I love you very much
Today I’m sharing two articles for free, the first - this one - a reprint of a newsletter I wrote from April 22, 2018.
I discovered it while searching my inbox for something else, and I personally found the second half so powerful that I’ve teared up twice reading it. My brother Nathaniel was still alive then, and responded at the time to correct me about a few things, which I’ve edited from the original post, and to say:
After reading "thanks for being there for me," my immediate reaction was for my mind to interject with examples of all the times that I've been a jerk to you throughout my life (In particular, I recalled a fantasy in which you might have had a successful singing career if I hadn't always tried to make you stop when we were very young. Other peoples' music still annoys me very much, for some reason). I quickly realized, however, that I can let all that stuff be true, and still say, "You're welcome." The bad stuff, now matter how overshadowing it might be, doesn't mean that the good isn't there.
And now, the article:
Beatrice Lai-Pei Faulhaber was born probably in 1949, I think in Hong Kong. That's where she immigrated from to the States anyway. She spent a good part of her childhood in Macau, being raised by a woman I met once, who gave me and my brother 24k gold necklaces. It's all pretty fuzzy; we met her when I was about 8 or younger.
Mom met Dad at the University of Wisconsin, Superior, where they endured winters the likes of which people joke about, thinking their parents were being dramatic about the hardships of their youth. Winds coming off of the Lake [Superior] ensured that there was no joking about the levels of snow and freezing temperatures.
Maybe that helped bond them.
Mom died a few years ago, in summer 2012, after being bed-and-wheelchair-ridden since 2001 when she had The Stroke, as we called it. An arterial venous malformation in her brain burst. The swelling affected her brain stem, forever altering her motor skills and alertness, though she maintained all of her memories as far as I could tell and pretty much seemed the same. Just really, really sleepy.
Everybody said mom was extremely creative. Talented. Gregarious. Adorable. She stood 4'11", was an absolute Chinese bombshell, and worked with mainframe computers at Schering-Plough.
I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this, except today is her birthday, from probably 1950. (They didn't have the best record-keeping in Hong Kong or China back then). The eldest of 4, with three brothers who are still surviving on this plane of existence.
I had a thought a little while ago that death is probably just a state change, like water turning into steam, or what fire does to things. It doesn't disappear, it just transmutes into something else. My brother Nathan somehow also independently came to this conclusion. And the animals eat the grass, and so goes the circle of life.
Today on my mom's birthday I hosted the first day of my first retreat, lolling around the Wyoming and Idaho border, guiding two wonderful people around themselves a bit, with plans for a lot more for the rest of this week.
We're practicing guided autonomy. The voluntary acquisition of skills that can be absorbed and used for their own purposes and grown or nurtured in their own ways forever more.
I'm really big on experiences. Be it the way something feels in your body or witnessing the sun disappear behind the Tetons. There's something about those things you pay attention to that can never be lost. They're absorbed, affecting you forever even if you can't really quite recall them any more.
I just realized by writing that ^ that no matter how little I think I remember about mom (I was 14 and preoccupied with 9th grade life when it happened, as well as shielded by dad from the brunt of emotional difficulty) everything we did together really is a part of me, molded and translated into a new form of energy.
That's why the things you choose to have around you are so important. The consciously absorbed pieces are going to have a greater impact, but the entirety of things you see, feel, experience, and touch are all shaping you every day. Everything affects you, whether you realize it or not. Everything's connected, whether you realize it or not. You have a say in how they affect you, but they are still there.
I hope that you choose things that bring you happiness. I hope that you experience what your body can do. I hope you don't always walk on the sidewalk. I hope you explore the limits of your abilities. And I hope you realize you can always change something. All you have to do is want to.
Mom left a big impression on this world, and I love and miss her memory. To my brother Nathaniel, if you're reading this, thanks for being there for me. And just in case dad is too, I love you very much.