought wisdom could bring.

You raised your kids — my father, my uncles, and my aunts — and fostered several family-less children over the decades, all on your own, a strong matriarch, a strong business woman, a kind grandmother. I know that despite all the differences my father and his siblings may have had over the years with each other(and what big family doesn’t?), they were 100% united in their love and devotion to you.

I remember playing in your front yard. I thought it was the biggest and coolest garden ever. My mom still has a picture of my sister and me playing around one of the trees in the front. I remember it well. I remember finding some secret corners of the garden that I thought no one else would ever know. I remember the feeling of being surrounded by beautiful nature, being alone yet fully a part of the world around me. I associate all these feelings with you.

I remember your outhouse! I thought it was the scariest place on earth, especially at night, with no lights on! 😀

I remember you calling us your little puppies. There were so many of us kids during the summers! Undoubtedly, we yipped around and bothered you, but you were always so patient with us. If I close my eyes now, I can almost perfectly picture your face, your home, your hands. I’ll always remember your hands.

I only wish that things had been really patched up between you and my dad in the recent years… But there is no helping that and no use regretting it. There were years of good memories between you two and I know my dad is broken with grief over your passing.

I also wish that I was sure that I was able to pass on the news that I am pregnant. I told various family members, but I never knew if you had heard. I should have called directly. What a fool I am sometimes. Sometimes, I think there is all the time in the world to pass on news, to tell people I love I love them.

Halmoni, I don’t want to spend time kicking myself. I want to spend time thinking about the lives you touched and the impact you had on my life. I never doubted that women can be strong, independent leaders because I had women like you, my other grandmothers, and my own mother to look to. I didn’t need the words that said, “You can do anything!” because it was so obvious to me from my own family. I didn’t need the words that said, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, and just suck it up!” because it was so obvious from seeing all the stuff you’d gone through, seeing what my own parents had gone through in life. I didn’t need the words that said, “Don’t fear growing old,” which a lot of people seem to do, fighting it tooth and nail, because I always knew it was a part of life and that life didn’t end when you were an older person, because you were so involved in life, community, church, and business. And again, you were always so good to us kids.

I heard that when you passed, you listened for the tolling of the church bells in the morning and passed gently, with your family around you. I am so glad.