And it Was Good

 

On March 4, 2023, three days before Gerardo took his last breath on earth, an ambulance brought him back to our home from UCLA hospital.

Gerardo's sister Lily and I raced home to beat the ambulance and to be ready to receive Gerardo and help him shift into hospice care. Everyone on that ambulance who brought him into the house did so with so much love and care that I still get welled up thinking about how beautifully they transported him.

As soon as he was placed in bed and before the hospice staff arrived, a parched Gerardo asked me for his usual beverage of choice: a cold Topo Chico with cranberry juice. I brought it for him and watched him take an unforgettable swig. His face lit up with a gigantic smile and he said "ahhh ... that's good."

He said it not necessarily to me or to Lily. His gaze was somewhere beyond the room. He loved how the cold drink made him feel and he was giving thanks. Thanks for its existence. Thanks for having tasted it. So simple. 

Lily urged me to get my phone to video record him but I didn't. Maybe I would love seeing that moment on video today. But even if I had reached for my phone, he didn't repeat that extraordinary swig and he didn't repeat what he said. It happened. And then it was gone. And his transition almost immediately started to happen. 

I am grateful that my memory bank has played that moment for me almost every day for the past three years. It remains vivid.

Recently, I was discussing the book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin with my book group and my good friend Crisynda pointed out a passage when the character Marx is dying. That passage masterfully toggles back and forth from past and present and at one point takes us to a time when Marx and his friends are eating peaches so delicious that it is impossible to describe how delicious they are. Marx says of the peaches: "I'll probably never have to do a single other thing in my life, because I tasted this peach (304)."

Crisynda is a retired nurse who has been able to witness beautiful and simple moments of people letting go. No fanfare. No melodrama. Just a simple goodbye with a recognition that they have tasted the peach. And it was good. 

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

 

I FINALLY finished reading Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner today. I wasn't in H Mart when I finished reading it. I was in my bed. My new bed. And in my new bed, I cried as I read the final gut-wrenching sentence (in her memoir about the complex bond between she and her dying mom) that broke me into many pieces. A final sentence that only a person who has experienced profound loss can write. The kind of sentence that requires a wisdom that can only be acquired through the throughness of it all. Until you go through the complexity and the dread and the beauty of it all. Until you sing it, weep it, scream it, convulse it, choke on it, drown in it, and come back up for air gasping on it. 

I never knew I'd be sleeping in a new bed. Smaller than the bed Gerardo and I had together. Bigger than the hospital bed that had replaced our large bed for the last couple of years—the one he used before he passed. I never knew I'd ever own anything called Queen-sized. I never knew. Until now, as I know.

Crying in H Mart is the first book Gerardo and I selected for our book club for two: Jenny & Gerardo's Book Club. The club was organized in such a way that I would read it aloud to him on days when he needed a distraction from his pain ... pain so severe that he couldn't read anything on his own. Pain that only allowed reading to be done aloud to him, in small spurts.

There were eerie similarities between the suffering that Gerardo and Michelle's mom went through. There were eerie similarities about the love and tension and struggles of being a dying person and being a person with a dying person: "My mother had struggled to understand me just as I struggled to understand her (p. 169)." Sometimes I had to put the book down because Gerardo and I had to pause and weep together as we could see what was coming down the pike as we saw what was happening to Michelle's mother. 

Our book club never moved onto a second book mainly because our club wasn't able to complete Crying in H Mart as Gerardo passed before we could finish it together. 

An important and courageous facet of this book is Michelle's ability to confront some of the unfairness she bestowed onto her mom—a narrative so common that it has become an embarrassing cliche—of a child punching the lowest hanging fruit, citing imperfections of a parent as the forever reasons of the adult child's imperfections of the present. The confrontation is admirable because she is able to articulate a kind of regret that can only be summoned when faced with losing a flawed and loving parent while riding a high horse for much too long: "Sure, I had taken my upbringing for granted, I had lashed out at the ones who loved me the most, allowed myself to flounder in a depression I perhaps had no real right to (p. 176)."

