Hellobee

PART 1: MY MOM’S CONDITIONAL LOVE

Growing up, I would do anything to make my mom happy. Her love was the sun around which my world revolved, and for as long as I can remember, I was in her orbit. When she was happy, her love radiated off of her, and I would bask in her warmth and feel happy.

When my mom’s mood darkened, you could feel the room get cold as the sun disappeared from the sky. The instant that happened, my brother and I would scramble to bring back the sun. There was no limit to what we would do: for example, we would practice the piano for 3-4 hours every day, just because nothing made her happier than hearing us make music. We both competed in piano competitions for over a dozen years, and we didn’t even like the piano!

Music had its own rewards though. My dad’s business failed when I was 12, and we had to sell almost everything we owned. My brother and I had to get jobs to help pay the mortgage and my mom was under incredible pressure, but what held us together was the music. After years of practice, I had developed the ability to mesmerize my mom with music. There’s a famous quote, “Music hath charms to soothe a savage beast,” and when I first heard it I thought, “Ah yes, that’s what I am doing.” But nothing summarized my life like the story of Orpheus from my beloved copy of D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths:

“Orpheus’ music was joyful and gay, for he was in love with Euridice, a sweet young maiden, and she loved him in return. On the day of their wedding, his songs swelled out, filled with happiness as his bride danced on her light feet through the meadow. Suddenly, she trod on a snake and sank to the ground, dead of its poisonous bite. Hermes gently closed her eyes and led her away to the underworld. No more songs came from Orpheus’ throat, no more tunes rang out from his lyre. All joy had gone out from his life. He had to have Euridice back.

Weeping and grieving, Orpheus wandered about searching for an entrance to Hades, and when at the end of the world he found it, he did what no living man had ever done before: he went down to the realm of the dead to beg for the return of his beloved. His music had the power to move hard rocks; it might also move the cold heart of Hades. Hope gave him back his songs, and, playing and singing, he walked down the dark, steep path.

His silvery voice floated down through the dark like a gentle summer breeze and its magic moved the iron gates of Hades. They sprang open and let him in, and Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog, lay down at his feet and let him pass. The whole dark underworld stilled and listened to Orpheus’ music as he entered the realm of the dead singing about his great love, begging to have Euridice back. The fluttering souls hushed. Those condemned to eternal pains stopped groaning, and their torturers, the avenging furies, the Erinyes, dropped their whips and wept tears of blood.

Hades, the pitiless king of the dead, sat on his black marble throne with Queen Persephone at his side. Even he was so moved by the music that tears rolled down his sallow cheeks and cold Persephone sobbed. Her heart was so touched that she turned to her husband and begged him to let Euridice go back to the sunny world above. Hades gave his consent …”

At first I focused on just relieving my mom’s stress with music, but to my surprise I found that other people responded to it too. If I played Bach or Mozart, people liked it – but I found that if I played Romantic era composers like Chopin or Tchaikovsky, it magnified the emotional response. One time I played Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu for my mom’s high-school friend visiting from Tokyo and when I was done, I realized she was crying. That’s when I realized that it wasn’t just my mom – somehow I was able to touch other people’s hearts with my music. But still mostly, I just wanted to make my mom happy. I never loved the piano, and stopped playing after my parents moved overseas. What was the point, if she couldn’t hear me play?

PART 2: MY DAD’S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

Through it all, my dad was a relative afterthought. It was so easy to please him that it wasn’t even a challenge! I had a PhD in making my mom happy, but my dad required no effort. He loved me no matter what I did – crazy, right?

So of course, like a fool I valued my dad’s love less. Asian culture often values hard work, which means that some of us lose sight of what’s important. For me, whenever I struggled hard to achieve something, I valued the result more than things that came easily. I had to work so hard for my mom’s love that it seemed ridiculous to just get love for free! I am ashamed to say this, but I took my dad’s love for granted for his entire life.

Then shortly after I moved to the Philippines to spend time with my parents, my dad died. It wasn’t until his death that his unconditional love disappeared from my life and I realized just how foolish I had been. My mom had given my conditional love, but my dad’s love had been a constant. His love had never shone as bright as my mom’s, but it never wavered. He had always supported me, no matter what I did. I played football in high school, and my mom was so upset that she didn’t speak to me for a year. (A year!!) But my dad came to every game that he could. When I started my first company, he put a good chunk of his life savings into it and helped it become a success – with not just his financial support, but his emotional support. He was always rooting for me, and his love and support had been the bedrock of my life.

