For the past 3 years I have struggled with my faith and my identity. I mean before that, these things didn't matter at all to me. I was loving life (or so I thought) just doing what I want, when I wanted with no concept of consequence. I remember being the life of the party always on the go a new adventure around every corner and making use of every second of every day for me all me. I filled whatever void I had with meaningless evils like promiscuity, drinking (as much as could be expected since I am allergic to alcohol), partying, experimenting with this and that. I thought life was great this was me, I was awesome I oozed cool…. RIGHT?
I was living in Baton Rouge in my one bedroom apartment next to my best friend and favorite person my cousin Del. I was partyin’ that night hard core club hopping with my “friends” when I got a call some where between Fred’s and the varsity around midnight or later. It was my uncle… “hey kiddo how are you doing I was just calling to let you know I need to talk to you and Del tomorrow together its about your grandma… ok love you talk to you tomorrow” I immediately B lined to the restroom so I could call Del to find out what was going on. She was clueless but we set a time to meet up and speaker phone her Dad.
Let me take a minute to explain my relationship with my grandmother. If there is one thing I have always done right its having an extremely close relationship with my family. Growing up in an predominantly Asian culture it unavoidable. My grandma whom I will hereinafter refer to as “my nay nay” (nay nay means momma in tagalog) was my rock. She raised me and all my cousins from birth while all of our parents worked super hard to providing for us. When she was in her 60’s she moved to New York to raise my aunts 2 kids while my aunt worked. This woman is a saint I tell you. Don’t get me wrong our parents did their share but for the most part she was our live in nanny. When we said jump, she would ask how high, we could place our food orders and it was piping hot right in front of us within 30 min or less. We ran that little old Asian woman rugged. We fought over her, terrorized her and loved her more than anything in the world. We saw her every day and learned everything there is to learn about being a lady from her.
I met up with Del and we sat together in her one bedroom loft as we thought about what this call would entail. FINALLY the phone rang it was uncle Fran. “Hey kids there is something really important I need to talk to you two about and it cant wait till this weekend you have a right to know” where was this conversation going it felt like the world was spinning. “We took your nay nay to the hospital and they did some test on her and I don’t know how to tell you this but she has pancreatic cancer and its pretty bad. When we get more info we will let you know but you guys should come home and visit with you nay nay this weekend and a lot from here on out because it doesn’t look good” We hung up the phone balled up together and just cried it out as we clung to each other as our worlds crumbled down. We wiped our eyes and looked at each other and Del said “you know what we have to do right” and I said “of course we are moving back home.” It was settled right then and there we would start packing and move back to be with our grandmother who was inevitably always there for us.
When we moved back things where ok they had diagnosed my grandmother with about 3-4 months to live and she fought it till the end with all her family on her side for almost or a lil more than a year after being diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. And her last moments where spent at my moms with every single one of her grandchildren there and her children holding on to her praying and loving her as she took her last breath. She was gone “my nay nay” my rock. My true hero a real woman who had seen it and done it all in the most poised and proper manner, she even died gracefully.
During the time I was home, I met Mitch my husband. What started out as a fun time and someone to occupy me while I was in town started to turn into something really special. Could it be my first real love. All this time I had gone through relationship after another cheating feeling nothing just lust and fun no emotional attachment. But Mitch he was different there was something that kept me from getting bored and moving on as I did before. Things went kind of fast and not to mention he had a 3 yr old daughter. We had our share of irresponsible moments but then we realized that we were meant for each other. I loved him he returned my love times 1,000 and I loved his daughter and we all three loved God. Could it be I found my life. Our relationship continued to grow as did our maturity we started loosing a lot of friends and staying at home more often. Things that never mattered so much began to matter like owning a home, trying to build our family, staying home to spend time with Lexi. It was all falling into place. We started introduce God into our home and decided that Lexi was going to be our number one priority and if she was going to be, we needed God on our side to get through this parenting thing. It was a difficult battle but Lexi eventually came to live with us more often than not and she is our light in a dark tunnel, our connection with the people we want to be. But still I was lonely I was feeling alone I was no longer that life of the party, everyone loves me, I super hot, 10,000 friends person. I started feeling unattractive, my only friends were Mitch and Lexi and I was losing touch with my faith and how to apply it in my relationships. I have always had a relationship with God its just that at this point he was like a long distant friend that I occasionally had one on one conversations with. Here I was preaching to Lexi making her say a prayer every night with Mitch and I, going through the motions but not engaging myself in it.
Well I started thinking about my relationship with God and realized it needed to be renewed because this unhappy me was just not cutting it. I began reading the bible with my little family every night and truly examining its teachings. I started making new friends (good friends that have the same things in common as myself) and reconnected with my cousin Del who I hadn’t been making much time for. And enjoying life and the little things that people take for granted. I am really glad that I have found God again and he has been blessing me everyday with something new. I can’t say I’m perfect, I still struggle on Sundays … and I am working on it. But I am thankful that my life has taken this unexpected turn. I’m still working on finding me through Christ but I feel a lot closer to me than ever before. I am beginning to understand that Christ is the only one who can reveal my true self to me. I am no one without GOD!
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