Funny looking

My mom and I have this inside joke of sorts. It goes like this:

One of us says anything that ends in the word “funny”
The other of us says “funny looking – pow!

Example:

Mom (to Katye): “You’re funny!”
Katye: “Funny looking – pow!"

Get it? It’s funny, right?

I can’t claim credit – I learned it from Scrubs (you’ll see it in the first 20 seconds of this video).

 
We love this joke. We use it all the time. And if I start it, she’ll finish it for me (she’s got a mean “pow!” with the finger point action). But today I realized that this joke is going to be really painful when she dies. I probably won’t be able to use it, or even think it, without tearing up (and its not that funny of a joke...).

So I’m going to use it as much as I can while it’s just funny. Watch out world, anytime you say the word “funny” I’ll respond with “funny looking, pow!”

Best year of my life

The other day my dad said, “This has been the best year of my life.”

There was probably some context for this, but I can’t remember what it was. And it’s not really that important. Context or not, that sentiment is, to put it mildly, crazy.

It’s crazy that this year of catastrophe and trauma, hospital stays and emergency room visits, suffering, pain, fear, (insert negative emotion here) is the same as my dad’s best year of his life. His most memorable. His happiest. His all around best.

And yet, I feel it too. This year has been the shittiest year of my life (and yes, I know my life is only 26 years long, but I’m pretty much hoping it doesn’t get worse than this), and it’s also been the sweetest. It’s been the busiest, and it’s been the year I’ve been the most present. It’s been the most emotional, and it’s been the most true.

This year, or really year and three-ish months, has been the best year of my life. I’ve spent beautiful times with my family. I’ve felt the love and support of my friends. I’ve learned so much about myself and about Jesus. And I’ve had lots and lots of fun!

So, if my dad’s crazy, I guess I am too.

This has been the best year of my life. And you can quote me on that.

Life in death

I ran from pain. I ran from darkness. I ran from death. I did everything I could to stay happy, to stay healthy, to stay alive. I pinched and squeezed and manipulated the world until it fit my idea of perfection.

But underneath it all lay fear, and grief, and dissatisfaction. All my hidden motivations, my unmet needs, my forgotten hopes were churning, struggling to be heard. They infected my plans for the future, my search for vocation, my pursuit of my true identity.

But in death I have found true life.

In pain, everything has been stripped away. In entering the darkness, the motivations, needs and hopes that had so long been ignored were confronted. In death I have found true life.

It hurts. It hurts to enter into the darkness - whether you choose it, or whether it’s thrust upon you. It’s painful. It’s painful to surrender, to let go of my perfect world and to be in the muck. It’s humbling. It’s humbling to admit that the world I created for myself wasn’t whole, wasn’t real, wasn’t true.

But I have to. I have to surrender. I have to let go. I have admit to the Lord that I can’t do it on my own. I have to ask God “What can you do for me?” Because doing this on my own strength is insufficient. Because it’s too much for me to handle on my own. Because the darkness is too deep without him.

And in surrender there is freedom. Freedom to laugh, to cry, to fail, to grow. Freedom to become my self, my true self – flaws and all, living in a flawed world.

In death, I have found myself. In death, I have found my passions. In death, I have found true life.

This too shall be made right

Sometimes I wonder why I’m still following Jesus. Why, with all the crap that my family is going through, do I still choose to believe in an omnipotent God, one who didn’t keep my dad from getting hurt or my mom from getting sick? Why didn’t I just give up? Why didn’t I just turn away?

Maybe, if I had been taught that Jesus cares most about my health and wealth, then I would have turned away. Maybe, if I had been taught that Jesus only cares about the prayer we say, regardless of how we live our lives, I would have given up.

But that’s not the Jesus I know. That’s not the Heavenly Father, the creator of the universe, the all-powerful God that I’ve learned to follow.

The Jesus I know hung out in the church where I grew up, talking and laughing with the homeless and mentally handicapped men and women who came to church mostly for free coffee and a place to sit down.

The Jesus I know spent time in the squatter community in Mexico City where I spent my summers, playing soccer with the kids on the street and working 18-hour days to make ends meet.

The Jesus I know lives in my neighborhood in East Oakland, standing on the street corner with the migrant workers in the daytime, and standing on the street corner with the women at night.

The Jesus I know loves the poor, advocates for the oppressed, cares for the sick, and wraps his arms around the brokenhearted. The Jesus I know intentionally leaves behind the pretty, the perfect, the easy and walks into the ugly, the broken, the hard. The Jesus I know weeps, mourns, screams when he sees his children hurting.

That’s the Jesus that walks with me now. And that’s why I can’t give up, can’t turn away. Because he cares for the sick (my parents). Because he wraps his arms around the brokenhearted (me). Because I see him more here than I ever did when life felt easier.

He’s with me in the darkness. And he knows that the darkness won’t last forever. That someday, this too shall be made right.

Passionate

For my job with InterVarsity’s Urban Projects I recently had to answer the question “What are you passionate about?” This question was a lot harder to answer than I thought it would be. I’ve always been a passionate person, and I can have impassioned arguments about things near to my heart. But recently some of the things I care about have been sidelined as I spend time with my mom. So what am I passionate about? Right now. Not back in college, not when I was teaching, not even when I was in the Servant Partners internship. But what am I passionate about right now?

