325. Love, death and not quite robots / Sifu Mimi Chan

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The past month has brought a whirlwind of emotions. Does anyone remembers the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral? It demonstrates a bit of how I feel in terms of how quickly I’ve been switching emotional gears. Plus any opportunity to bring up a random 90s Hugh Grant Rom Coms is a plus. My good friend and Make Us Visible cofounder shared a WaPo article on a guide to feeling happier everyday.

In the article it mentions something called Joy Snacks. Little bite size morsels of joy to keep us happy, hold us over or remind us that it’s going to be ok! This is exactly what 80s and 90s rom coms are…joy snacks. The article also discusses gratitude, which as many of you know, O and I consistently discuss as the solution to all things negative. When we are practicing gratitude, it’s tough to be angry, sad, frustrated, etc. The difficulty is feeling grateful when those emotions arise.

My godfather passed away a few weeks ago. I describe my feelings after trauma or loss as muted. While I see death as sad, Oscar and I have marveled in what experienced during my uncle’s passing. He truly received the grandest of goodbyes. Without going into too much detail of his health issues or decline, I was grateful to have shared moments with him while he was at his best and worst. In his final days, he was no longer able to communicate, but he passed away in his home, surrounded by so – so much love.

Several years ago, I spent time taking care of an uncle in hospice where we witnessed so many people dying alone. That was both depressing and insightful. People die alone everyday.

My godfather spent the last 5 days of his life with his children, grandsons, nieces, nephews and friends visiting him and showering him with blessings and love. It inspires me to think about the way in which the family supported one another. Seeing them laugh and cry through memories and the extraordinary care he received was truly a sight to behold.

I can’t paint a picture that captures the intensity and solemnity of those moments. You just had to be there. Watching his grandsons collectively pick him up to rotate him (even though they didn’t all have to do it at the same time) was amazing. When I think about family being there for one another, that image will forever be seared into my brain.

The funeral was joyous and moving, and naturally, sad. I believe funerals are for the living. We take that moment to honor the deceased, but really, it is a time for the living to share in their sorrow and reminisce on the good times.

Selfishly, someone dying makes me think of my own mortality. It’s inevitable especially when I am much closer as years go on and I have elderly family members.

I can’t recall how much I have shared about my anxieties and fears of death, but I’ve had to work through dealing with it through years of therapy. Shout out to the best therapist in the world who has helped me go from someone who would have panic attacks in the middle of the night thinking about death, to someone who can now talk about it on air.

My biggest fears were not just about me dying, but the loss of those that I love. I used to think that I had to choose between death being: scary or not scary, good or bad, etc. However, I think all is true. Death can be scary, inspiring, inevitable, finite and whatever else it means to us.

Instead of focusing on death, I now try to focus on living. Whenever someone dies, I think about how I want to live the years I have left and who I want to share those precious moments with. It’s a not-so-gentle reminder that our time here is fleeting.

O has been talking about a book he listened to recently called Die with Zero. The concept is to enjoy the now within reason and to die with zero dollars. Beyond dollars, I have been giving myself life points. These life points should add up over time with the goal of taking advantage of every moment. I also want to give as much to those around me.

Unfortunately I’m not that selfless or evolved that I feel my energy should only be given to those that I believe are deserving. At the same time, as a teacher, activist, advocate and community servant… I guess I am technically giving to those who might fall into the ‘undeserving’ category – after all, who are we to judge?

I think about service as a ripple effect of waves. I have no idea where they are going to crash or land. I can only hope that the impact is positive and that my efforts are worthwhile.

And now onto love.

My little cousin ,whose grandfather had just passed away, celebrated his wedding the weekend after the funeral. Talk about a rollercoaster of emotions for them.

Also, my students got married this week! Two of my ‘kids’ who I have watched grow from childhood into adult humans. They had a Disney Fairytale Wedding, which means that Disney provides fireworks, castles and beautiful backdrops for photos of a lifetime.

The highlight was watching their delight during the lion dance by their Wah Lum family. It was a very gratifying moment because the lion dance is the bride’s favorite thing – and I mean favorite. Her engagement ring is literally a lion holding a diamond! It brought me so much joy to see her elated during the wedding lion dance blessing.

I didn’t realize how much I needed that happiness after all the events with the funeral. I may not be as impacted as my aunt who lost her husband, or kids who have lost their parent – but grief can’t really be quantified or compared– can it? We all process and cope in our own way.

A wedding and witnessing ‘young love’ is a great comfort. O and I talk about young love, because after 23 years of our relationship in love, it has evolved. People often say love fades, but I don’t think that’s true. I think if you are growing with your partner it evolves into a new love with each day.

Many people like to give advice to the bride and groom. I think of weddings like funerals oddly. We are there to honor and celebrate them, not impart our wisdom. Not that I have never tried to share advice in the past. Guilty. I didn’t plan to give a speech and in hindsight would’ve prepared better and added this to what I shared: “Many people in your lives have lauded you for the college degrees and titles that you have achieved. I am proud of you for becoming humans who love and respect one another. I am especially proud of the bride who is incredible not because of all the titles you have achieved, but because of the good you put out into the world through your actions. Congrats to my ‘kids’ – I hope you are enjoying your first week as wife and husband.”

In the same way funerals makes me think about my own mortality, weddings also bring back memories of young love, the drama of planning a crazy 500 person wedding and just how grateful and fortunate I am to have the perfect partner in life to play the game of ‘dying with zero’. O is my person and if joy snacks are the key to daily happiness, then Vitamin O is all I need.

I allude to the Netflix series Love, Death and Robots in the podcast title not because I like the show, but because it is interesting to me that the order in which you receive the episodes are based on your user profile. I can’t recall which one was chosen for me first, but I think it was the one with the cats.

Is life predestined or do we have choices? It might seem like things are chosen for us, in the same way Netflix decides what you should watch by cramming the previews down your throat, however, I like to think that I can choose by defying their suggestion and being my own human!

I recently posted an image that my student made for me using those new AI tools where you use photos of yourself, and then it is blended with graphic art. I have NO idea how any of this works, but I posted this provocative question on IG with my image: Is this the future of art?

I In my humble opinion, AI is a tool, but people still need to know how to use it. For now. I think that plagiarizing work and passing it off as your own is wrong. Someone brought up the concept of fan art and asked how is this any different? All good questions, that maybe there aren’t actual answers to.

AI can be scary if we let it be… kind of like death. However, I am really banking on robot nurses in the future. I for one am going to need them.

So, is the Cylon takeover inevitable? Hell, yes!

To solidify how nerdy we truly are, O and I have been rewatching Battlestar Galactica. We are not enjoying much on tv right now, so please feel free to send me some suggestions.

In closing, it’s been a whirlwind of emotions, but not necessarily bad ones. Having feelings reminds me I’m human, and that is ok.

Thanks for listening to my thoughts on love, death and not quite robots…yet.

In the words of Cylon Six: “All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.”

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