I knew this of course, but I didn’t know it in my bones until he was gone. And of course, by then it was too late to tell him. But I think he knew how much I loved and appreciated him. It should have been more but hopefully it was enough for him.

PART 3: LOSING MY MOM’S LOVE

My mom was so unique in so many ways: she had an unstoppable force of will, would tell the funniest stories and charmed everyone she ever met! So it’s almost embarrassing to admit that in some ways, she was also a pretty stereotypical Asian tiger mom. She used her intense love to push her kids to achieve the things she wanted. I never understood why she wanted me to play the piano so much, until years later when she told me the story of her childhood.

My mom was born in 1943, and Japan signed its formal surrender for World War 2 the day after her second birthday. In the year before Japan surrendered, American planes firebombed half of the city and burned much of it to the ground. She grew up in brutal poverty, not just of the body but of the soul. If you think society is patriarchal today, just imagine life in post WW2 Japan. Women were the invisible labor that made life easy for men, on a level that’s hard to conceive. She and her mom would wake up well before dawn to prepare breakfast for her father and brothers. Everything was cooked over a fire, which had to be tended. And there were no food processors or washing machines back then, so as the only women in the family, she and her mom did it all. They worked from dawn to well past dusk preparing meals and doing laundry (and of course, serving sake to her dad until he passed out every night).

Her only escape was school. Then one day walking home from school, she heard the soaring notes of a violin float across a rice field. Violins were incredibly rare and expensive in the 40s, but eventually she worked up the courage to beg her father to allow her to take violin lessons. She had given her entire life to her family, and violin lessons was the only thing she had ever asked for. But her father said, “No, you are just a girl.”

Hearing this, everything made sense to me. Music was denied to her, but years later she discovered music in her own children. It was like she found a reset button for her life. She never got to play the violin herself, but now her children could be her instrument and their music would float over the rice fields of her mind and into her heart.

My mom showered us with love as long as we played the piano, won piano competitions and did well in school. #tigermom But if we strayed at all from the script, that love would disappear. And as I got older, I started to discover my own passions. When I decided to play high school football in 10th grade, that was the start of my defiance. Don’t get me wrong: I still practiced for hours a day, and continued to compete in piano competitions. (Asian genes run strong in my family.) But I didn’t win any competitions that year, and that was duly noted.

I discovered a never-ending ability to disappoint my mom. Even happy events would get an unhappy ending, like the time I got a promising job out of college as a management consultant. When I was promoted, she was so excited and proud! I felt like I was back in the family home, playing the piano and making her so proud. But I came up against her expectations. In Japan, you worked for a corporation for life and almost nobody ever started a company. But I didn’t like consulting for others, and yearned to start my own company. When I finally got the guts to quit and start my own company with a college friend, I could feel her disapproval flowing into my email inbox. (Trust me, it wasn’t subtle.)

With time, I realized that it’s rare to find happiness in the approval of others. The story of Orpheus actually has a sad ending.

Hades gave his consent [to Orpheus to bring his wife back from the underworld], but he made one condition: Orpheus must not look at his bride before they reached the realm of the living. She would walk behind him, but if he turned, and looked at her, she must return to the underworld.

Overcome with joy, Orpheus started up the dark path, and as his music faded into the distance, gloom again descended over the underworld. The way was long, and as Orpheus walked on and on, doubt began to creep into his mind. Had Hades deceived him? Were the sounds he heard behind him really Euridice’s footsteps? He had almost reached the upper world, and could already see a dim light ahead, when he could bear his doubts no longer. He had to turn and see if she really was there. He saw her sweet face, but only for an instant, for again Hermes appeared at her side. He turned her about and led her back to the dark gloom below. Faintly, Orpheus heard her whisper farewell. He had lost her forever through his lack of faith.

Orpheus never again found joy on earth. He wandered into the wilderness to grieve in solitude. He sang, but now his songs were so mournful that tears trickled down the cheeks of wild beasts and the willows wept.  A band of wild nymphs stormed through the woods shouting to Orpheus to join them. They yelled and carried on so loudly that they could not hear his silvery voice and were not touched by its magic. They wanted him to dance with them, but he had not heart for their revelry, and in a fury they threw themselves over him. They tore him to pieces and tossed his body in a river.

