{"id":148,"date":"2011-10-11T20:50:27","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T20:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/?p=148"},"modified":"2011-10-11T20:50:27","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T20:50:27","slug":"letting-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/?p=148","title":{"rendered":"letting go"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those that don’t know I am in the US visiting my parents and especially my dad who is passing away. I’m headed back to China in two days and the two weeks I’ve been here have flown by. I say goodbye to my parents tomorrow(saturday) and I’m not looking forward to it. This week has been full of a lot of letting go moments and the end of things for me. It’s been tough. When I say them or write them out, they sound superficial but they are a part of my parents and who I am as well. I had to shut off their phone services, their number they’ve had for over 45 yrs. I stopped their newspaper, their mail and took my dad’s cat “Miss Kramer(reference to Kramer from Seinfeld)” to the Humane Society. I’ve been taking photos and clothes to them all week that they don’t want sold in an estate sale. All my mom wanted was photos of her kids, grandkids and a photo in their living room of her two sisters. It seems so unreal.\"50<\/a>
\nI was thinking today that I have called their telephone number from school growing up to when I lived in Germany, nannied in Rhode Island, taught English in Taiwan and all through my marriage.I called their number almost daily for the first three months after Mark and I got married, racking up a hefty phone bill. I called that number when I found out I was pregnant with Kiah, when we found out that Sofia’s birth mother chose us and then again when we found out about Miles. It seems strange to never call it again. Not that I can’t call another number and really it’s the person on the other line that I care about but it’s this letting go of things from my past that makes me sad.
\nThis is not a “China” entry and I apologize for that but at this moment in my life, it’s what is going on.
\nKiah (our oldest) is getting married on December 20th in Logan, Utah. She’s getting married in the same place that Mark and I were married, where my parents were married and also my grandparents. I asked my dad before I left to try and hold on until December and his reply was “that’s my plan”. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did, he’s a strong and determined person. It was beyond hard to say goodbye and thinking it might be the last time I gave him a hug or saw his face. He told me I’d been a special daughter and that Mark and I were raising three amazing kids. He also said that it had always meant so much to hear my voice on the phone whenever and wherever I had called from, that it had always made their day.<\/p>\n

Letting go is never easy, no matter what it is. I’m learning and trying to find peace in letting go. It was a blessing to be able to go back to my home, to my parents and spend time with them, with my dad. We did a lot of laughing and a lot of crying and it was worth the long trip home.<\/p>\n

“Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time… It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other”. by Leo Buscaglia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those that don’t know I am in the US visiting my parents and especially my dad who is passing away. I’m headed back to China in two days and the two weeks I’ve been here have flown by. I say goodbye to my parents tomorrow(saturday) and I’m not looking forward to it. This week … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-stacey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinagriffith.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}