The way a person goes through grief is unique to each person. And the way a person cares for oneself and becomes self-aware is unique to each person. Michelle's epiphany about therapy and self-care is something I love: "Nothing my therapist said was anything I hadn't psychoanalyzed in myself a million times already anyway. I was paying a hundred-dollar copay per session, and I began to think it would be much more fulfilling to just take myself out for a fifty-dollar lunch twice a week. I canceled the rest of my sessions and committed myself to exploring alternative forms of self-care (p. 212)."

My self-care these days includes saying yes to invitations by my trusted friends who are circling their wagons around me with their loving, watchful eyes. I have committed to never turning down an invitation from this circle so that I can remain engaged with good people and have good spaces to process what I'm going through without receiving an invoice from such interactions. My self-care also includes letting it all flow through me—where I let myself cry in H Mart if I feel like it, or Albertsons if I feel like it, or Target if I feel like it, or my Queen-sized bed if I feel like it. Or to let myself laugh with somebody or everybody or nobody at all. And mostly, to let the sensibility of Michelle guide me in not taking anything for granted and making every moment count, and letting Gerardo's sensibility guide me in finding ways to pursue new purpose and enjoy life not later, but now.

We Are One: My Eulogy for Gerardo Mouet

Celebration of Life for Gerardo Mouet

March 17, 2023 • 5PM

Santa Ana, California

We Are One: Eulogy by Jenny Doh

Thank you for being here. Thank you for loving, remembering, and celebrating Gerardo Mouet.

 

THE PERFECT FIRST BITE

One of my favorite memories of Gerardo is of a hot summer day when we were dating. We got everything packed including a watermelon that Gerardo couldn’t wait to eat. I was looking forward to eating it too, but I wasn’t as excited about it as he was. When we got to the beach, he started cutting up that watermelon and he pulled out the first wedge. I knew he wanted to gobble up that perfect first bite but then his gaze turned toward me and offered it to me instead. That was Gerardo.

 

ANYWHERE BUT HERE

Another memory is when I decided to put my career on hold to stay at home with our infant son and toddler daughter. As much as this was my choice, I was overwhelmed by it. Gerardo one day rushed home at around noon and when I asked why he was home he said that he wanted me to have some fun and that I could go anywhere I wanted to, for one hour. So, I took that hour, wearing stretchy pants, shirt with dried-up baby vomit, and unwashed hair in a ponytail, in search of a place that was anywhere but here. I ended up going through the drive thru at McDonald’s to get a soft serve ice cream cone and then parking my car at the CVS parking lot and blasting the radio as I imagined myself in alternate realities. It was the most glorious hour and I would come to enjoy that type of hour on several days when my husband came to help me have some fun as I remained tethered to my actual reality. That was Gerardo.

 

ARE YOU SURE?

Another memory is the day when I decided to become a working artist. This is after the many twists and turns that my career had taken me, from social worker, to El Sol charter school fundraiser, to magazine editor, to book producer, to art studio owner. With every new career interest, Gerardo was my biggest cheerleader. But when I decided that I wanted to paint, I was concerned that he might say something like “Again? You’re changing your mind again?” But he didn’t say that. He asked me only one question. He asked, “Jenny, are you sure?” And when I said that I was, he said, “Okay then, let’s get things ready so you can paint.” To which I countered by asking what we would do with all the paintings. To which he countered, “If you’re going to be a painter, the only thing you should be thinking about is painting. You should not be thinking about where to put those paintings. If we need to rent storage, we will rent storage. Your job from now on is to paint.” That was Gerardo.

 

FOR MORE THAN A DECADE

In 2013, Gerardo had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his bile duct. Every year after the surgery there were things that started to happen as other complications related to that cancer and surgery emerged. For the past five years, he started to significantly suffer. For the past two years, he had debilitating pain with scattered moments of no pain. For the past eight months, there was agonizing physical and emotional pain, and for the last two months before he passed, he had the kind of suffering that no living creature should ever endure.

