Bee-Attitude: 1/30/14-Risen from the Ashes, a Thought on Chinese New Year’s Eve

Returning to South Bay Home

Today (1/30/14) I went back to South Bay where my old home used to be to celebrate Lunar New Year with friends and colleagues that work at the locations near there such as Airports and Harbor. Although I did not actually visit my old house, I was thinking about it. We, my late husband and I lived there for over 10 years, and a place of joy and love. In the later part of the 10 years, his health condition became worse. I did not want to leave him at home alone while I went to work in downtown Los Angeles, so finally we decided to sell the house there, and move to live in an assisted living facility closer to my office. The assisted living place was small but nice because I didn’t have to cook except for Sunday, they served three meals every day in a restaurant like diner. Besides, they had maids to clean the small 900 square feet apartment every week, and there was a nurse on duty 24/7.

Through The Valley of the Shadows..

Then right after New Year of 2006, we planned a vacation in Thailand with a tour company called China Tour. They had a full itinerary including a river cruise along the River of the Kings in Bangkok. When we started out from LA via Cathay Pacific Airline, my husband who had had difficulty eating before seemed to be able to eat more on the plane. When we arrived in Bangkok and were on guided tour through Bangkok temples and palaces, the tour became a challenge. In the tour bus it was freezing cold, but when we went down for sightseeing the weather was very hot and humid. During the later part of the tour, because of changes in the climate in the bus and outside, my husband became sicker and sicker, and did not enjoy even the River Cruise at all.

At the end of the tour around January 15, we were supposed to visit my husband’s mother at his old house for a couple of days and then come back to the US. It was obvious he was very sick and had to go to Thai hospital emergency. There was a family doctor near by who came to see him at our house not too far from the Bangkok Airport. He had Pneumonia, and could not eat by regular food, but needed to be fed through the tube that went down the nostril through to his stomach.

When it was time to come back to the States to work, we could not, because PJ was not out of danger yet, so we waited and received treatment until he was stabilized. Then we prepared to come back, but in the beginning, the airline was hesitant to let him board the plane because he had feeding tube through his nose. Somehow, we were able to convince with the doctor’s assurance that it was fine to let him travel. The flight back was very stressful for us because of my husband’s condition, and I was acting like a professional nurse even with my limited nursing knowledge. I was shown how to mix milk with powder protein and squeezed the mixture down the tube by the Thai doctor, who was also an AMWAY agent in Bangkok.

When we arrived back in LA, the assisted living place did not allow us to stay in their facility any more because they were afraid of non-compliance with State regulations related to management of their facility. My husband had to go to convalescence hospice, since he still had Pneumonia. I didn’t want to pay full price to stay at the assisted living because that included food and other services that I did not need. My loving son who lived in another state was able find through online search a rental apartment, which happened to be a block away from our first home. The apartment manager was kind to prepare the facilities and everything for the disabled so that it is accommodating for my husband when he came home to stay.

But he was not ready to come home. Each morning before going to work, I drove from Glendale to Hollywood to visit him. In the evening, after dinner, I would go and see him, listened to music mostly oldies and some jazz, before leaving around 8:30 PM. Those were dark days, and I could understand quite well the words from Psalm 23, “When I walk through the valley of the shadow…”. There was another bed of patient in the same room as PJ. During the four months there, there were two Roommates, one after another that passed on in that room. On March 26, while I was visiting at night, I received a phone call from my sister with tearful voice saying that we lost one of our church members’ girl, who was just on the way back from celebrating her 10th year birthday. The van where the mother was driving were cut in front by two cars from left and right racing with each other, so in the process of avoiding crashing in the car that came, the van flipped over four times, and the little girl was thrown out of the van into the side of the freeeway. On another dark drizzling Friday night, after visiting PJ, I was also involved in a car accident, which took me a year after that to resolve.

I was thankful that I was strong enough to be with him during his last days on this earth. On the night before his passing, we listened to music on CD, and he even sang aloud with the song, and before I left the door, he called me and said again smiling “I love you”. He seemed to have peace, and come to think of it, it was a special night that he might have a hunch of what was going to happen the next day so we lingered a little longer saying goodbye.

Happy Chinese New Year! The Phoenix Rose from the Ashes!!

I started writing this blog post on Chinese New Year’s Eve, when traditionally, we would clean up the house, and prepare for things new the next day. It is time for new things and joy to take place. Chinese people usually work the whole year long in business, but not on New Year. In Thailand, businesses run mostly by Chinese merchants would close, and people would enjoy being together with family, eating, playing games, distributing red envelops to children, employees, and teachers. It signifies hope and newness.

It was October of 2007, almost two years after the time of trials in 2006 that I dared to venture out to travel and live again. My first trip out of the country was Thailand, and with my brother and sister in law, we continued and joined a specially arranged group tour from Thailand to China in the province of Chengdu, and Mount Quingcheng where they are called “Heavenly Kingdom” for the scenic and cultural beauties. They were places that reminded me of the beauty of the scenes from the movie “Crouching Tiger”. We also went to Jiuzhaigou Valley or Valley of Nine Villages with a lot of Tibetan population in the area. If I were a very good photographer, I would have been able to capture better pictures of the sceneries and people that I saw there who seemed to come out of the pages of National Geographic!

Here are a couple of photographs to give you some ideas of the beauty I saw. I even took picture wearing the mountain tribal costume!!

There are times for everything, now it’s time to have hope and arise from ashes and live!!!