After mulling (I’m a muller – it always takes me awhile to figure out stuff like this), I came up with two core passions: I’m passionate about helping people live and die with dignity and grace. And I’m passionate about learning and teaching others how to mourn well.

I’m passionate about helping people live and die with dignity and grace. Right now this looks like taking care of my mom, telling her story through this blog. It looks like helping my Spanish-speaking neighbors navigate complicated medical insurance forms that are written in English, or acting as an English-speaking advocate for my apartment complex as we try to get our front gate fixed.

I’m passionate about learning and teaching others how to mourn well. Right now this looks like writing this blog, and kinda just living life.

For me, mourning well right now looks like taking a ballet class. Like doing evening yoga to an Itunes playlist called “Blue,” of some of my more melancholy songs. It means baking my own bread to use for sandwiches, and learning to make my own deodorant and dish soap. It means bawling in my room as I yoga to Billy Joel’s “Lullabye (Good night, my Angel).” It means listening to Bossypants on audio book as I drive back and forth to San Jose. It means rejoicing that my mom’s MRI still isn’t showing visible tumors, and realizing that that means that my mom will be okay through the holidays. It means getting angry that the doctors still can’t figure out why she’s so tired. And it means spending as much time with my mom as I can.

So I guess I am still passionate. For now, the way my passions are being acted on is different than I expected. But I don’t think these passions will go away after this season. I think these are here to stay.

So here’s to learning how to help people live and die with dignity and grace. And here’s to learning how to mourn, and learning how to teach others to mourn well. Here’s to pursuing my passions in all that I do, in every season.

What a year really means

It’s been a year and a month since my mom had her stroke. 13 months. That’s one month more than the average lifespan of someone with this type of cancer. And so far we haven’t seen any of the tumors show back up on the MRI, which means they’re still small and slow growing, so we probably have even more time. And that’s great, right? Yes. And no. Just a little bit of no.

Why? Why is there any no?

Because it’s really, really hard. It’s really, really hard, just as hard as it was when she first got sick. It’s hard to carry the fact that my mom is dying. It’s hard to keep have last events – last birthdays, last holidays, bringing extra significance to small events because she might not be around for the next one. It’s hard to see her start to decline – to see her have a harder time talking and walking, to see her getting more and more tired. It’s hard to balance work and family and classes and friends, life in two cities, ridiculous amounts of driving. It’s hard to take care of her, to take her to the bathroom, to make her meals (and to see her eating less and less), to do things around the house that she used to do and that my dad shouldn’t do. It’s hard, and it hasn’t really gotten easier.

It’s just as hard as it was when she first had the stroke. It’s just as tiring and emotionally taxing as it was at the beginning. Sure, I’ve built up my coping mechanisms so I can live a normal-looking life. But really, inside, it’s just as hard as it was before. Maybe even a little harder, because of fatigue.

And I still need help. I still need friends to take initiative with me, to check on me, to support me, because I can’t do this on my own. I still need people to pray, for me, for my mom, for my family. I still need to be received with patience and understanding, because I’m probably going to still act like an idiot, like lunatic, like someone out of control, like someone who is horrible at returning calls and emails. I still need hope. I still need truth. I still need love.

It’s still hard. It’s still tiring. But I guess, when it comes down to it, I wouldn’t trade this time with my mom for anything in the world.

Bullied

Sometimes I feel bullied by the universe.

No matter what I want to happen, no matter what I expect life to be like, I’m overruled by the universe. And recently that overruling hasn’t been full of sunshine and roses. Instead I’ve been overruled by crap, pushed into a corner by shitty situations, silenced by suffering.

I’m being punched in the face by the universe. By the ugly, dark part of the universe. The part that doesn’t want me to ever have a voice, to ever stop feeling like a victim.

So what do I do? How do handle being repeatedly punched and kicked and beaten up for my metaphorical lunch money? (In this metaphor, my lunch money is anything good, and happy, and beautiful. My lunch money is my hope and my joy.)

Well, I sometimes cower in the corner. Though I wish I could say I’m strong enough to stay positive, to not be victimized, to persevere, often times I’m not.

And then sometimes, as I’m cowering in the corner, I remember that I’m not alone. I remember that I’m not even taking the full force of the punches. I remember that Jesus is taking the punches for me, that he’s putting his body between mine and the universe’s fist. I don’t have to be strong, I don’t have to be positive – he’s doing that for me.

And then sometimes, when I remember that (which doesn’t happen very often), I realize that I don’t have to cower in the corner. I don’t have to feel like the victim. I don’t have to give up my lunch money, because I’m not alone, I’m not without protection. And then I realize I can respond to the bullying in a different way – with laughter maybe, without fear, or with confidence that I won’t be completely overpowered.

It’s hard work. It’s hard to re-train myself to not respond in fear. It’s hard to remember that I’m not alone. I still feel the punches, especially when they come as a surprise. Cowering in the corner is still my first response.

But maybe, just maybe, I’ll slowly retrain my reflexes. Maybe someday I’ll skip the cowering and respond instead with confidence and laughter, with my lunch money intact. And it won’t be because I’m strong, and it won’t be because my skin is so thick I can’t feel it. It’ll be because I’m protected by the one who takes on all my pain, my hurt, my mistakes, and carries them himself. It’ll be because I’m not alone.