 

One of the things that comforted Gerardo in the midst of his suffering was for him to put pencil to paper and write. He loved to use a wooden #2 with a good white eraser top. Even if what he wrote didn’t make any sense, the process of writing helped him. Incredibly, during one hospitalization when he called me before I came to visit him, he asked me to bring something to the hospital. I thought he would say a clean shirt or a soft blanket. Rather, he asked me for just one thing: a pencil sharpener. That was Gerardo.

 

During the past year, his favorite beverage at home was cranberry juice mixed with topo chico. And true to his Director form, he wanted each mix to be just the way he wanted as he pursued the perfect blend and would ask me “Honey, can you bring me a cranberry and topo chico and this time can you make it with 65 percent cranberry and 35 percent topo chico?” That was Gerardo.

 

On February 28^th after Gerardo had been taken from UCI to UCLA by ambulance, Gerardo told me that he had no more fight left in him and that he wanted hospice. On March 2^nd, his sister Lily flew into Orange County and Manuel Gomez picked her up and drove her to UCLA to be at Gerardo’s bedside with me. On March 4^th at UCLA, Gerardo transitioned into comfort care at which time the doctors and nurses said he was allowed to eat or drink whatever he wanted. He asked me to get him popsicles. And true to his Director form, he said to me “Cherry is ok but grape would be preferred.” So, I walked to Whole Foods in Westwood and got him popsicles which he enjoyed. During those moments, I was able to tell him that as difficult as this past decade has been, it has been my honor and privilege to care for him and take him to the finish line, no matter the outcome. And to my face streaming with tears, he said “Jennycita, I want you to be happy, starting NOW.” That was Gerardo.

 

The truth is, he had always wanted me to be happy. That had been his goal as my husband. For me to have fun and to be happy.

 

WISDOM

On tonight’s program, you will see the words by Confucius, that guided his adult life:

As the sun makes it new

day by day make it new

yet again make it new

 

You will also see the words he penned as Director of Parks & Rec to guide the agency:

Learn.

 Have fun.

 Get fit.

Be respectful.

 

You will also see the words he repeated to anyone who ever talked to him about the joys and tragedies of life:

Everything has a beginning, middle, and an end.

 

You will also see the words he penned on a final paper for a philosophy class that he took at UC San Diego where after writing about all the readings and lectures for the class, he put forth his bold concluding thesis in the final paper, positing that:

We are one.

 

Sadly, he got that paper back from the teaching assistant who used a big fat red pen to cross out his thesis and write back “No we are not!” with a failing grade.

STARTING NOW 

I think that that teaching assistant was full of bitter grievance. Grievance easy to catch and difficult to get rid of. I think Gerardo was correct. I think as we in this world try to hold onto perceived grievances, and as we point to what Kristin Dombek describes in her essay as The Selfishness of Others, we forget that we too are perpetuators of all that we disdain. We are (as masterfully illustrated by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), all muddling through EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE. And when voices try to convince me that nothing matters, I will strive to make each day new and join Gerardo’s optimistic thesis in recognizing that indeed, we are one.

 

Before we raise our popsicles to Gerardo, I want to thank my trusted friends—my girlfriends, my gym friends, my barre friends, my art friends, my UCI friends, and most of all, I want to thank Lily. In Spanish, the term for sister-in-law is cuñada. Technically, she is my cuñada. The word for sister is hermana. And that is who she has become for me. Mi hermana.

 

Lily: thank you for being there for Gerardo during his suffering and for being with me by his bedside at UCLA as he transitioned from intensive care to comfort care and then at home to hospice care. Thank you for being with me to help work through the layers of sorrow, the rage, the exhaustion, the relief, the love, the forgiveness, and the peace. Thank you for echoing Gerardo’s charge for me to be happy, starting NOW

 

And now, whether you have a cherry or grape or orange popsicle, let’s raise it together.

