{"id":4076,"date":"2001-03-01T01:13:00","date_gmt":"2001-03-01T01:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sch1auh0s7.site.nfoservers.com\/wp_lew1slau\/?p=4076"},"modified":"2022-04-26T01:15:53","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T01:15:53","slug":"in-loving-memory-of-my-mother-good-bye-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/2001\/03\/01\/in-loving-memory-of-my-mother-good-bye-ma\/","title":{"rendered":"In Loving Memory Of My Mother – Good Bye Ma…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Flying back from Miami this past week, I skimmed through a past issue of Time magazine… at the last page of the issue, in the Essay section, I read through Garrison Keillor’s “Goodbye to All That”, a farewell essay to his dying father… I started crying. I have decided to write my own farewell letter, to say goodbye to my mother, and hopefully start a new chapter in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried several times to write this section, but always end up scrapping whatever I wrote – I do not want to end up writing a biography about my mother… what I want is to write about my feelings, how I felt when she left this world…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother came to visit me around March of 2000. I remember talking to her about Y2K, how ridiculous it was for me to tell her to stock up on water and food (which she did)… that was when I realized how fragile my mother was. Throughout my life, my mother has been the “strong” one – she took care of the family the best she could, and she never showed weakness. When she visited in March she seemed a different person – my mother was 54 but she said she felt 80… every three steps she took she needed to rest for minutes…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doctors told her it was radiation therapy\/surgery\/physical therapy that caused her back pains, but no one could offer a cure<\/em> – what the hell is Morphine going to do when she is in pain again the moment she stops taking them? <\/em>She was in good spirits though – we always managed to go have dinner at our “usual” restaurants – Kikugawa for Japanese, Shuang Cheng for Chinese Dungeness Crabs, and Seafood Palace for Chinese Hotpot…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She and I both believed the cancer stage of her life has ended, and all we have to worry about was her back pains… She said she was going back for a few months, but will be back soon in the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom was told that the cancer has returned, and this time it’s spread to her neck. Her body was too weak to perform even a biopsy to determine the stage of her cancer – the doctors ordered chemotherapy…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months goes by… being in a different country, I became my mother’s best friend over the phone – we talk about my life, my relationships, and my green card application. She always ended the conversation with “Take care of yourself”, as if it was the last time I would speak to her. I always told her not to talk like that… everything will be all right. Soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By October, the doctors told the family that they’ve done all they could do, and gave my mother another three or four months to live. I was in denial, as well as my family. I had arranged for a second opinion here in the States, in hope of her being seen at possible the Mayo Clinic…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am sorry – I can write no more… maybe at a later time I will continue this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flying back from Miami this past week, I skimmed through a past issue of Time magazine… at the last page of the issue, in the Essay section, I read through Garrison Keillor’s “Goodbye to All That”, a farewell essay to his dying father… I started crying. I have decided to write my own farewell letter,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1998_lewis_mom_mpls_downtown.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4078,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076\/revisions\/4078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}