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Missing my mom

(Note: I've been trying to write this entry for nine months, but I've never felt like I had the right words to express my feelings. I figure if I don't do this now, I'll never be able to.)

My mom passed away from cancer last October and it was the most difficult thing I've had to deal with in my life.

I suppose I've been blessed since I haven't had to deal with much loss growing up, but at the same time, I don't believe I was prepared for my mom's passing. Then again, I don't think anyone is truly prepared to lose one's parent.

She was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer on Jan. 4, 2009. She never let on about the fear and sadness she had facing death – a fact I only learned after her passing from my aunt. And I never let her know how much it pained me to know that she could die. It was a trait I suppose I learned from her – never showing your emotional weakness.

She told me my brother wept when she told him on the phone. She said she told him there was nothing to be sad about as a way to try and protect him. It's a bond they always had. Coming from Vietnam in 1975, it was just the two of them. Mother and son.

The moment she told me that, I knew I had to become the rock for our family.

For the next month, she prepared for surgery to remove the tumor resting outside her colon. In my family we don't say "I love you," we ask, "Are you hungry?" Making sure your loved ones are fed was our way of showing our affection to one another. I asked my mom to teach me how to make pho one Saturday that January. She walked me through the process, showing me step-by-step how to make it the way she does. My version was close, slightly more bland than hers, but close. I sit here staring at the recipe, slightly scared to make it because I know how much the broth's aroma will remind me of her.

The day she went into surgery was one of the more difficult days. She sat in a wheelchair with a smile on her face, looked at us and told us to give her a hug. I knew she was afraid that this could be the last time she would see us, but she never us know. She would not let her boys know she was scared, and I knew we couldn't let on ourselves. My brother, my aunt and I stayed in the surgery waiting room for countless hours. I remember showing up early in the morning and leaving late in the evening.

The surgeon pulled us into a side room in the middle of the afternoon. It was scary – those side rooms are only used for bad news. He closed the door. Then, the bastard told us that the surgery was a success. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

We stayed with her until nighttime when my brother and I headed over to Chipotle for some dinner. We spent the meal joking around, finding laughter to be a nice bit of therapy. It was a much needed piece of levity for a hectic day.

For the next few weeks, she stayed at the hospital, trying to regain strength and weight in order to begin chemotherapy. We encouraged her to eat and as time went on, she looked as if she believed there was hope. We thought so, too.

When she came home, she slowly regained her strength. It was difficult for her to eat solids, but we emphasized that she wasn't going to get better unless she tried to eat. I remember the countless nights I sat in the kitchen with her between work and the gym just eating almonds or fruits and talking. I can't recollect any of the conversations, but I do remember the subjects revolving around life and having an honest feeling of happiness, sitting at the kitchen table with my mom.

As the weeks passed, my mom's health seemed to yo-yo. Some days it looked like she was strong as an ox and cancer was just a speed bump. Other days, she seemed to regress and appeared weak. I found myself looking to different outlets to curve the rising stress level. I increased my workout regiments, buried myself in work, spent more time with friends – anything to help alleviate the increasing pain I was feeling at home.

One thing that helped me was a comic book by Joe Kelly called "I Kill Giants." It's about an offbeat little girl who lives in her own world as she deals with her mom battling cancer. The story spoke to me and there's one line that helped me more than anything anyone told me.

"All things that live, die.
This is why you must find joy in the living, while the time is yours, and not fear the end.
To deny this is to deny life.
To fear this ... is to fear life.
But to embrace this...
Can you embrace this?
You are stronger than you think."

Part of me feels like I was a bad son for not spending more time with her, but the other part knows that if I didn't take some personal time for myself, my emotions would have run wild and I wouldn't have been helpful to anyone, let alone my mom.

As the summer began winding down, so did her health. It became increasingly more difficult for her to do what seems routine for the rest of us. The sicker she became, the more family and friends came by to help with the work my dad and I were doing at home. There was one bit of help that I wish didn't come, but it's one that I do not feel comfortable talking about.

I look back at my writings from September. My brother and my dad both seemed far more optimistic than me, but I knew that the end was near.

Time's running out.

My mom's battle with cancer seems like it's beginning to wind down. She can't eat solid foods anymore and she's looking more frail with each passing day. Her fighting spirit is slowly dying and it's harder to keep her hopes up. She's spending most of the day sleeping, and from what I understand, that means her body's slowly shutting off.

One of my aunt's been staying with us for the past week helping take care of her. I feel like I'm at a loss about what to do. I try and convince my mom to keep drinking Ensure and eating chicken broth, but I feel like my ever-optimistic outlook on the situation is fading. I don't want to believe it, but inside, I know the truth.