 

To Gerardo. May he rest in peace.

To Wonder and Pray

John Muir once said that "When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." I've learned that this is true also when it comes to our bodies. When one drug is taken to address one part of the body, it affects other parts of the body.

On February 23rd, I took Gerardo to the ER and on the 24th, he was given his very first dialysis treatment, due to renal failure. I thought they were mistaken at first. How can a person with liver failure also have kidney failure? The answer to that is at the heart of Muir's point: because one thing is attached to everything else. Medicine for the liver can negatively affect the kidneys. Or the heart. Or the lungs. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

On February 25th, he was given yet another dialysis treatment. And many blood transfusions. That evening an ambulance transported Gerardo from UCI to UCLA where the transplant medical team is assessing many things ... not only about his acute kidney failure but also the bleeding that could be related to a cause that could disqualify him from the transplant program.

That last sentence is upsetting to hear. But we heard it together today. And all I could offer Gerardo are words to help him consider that God's will is beyond our imagination as this grueling assessment process continues.

Those thoughts were formed with the support of my support system. With some in my support system I talk on the phone. With others, I cry and hug in person. With many I text or DM with lots of emojis. With a few I work out and sweat. A giant love letter to each of them would include my gratitude for their wise counsel and unconditional love, with an invitation to wonder and pray with me about the grandeur of this journey.

Curative End

WHY
I've seen Gerardo endure much. From cancer surgery in 2013 to radiation to stent replacements to complications from liver cirrhosis, to strangulated and incarcerated hernias, to internal bleeding, and to debilitating episodes of hepatic encephalopathy. I've also seen how depression and anxiety and fear have become proportional to his physical suffering and grip him tighter and tighter.

In the darkest depths of despair, I hear Gerardo screaming his single-word prayer: "Why?" 

It's a prayer that even the most faithful seem to utter. Even though I think he knows that suffering is neither personal nor permanent, and that it's not because of sin, and that it's an arbitrary part of living, he still prays it. And in my darkest moments, I pray it too.

FOMO
On his podcast, BLOCKS, Neil Brennan asks Bert Kreischer why he fears death. Bert gives the best answer I've ever heard. He says he fears it because of FOMO: the fear of missing out. Like what if after his funeral some of his friends decide to go get a drink and shoot the shit, remembering the good times with Bert? Who wouldn't want to be included in that scene? That whiskey on the rocks. That conversation. Those laughs. Those tears. That familiar seat at the bar where the time of day is packed with potential for the next wonderful feeling to arrive. 

I feel the same way. It's not that I want life to be infinite so I can live with endless pain and suffering. But damn, I don't want to miss out! Because after my funeral what if my best friends decide to gather ... perhaps at a bar but more likely an art studio where they raise a glass and then make some art, talk about the good old days and then break into poetry readings, dance, and a sing along. God, that sounds fun.    

CURATIVE END
I recently accompanied Gerardo to meet with the palliative care group at UC Irvine. The way I understand it, palliative care is about helping with pain management and quality of living so that the patient and caregiver can exist with less suffering. Hospice care is also all about that but the main difference is that hospice care is dispensed when there is no curative end. Palliative care is dispensed when a curative end may or may not exist.

By "curative end" of course they mean a cure for disease. Because there is no cure for the actual end. Everybody ends.

THE SEA IS NEVER FULL
The curative end for Gerardo's disease would be a successful liver transplant. And no matter how many times I explain it to people, I still get folks asking me: "So, where is he on the list?" And I explain that it doesn't work like that. It's not like standing in line at Disneyland waiting our turn to get on the ride. It's an evaluation of how sick his liver is, based on blood work. The sicker the liver, the greater the chance he will be prioritized for a transplant. And how sick the liver is is measured by the MELD index. And because our health care system is built around specializations, consideration isn't given to context ... like hernias or bleeding or encephalopathy or the condition of other organs like the kidneys or heart. It's not that liver specialists don't care about context. But because demand is through the roof and supply barely covers the ground, the liver transplant system has organized itself to simply focus on the liver. And they will help the sickest liver first. Period.