D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths

My story also has a sad ending.  As I made more and more decisions that my mom didn’t like, I could feel her love for me slip away. Her love had always been the center of my life, but now her feelings for me were less clear. When I moved to a remote town in the Philippines to help her and my dad with their business, I thought they would be thrilled! My dad was, but my mom went back and forth on having me there. I guess that’s how conditional love works. It’s only there if you meet the conditions… and I no longer did.

After my dad died shortly after his 49th wedding anniversary, my mom was naturally devastated. I did everything I could to ease her grief, but I didn’t have 3-4 hours a day to play the piano… and without that, my Orpheus powers deserted me. Nothing I could say or do could reach her, and her love for me reached a lifetime low. I finally read King Lear recently and I had barely made it through the first scene of Act 1 when the King dismissed his daughter Cordelia with these acidic words: “Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.”

Sometimes I wonder if that’s how my mom felt. I was 42 when she died, and I think I made her happy for maybe 30 of those years… I just did the math, and that’s a 71%. A solid C grade. And all my Fs in her eyes came towards the end of my life. What kind of student starts off strong, but then fails the midterm and final? Looking back, no wonder she was so disappointed in me.

This whole thing has complicated the grieving process for me. I was so close to my mom for most of my life, and her death rocked my world. I still loved her just as much as I did when my world revolved around her. But at the same time, I am not sure how much she loved me towards the end. Is that terrible to say? But she was capable of so much love, and I just didn’t feel it so much in the last few years. I know in my heart that I disappointed her. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t been born than to not have pleased her better.

PART 4: UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR MY KIDS

I have struggled to find meaning in all of this. The fact is, I don’t regret my life choices. I have had a life full of passion and purpose that I wouldn’t have had if I had played the piano for another 25 years (she wanted me to be a professional musician). I wish she had approved of my decisions and loved me as much as ever, but that just wasn’t in the cards. So after almost two years of struggling with this, I have decided a few things:

1) I choose to remember the mom of my childhood. Her love for me was conditional, but wow there was so much of it! Her love filled my heart and my soul. She sacrificed so much of herself for me and my siblings, and that is a debt I can never repay or forget. As much as I can, I choose to remember her this way.

2) I choose to celebrate my father’s lifelong love. His love for me was unconditional, and I am so grateful for him. His love for his family was so deep and enduring that even now that he’s gone, I can feel it wash over me and give me strength in times of hardship. Thanks, Dad. I never let you down, and it’s only now that I understand what a gift that has been.

3) I choose to love my family unconditionally. Whatever passion our kids decide to pursue, I will do everything I can to love and support them. Wherever they choose to live, I will visit them. Whomever they choose to love, I will love and support their relationship.

While I was processing all of this, I had my own Orpheus moment when my mom visited me in a dream.  It was like when Orpheus visited the underworld, but in reverse. I emailed Bee the instant I woke up, and I’m glad I did because the details have slipped away from me with time. But here is what I wrote in the moments after I woke up.

my mom visited me in my dreams! she was wearing her green long sleeve shirt and was being so loving to me, like she used to be. then i realized in my dream that she had died and that she must be visiting me. i just wanted to soak in every second of our time together. so i gave her a huge hug, but not too strong so i didn’t crush her (like always). i told her i loved her so much and how much i missed her. i pressed my cheek against her cheek and her skin was so soft. she smelled exactly the same! i had forgotten so much about her already and it all came back to me in the moment. her voice, her scent, her touch. i kissed her. she was confused as to why i was hugging and kissing her so much, but she didn’t complain. i was still holding her as i thanked her for coming to visit me but from her reaction, i realized that she didn’t know she was dead.

then i woke up crying. wow it was so real! i have no idea what it means, but it felt like a true visit. i don’t really believe in that, but that’s how it felt. it was so comforting to hold her again… i had forgotten what it felt like and for a few minutes, i experienced it all over again.

In that moment,  I experienced a mother’s love for the first time in years. It was a true gift, and one I will never forget.

I hope that when my kids look back on their lives, they will remember the unconditional love that Bee and I have tried to give them. It will not be easy, as unconditional love is the opposite of the #tigermom style in which I was raised! But I have really struggled for the past two years to make sense of my mom’s passing, and this is all that I’ve been able to come up with.

Mom, wherever you are, I am sorry I let you down and I hope that one day you will be proud of me! And Dad, thank you for the blessing of your love for every year of my entire life! I miss you both every day.