Vancouver, full of memories, and another on the way

Teri’s last visit

Teri, I, Dad, Rachel (+Jack), John and Ben were here in Vancouver exactly two years ago after Teri had recovered from her first rounds of chemotherapy.  She was beat down by chemo, as is always the case, but beginning to recover herself, her energy, appetite and hair.  It would turn out to be her best period of her whole 19 month illness! 

She wanted to do everything, eat, sight see.  She wanted to eat everything Chinese, northern (her style) Shanghai, seafood (crab, lobster …), dim sum, comfort foods that one cannot usually buy in restaurants.  We live within several hundred feet of three food courts and they have steamers full of meat-filled buns, bingzi, sticky rice rolls, dumplings, zongzhi, a Taiwanese night market stand (no stinky dofu) besides prepared Chinese foods and unprepared sushi.

She loved to shop next door at Daiso, the Japanese $2 store where you can buy everything for $2 (kitchen ware, envelopes, bungee cords, belts).  One of our accomplished artist friends buys all his art supplies there!  She wanted to go up to Grouse Mountain (ski) north of Vancouver and we even took Dad up there but stopped short of the ski lifts.  We went to the point of the Richmond, and saw 7 bald eagles nesting.  She was so happy to be surrounded by her whole family and was so full of her usual high energy! 

As I am at home, everything here reminds me of her, her aesthetics, her practical touches, her forethought.  We purchased the furniture together, but she outfitted the all of the kitchenware and bathroom ware …  This time, every time I need something, I just look and there it is … a rice scooper, a tape measure, tongs …  All of the necessary phone numbers are taped in sight, as are the instructions on opening and closing the place.  Most of the bills are on autopay.  She listed places to go.

Dad and I reminisce about how much of herself she put into the place and how much she would have continued to enjoy it to its fullest.  It was more than food.  It was the cultural milieu, Mandarin-speaking, Cantonese-speaking, and English-speaking, all in one sentence.  She felt TOTALLY at home, comfortable.  Ironically, because my 1^st year Mandarin is book learned Cantonese (my parents’ dialect) dates back age 3, I’m uncomfortable because I feel I should speak Chinese but don’t, and don’t meet the expectation that I do.  That is changing.  As I spend more time here, sounds come back to me, even Cantonese.

Richmond where we live is changing.  More and more mainland Chinese are emigrating.  A new 6 story shopping and business center is going up right next door.  Endless Chinese (northern, southern, Szechaun, Hunan, seafood, buffets, hot pot, noodle shops, dim sum) restaurants all signage in Chinese.  More and more condos, but half end in rentals.  It is like being in Hong Kong, but better, weather etc.

We are located right next to the Sky Train.  Ben came for four days and we took the Sky Train and shuttle up to Capilano suspension bridge across the bridge in North Vancouver where it is replete with an elevated tree walk, and a new suspended glass walk off the face of a cliff, 300 feet down to the bottom of the gorge.  Ben is in LA for the summer volunteering/researching at Children's Hospital of LA.  The same day he left Vancouver, he flew to Nicaragua to volunteer doing health education and observing in a town just outside Managua.

Hey, hey, hey, another on the way

Rachel, John and Jack skype to keep Dad and I in his little loop.  He is energetic, always motoring and happy as a clam.  Rachel and John bought a house in Mendham and will move in a couple of months.  Did we share the big news that a little sister coming soon in October!!  Teri would be sooo happy.

Dad

Dad is comfortable.  I take care of him.  He is not walking as far and so I push him seated in his walker.  He does most of his self care.  He has a social circle, mostly Chinese artists, art historians and art critics, former art history students of his and close college friends from China, now those remaining all nonagenarians.  They come to visit.  We go to dim sum.  They have a party.  We hold a party at a restaurant.  Some bring Chinese ink paintings to look at.  Others bring catalogs of their paintings.

There has been some confusion/fantasy, not new, that led to his wanting to take action and a resulting conflagration and impasse but we survived.  Ben helped us through it.

He is convinced that I will be appointed Dean of the UBC Medical School and has told several people here that.  I walk him through the fact that I don’t have the proper administrative experience to qualify for that position.  He clings to that notion, perhaps in the hope that we would move here.  At least, his fantasies are relentlessly positive.

Me

As part of my cutting back, I took four weeks to bring Dad to Vancouver.  I never know whether it will be the last time. 

We are eating, but have cut down from the gluttony of the first week.  In between these social visits and repasts, I have been remarkably productive.  I work on three presentations (Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Taipei) and one abstract, and on research back in Milwaukee by e-mail.

I exercise > once/day, elliptical, running, bicycling, weights, Tai chi.  I shipped my 1987 Nishiki Tri-A steel chrome-molybdenum and was able to resurrect it with a few tools.  I’ve been riding 15 miles 3X/week.

I’ve been taking a Tai chi class 3X/week with Master Paul doing the Chen 24 moves.  He is a national kung fu champion specializing in Southern Fist.  With correct exercises and posture, my thighs ache.

I restarted learning Mandarin beginning with Rosetta stone about six months ago and am becoming more disciplined.  Everybody here says I improved, but given my starting point that’s not necessarily a huge quantitative compliment.  I decided to get a tutor and we meet once a week and skype several nights a week.  Since Rosetta stone is big on repetition but not on explaining conventions, she is taking the opposite tack and I feel I have someone to whom I can pose questions and meaning, nuance, structure.

I also wrote 80 cards to those of you who donated to the Teri Li Education Fund at NASPGHAN to fund an educational award and pilot grant to young educators in our pediatric gastroenterology society.

Almost finished Ghost Wars Steve Coll's 600 page Pulitzer-winning account of the Afghan/Pakistani/Saudi/US mess that let bin Laden through its grasp and led up to 9/11.

I reheat/cook, clean, do laundry, shop, wheel my father around daily, but so do most women around the world.

Whew, all in all, a full day’s work and play.  I sleep well.

How am I doing?  Good question.  I still grieve and/or dream and/or think about Teri every single day.  I sometimes feel so lucky to have met Teri and remained completely in love with her for 40 years.  Did I show it, enough?  And, I feel loss.  And, I learn daily how she affected other people, Dad, and especially how she affected Rachel and Ben.  And I see with new eyes how she saturated my whole environment with beauty, memories, and love.

P.S.  I spent quality time with two of Teri’s nieces, Jeanine and Jennifer, the last several months during my travels, as Teri undoubtedly would have accompanied me and done.  Indeed, part of my motivation in selecting those meetings/invitations was the chance to get together with them, and I added on am extra day.  It was delightful.  They are both strong and good young women!  Teri would be so proud.