At church recently, the chancel choir sang a powerful song that contained these lyrics (To Love our God by M. Hayes):

Where does the wind come from? Where does it go?

Blowing north then south, how does it know?

The rain flows gently to the sea, yet the sea is never full.

How can these things be?

Yes, I wonder the same.
How? Who? What? When? Where?
And of course, "Why?"

Hear my prayer.

Gerardito

 

GERARDITO

Gerardito
Hits the spot

Ice cream & milk
All swished together.
A treat many kids have invented
But not as perfectly
As when Gerardo was a kid.

So good and so loved that
His family called it the diminutive of his name: Gerardito.

An invention of simple joy
That hits it so good even today.

After two brutal back-to-back hospitalizations
Gerardito goes down cold and creamy to faithfully hit that spot again.
Sweetly. Simply.
Gerardito.

//

Feb 4-5 hospitalization: incarcerated hernia

Feb 8-9: hospitalization: hepatic encephalopathy

//

How to make a Gerardito: Place a heaping scoop of ice cream into a cup. Pour enough milk into the cup. Don't ask how much. Just figure it out. Stir the shit out of it. Gulp it down. Enjoy the moment.

MUDDLE THROUGH & GRAPPLE WITH

ZARNA
Comedian Zarna Garg says that she has never said "I love you" to her husband of more than 23 years and asks, "What's the rush?" She goes on to explain that like many immigrants from India, she wasn't raised with that phrase. Nor was she raised with other things like hugs and candlelight dinners. I'm so happy that Zarna has become famous because she explains a lot of things that help me explain my upbringing and how that has affected my relationships. Gerardo was also raised similarly, which is one of the reasons I felt so comfortable with him more than 30 years ago when we met and fell in love.

Fast forward to today where we have evolved into people who say it more. We also hug more. Maybe because we've both met people who help us practice the hugs and sentiment. And also maybe because we realize how few days each of us have on this earth. As my favorite tweeter (@death_reminder) on Twitter tweets every day the same message: "You will die someday."

LAST & THIS
Last December, Gerardo was at the UCI hospital for days and nights where he was in an exhausting amonia-buildup loop where the words from his mouth started to say "The probability ..." and never concluded into a complete sentence as gibberish took over. Those words repeated endlessly. It was not scary. It was terrifying. This December, he was at the UCI hospital for an incarcerated hernia that thankfully stabilized without surgery. 

HOLLOW
Christmas felt best when I was a kid. Maybe up until I was about 12 it felt good. And then every year since then, it started feeling strange and weird. I think it's because I see more vividly every year, the commercialization, materialism, over-indulgence, over-spending, and wastefulness that eventually pile up into a heap of meaninglessness. Hollow.

WORTHY
When I see Gerardo finding hope through his faith, I don't see hollow. Speaking of faith, I recently attended a church service where from the pulpit came words that moved me. The words were about how when faced with an incredible gift, we humans have assorted ways of responding. We sometimes respond with initial glee followed by apathy. At other times, as we cite wrongs from the past, we respond with hostility. The pastor delivering this sophisticated message noted with humility that historically, the church has been at the epicenter of sin that has bred understandable hostility. Because the church isn't God. The church is human. And all humans are deeply flawed. Another way we respond is with worship. The pastor dissected the word to explain that it is rooted in the word "worthy" and that to be in worship is to be in a state of being worthy. And to be worthy is to strive toward the original nature of God, not human.