My brother's still pushing and holding onto the belief that somehow, some way, she'll pull through. I look to him for strength.

I don't know how my dad's dealing with all this. He's not one to openly share his emotions. He saw his first wife die 33 years ago. I can only imagine what it feels like to see it happen again.

We've been receiving more visitors as of late. Some come by and do chores, seeing it as a way to help lessen the burden on us. Others come with uplifting attitudes, bringing joy and laughter to my mom. But there's one relative I'm not especially looking forward to seeing: The last time I saw my aunt from Minnesota, it was right before my grandfather died 17 years ago. I know when it's time for her to visit my mom, the sand runs out in the hourglass.

I've been trying to sleep for the past hour, but I'm finding it to be a far more difficult task than usual. Maybe it's an omen. The last time I struggled this badly to fall asleep was the night my mom was in a car accident early last year.

I'm hoping it's just some combination of me getting over the flu and not being able to workout, throwing my emotions into high gear. Regardless, I feel utterly helpless right now. Nothing I can say or do can make this go away.

I know it's a fact of life, but I wish it wasn't my mom's.

My friends and family knew it was becoming harder on me. We went to the Great American Beer Festival and it was fun during, but I remember waking up early in the morning, long before anyone else. I grabbed my iPhone and began writing a eulogy for my mom. Everyone was recovering from the drunken excursion from the night before, so I'm pretty sure no one heard me sobbing in the room. I must have written 1,000 words that hour, but nothing I wrote felt worthy enough for my mom.

Two nights later, my mom called my brother and I to her bedside. She was giving her last words to us. She told us her time was short and we had to look after each other. She told us her final wishes and wanted us to start our own families. Holding her hand, it took every ounce of energy I had not to cry. I'm a boy, I'm not supposed to cry – words she told me when I was younger.

It was the last night she was able to coherently talk to me.

It was the first week of October and my family members were coming by more often. My mom looked more and more gaunt with every passing day. Her diet consisted of mere sips of Ensure, juice and water. At this point she was bedridden. My brother still held out a last bit of hope, telling me there's a minute chance she would survive if her liver starts regenerating before she became jaundice. It was nice sitting in my room and talking with him. He seemed to find therapy in researching the disease and becoming more knowledgeable. I found it comforting just talking.

On Oct. 5, I came home from work and saw that her face was completely yellow. Her liver had given up. I smiled at her, walked through the kitchen and circled upstairs. I couldn't let her see me cry. Every bit of hope was gone. It was only a matter of time now.

For the next two days, her life force seemed to slowly dissipate. The shimmer in her eyes began to dull and she didn't have enough energy to close her eyes as she slept. My brother and I began to finalize the funeral process. Tension in the family was running high. People yelling at each other for no reason. I was angry, too, but I held back. Someone had to get everything done and I still needed to be the rock.

On the night of Oct. 7, my mom was breathing much more heavily. My aunts wanted to stay over, but my dad and my uncle didn't want them to because of some weird old-country chauvinistic belief. I told them this was my house and they were welcome to stay, and convinced my dad to take a night off from sleeping on a couch and to go rest in his own bed.

I spent most of the night doing push-ups, curls, sit-ups – just anything to get my mind off of things. My cousin saw me and I knew in his silence, he understood it was what I needed to do.

On Oct. 8 after my brother and I returned home from lunch and errands. Just as I finished changing, my aunt comes upstairs and tells us, "Your mom just breathed her last breath." Cries of sadness filled the house.

Strange, as sad as I was, I didn't feel like crying. Maybe it was the shock that she had finally passed or maybe it was the trait she passed to me of getting things done before worrying about yourself, but I had a list of things to do. I picked up the phone and called the hospice to let them know it was time. I called family to let them know she had passed.

Family and friends came to the house and we held a prayer service. I sat to the side with my brother cracking jokes before one of my other siblings came over and told us to stop because the older generation might not understand that this was how we were dealing with it.

I didn't start crying until the took the body out. At that point, it felt like reality had truly hit. My mom was gone. Our neighbor had pulled into her driveway. We gave each other a simple nod. Me knowing that she sends her condolences and her knowing that I know she understands my pain.

We held another prayer service at my house on Saturday. My nieces and nephews, God bless 'em, helped distract my sadness with games of Ninja. That night, a bunch of us went to see the Rockies' playoff game against the Phillies. I had bought them a while back and it seemed to be an opportunity for a break from everything. The game was bonechillingly cold. By the seventh inning, my enthusiasm for the game began to wane. It started as a fun night with friends and family, but by the end, I could only think of my mom. To be honest, I don't remember who won.