SOLID
I also don't see hollow when I see Gerardo having good moments with clean food that lands well ... like the homemade chicken and potato soup that I made for our lunch. I also don't see hollow when I hear his uncontrollable laughter as he watches comedians' specials. And mostly, I don't see hollow when he and I struggle to process the tremendous pain and loss that have been ours this year and accept that all we can do is muddle through somehow. I think it's ok to occasionally talk and weep about the intense feelings of hurt that life has dealt us. That's what therapy is. The processing of feelings. Except we don't get an invoice for doing it when we allow ourselves to do it on our own. Solid. 

BEGINNINGS, MIDDLES ENDS BEGINNINGS
Everything has a beginning, middle, and an end. I think that sometimes when I think something has ended, other things begin. My hope is that everyone I love and care about will experience many new and wonderful beginnings.

Before 12, when Christmas didn't feel weird, I had faith. Lately, I find myself seeing glimpses of that faith making cameos in my life and heart. Like that sermon. Like my ability to hug and say "I love you." Like Gerardo's laughter. Like my friend with whom I'm reading the Book of Job and sharing our thoughts about it all who wrote to me to say she thinks religion is for people who are afraid of hell while spirituality is for people who have gone through hell.

As I muddle through and grapple with, I sometimes pray. Not for the granting of wishes or a list of parlor tricks I want God to perform by preventing this or strong-arming that. Rather, I pray that I can better understand the bigger picture. That I can marvel at it. That I can even worship it.

Jab Cross Hook Cross

 

Years ago Alan, Sheny and I became friends through boxing. We go way back to LA Boxing days. Over the years the three of us with our significant others would go out to dinners and/or host dinners at our respective homes.

For the last several rounds, I’ve flown solo to these dinners, happy to still be included and grateful for the generosity that Alan and Sheny show me. (No need to @ me when I share that in these types of dinner settings I enjoy having the men figure out the tab.) 

Last night I expressed how much love and protection I feel when Sheny or Alan always pick up my tab without having me rotate in to take a turn at paying. In Gerardo's absence, they remind me that Gerardo had always been quick and generous with rotating himself in when it was his unspoken turn to do so. I wouldn't have had it any other way. (Again, no need to @ me about gender stereotypes, feminism, blah blah blah.) It’s not that I can’t pick up the tab flying solo, it’s just that these friends understand that in this season, it’s more than my tab that they are picking up. They’re picking me up. And making sure I feel all the dignity, care and love.

The Dark Side of Kindness

There are some who assume that the terrible nurse I battled on day 4 of Gerardo's hospitalization/recovery was terrible because perhaps she had been "unkind." That is an incorrect assumption and speaks to our society's infatuation with the notion that kindness is the salve to most of society's ills.

The nurse hadn't been unkind. She was full of gestures that are characteristic of kindness—like smiles and  polite greetings. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if her wardrobe contains a graphic tee that says "be kind." 

Coupled with such characteristics were incompetence, exaggerations, incomplete information, and a nervousness of knowing she was in over her head in terms of a specific medical intervention that she tried to fix though she was unqualified to do so, and made worse, causing unnecessary pain and suffering.

When I called her on it, she dialed up the belittling care by putting her hand on my shoulder and amping up the "kind" and "let me nursplain to you what you don't know" posture.

When I told her to take her hand off of my shoulder, she was shocked. 

And perhaps some would argue that I was being unkind.

And I would argue back that kindness has nothing to do with it. The reason I take issue with our society's blind infatuation with kindness is because it doesn't recognize the dark side of kindness, which frequently leads to turning a blind eye to what is wrong in the moment, as we or our loved ones become walked all over, in the name of nice.

Language is another tool that people use to dispense belittling care. Which is why I'm skeptical of strangers who use terms of endearment (e.g., honey, sweetie, babe, my love, etc.) too quickly. Such language (like the hand on the shoulder) has a way of creating hierarchy and distorting the specifics of reality.

//

After an exhausting week of hospital recovery, Gerardo is home and resting. This incident of having survived surgery for a strangulated hernia adds a new dimension of care at home. 

Thank you to my loving and supportive friends.