We held a wake on Sunday. My sisters were telling me all these different things I had to do because of Vietnamese tradition. They were annoying me after a while, asking me if certain things were set up. Thankfully, one of my older brothers saw that I was getting pissed off, so he told them to direct the questions to him. Much of the day seems like a blur now. I remember a lot of having to drive back to my house to pick up things that people forgot. After the fourth trip, I walked out of the mortuary and let out yell. Why weren't these people letting me mourn?

I passed incense sticks to everyone who showed up for the wake. I sat in the pew, deep in my own thoughts as people shared their condolences. At one point, someone asked me to say a few words. My eulogy was for the funeral, I had nothing to say at the wake.

We woke up early on Oct. 11 – my 26th birthday – and headed to the mortuary. There was a prayer we had to do before the closing of the casket. After that we proceeded to Queen of Peace where the funeral was held. My friend, who had lost her mother to colon cancer exactly two years before mine, gave me a hug. She was there to take pictures at the funeral – a Vietnamese tradition I do not understand.

The service was nice. I had my brother do the reading – a piece I had chosen. After the priest's homily, I went up to do my eulogy to my mom. I've never spent so much time trying to make it sound just right. I approached the lectern and looking into the crowd, there were so many sad faces. I had to make a light joke or else I wouldn't be able to finish.

"Like my mom, this is going to be short and sweet."

I didn't hear any response, but I was told people quietly chuckled to themselves. I don't remember what I said – the eulogy is on my computer, but I haven't read it since that day – but it seemed fitting. Afterward, we went to the rec room and fed everyone. It was something my mom explicitly told us to do.

At the cemetery, we laid my mom to rest. I could hear my brother crying so I put my arm around him. He did the same for me. Watching the casket lowered into the ground was another sign that she was gone. Walking back to my car, some guy told me to hold up the sign I was carrying so he could take a picture. I glared at him, balled up my fist and I wanted to hit him. But I just held the sign in front of my face and walked away.

For the next several weeks, I was on cruise control. Whenever someone asked me if I was OK, I told them I was. I was taught not to wear my emotions on my sleeves and this didn't seem to be any different.

After losing my job in November, I went into a bigger funk. I won't lie, I was depressed. I spent a week watching movies and hanging out with people. It was temporary fun, but I was hurting inside still.

Then I started to think, what would my mom do right now? I decided to work on the house. For the next two months, I rebuilt my room and my bathroom. I learned how to cook and how to take care of the house. In the spring, I began to garden. So far the gardening is the one realm I haven't completely figured out yet, but the roses are still growing. Every time I see wild purple and yellow pansies growing around the house, I think of her. In front of our door, I keep her green sandals as a reminder.

There's no real conclusion to this piece. It wasn't meant to have one. I just felt it was time to get the story off my chest.

Jaden Smith = Riley from "Boondocks"

Kudos to Conor for noticing this.

Would Jaden Smith make for a good Riley Freeman? The only movie I've seen him in is "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and he was annoying as sin.

But then again, Riley has a well-balanced annoyance to humorous quotient to him. We'll see.

Why the f--- doesn't Brandon Yip have a card yet?

As I so eloquently wrote in the title, why doesn't Colorado Avalanche forward Brandon Yip have his own trading card yet? I can understand Upper Deck (who is the only NHL card manufacturer now) not including him in the sets early in the season because he was hurt. Hell, I can understand them not adding him to the mid-season updates.

But it's May now. The latest release from Upper Deck, an update for O-Pee Chee, doesn't have him.

I only say this because I want a damn Brandon Yip rookie card to add to my collection.

Colorado honors Vietnam vets - and politicians bicker

Last Friday, I covered the state house and senate honoring Vietnam War vets on the 35th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.

As far as I could tell, I was the only media who covered it, but that's why AsiaXpress exists – to tell stories about the Asian-American communities that the mainstream media ignores.

For 90 minutes, state senators and representatives shared personal thoughts on the significance of the day. It was certainly interesting listening to those who grew up during the '60s and '70s and hearing their stories of how the veterans were poorly treated when they came back. Some broke down into tears when they said today was long overdue.

But a couple of state senators – from both parties – decided to inject their own personal politics into their off-the-cuff speeches.

I was saddened by that. That day wasn't supposed to be about your political points of view; it was about honoring these veterans who came home to jeers and verbal assault. This day was supposed to be about them, not you.

Thankfully, one senator came in and gave a voice of reason.

And one – let's call him "Hed Tarvey" – just rambled on about something that wasn't relevant. I wasn't sure where he was going when he began boasting about his life and neither did many of the other folks who stood in the back with me. I'm sure he had a point meant well.