“A diagnosis is important
but it is not a person……..”
Exciting words scribbled
on a note left midst clutter
~ an anchor in my life.
Diagnoses tucked neatly
into a fold of my brain,
while my vertebrae curve
And life goes on whether
or not I fret and worry…
gratitude keeps me upright and calm
“[A] person is so much more than the name of a diagnosis on a chart.”
~ SharonM. Draper, educator
frayed sentences drift
a word ~ maybe two
for something I’ll write later
vanished in pumpkin soup
bubbling on the stove,
in the flour and nuts for
bread dough rising;
in the brutal wind,
on my way to take out the trash
scribbled down on a note
lost on the kitchen table.
I’ll clear off the table tomorrow………
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.
Learn from it…tomorrow is a new day.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Such a poignant and eye-opening read! The opening page is Lily, pregnant and reminiscing about her mother, rubbing her ankle just as her mother had years before. Set in Sparwood, B.C., Ah Loy, Lily’s father works in the mine and is content with his life in Canada. Swee Hua, his wife is very unhappy with Canada. Moving from China, to Brunei and finally immigrating to British Columbia, they settled in mining community of Sparwood. Their children, Lily and Bea, were born in Canada making Ah Loy very proud. He had been stateless in both China and Brunei. Swee Hua does not share his feelings, and seems to be from a different class. Their dialects are different, even within their Chinese neighbourhood: Hakka, Hokkein, Cantonese and Mandarin often indicating class. Jamie Chai Yun Liew has filled this story with issues of immigration, Chinese heritage and the many dialects, family secrets, motherhood, racism and mixed cultures, all seen through Lily’s eyes as a child, then a wife and a new mother.
Swee Hua deserted the family when Lily was 11. No note and all her things gone. When Ah Loy looked for his wife with many calls to his family in Brunei, and in the surrounding Sparwood area there was no trace.
Lily is left with the nagging question of what happened to cause her mother to leave them. She carries it with her through her life, even concerned that it was something she may have done or not done. This while her sister Bea was just angry with their mother. Lily preferred learning her husband John’s Ukrainian culture and didn’t want anything to do with anything Chinese, while her sister respected and enjoyed their Chinese cultures.
Lily especially missed her mother when her daughter was born. Her Auntie Choo Neo, Ah Loy’s sister, took on many of the responsibilities but purposely tried not to replace Swee Hua. She accompanied John and Lily, and their baby, Leonida, in an extended search for her mother, Swee Hua. The conversations that Lily and Auntie Choo Neo had on the plane both there and back struggled through the emotions of the past and whether they would find Swee Hua.
None of these details are skimmed over to include them all. The pacing of this very textured story is steady and comfortable. This story, complete with Chinese characters at the beginning of each chapter, is beautifully written.
“It was as if they were pollen that was lifted by the wind
and landed in this place when the air quieted, unplanned,
unprepared, planting themselves in soil they did not choose.”
~ Jamie Chai Yun Liew, Dandelion
Title: Dandelion
Author: Jamie Chai Yun Liew
Cover and Text Design: Jazmin Welch
Cover and Interior Art: Ophelia Liew
Edited by: Catharine Chen and Shirarose Wilensky
Copyright: 2022
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Type: Fiction
Format: Soft Cover
ISBN: 9781551528816
Canadiana (ebook): 20210390816
Sunlit
Distracted by the growth
The flight of stairs long,
the day was hot but
there would be days
when green would turn to brown,
snow and ice would coat the stairs
climbing to the top ~
difficult,
unlikely
how important was my goal?
find another way!
chip, chip, chip at the ice to make the stairs safe?
oh, just let it all go!
or
find warm and cosy for me and my pen
how important is my goal?
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished
by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
~ Dale Carnegie, writer
(1888 ~ 1955)
All I wanted was one word.
Just one word to begin
a string of words,
a sentence,
a paragraph
to shape yesterday
to shape today
to shape tomorrow
Yesterday’s shape?
A full circle morning til night
Today’s shape?
Circle ~ not yet complete
Yet filled with reading, walking and home.
Tomorrow?
Full of clear and cloudy skies
Stories to tell and be told
All I wanted was one word.
“There are not many original shapes or silhouettes
~ only a million variations.”
~ Charles James, designer
(1906 ~ 1978)
Tasty treats tempt us
to snack;
to nibble a nut;
to sneak an extra treat,
to take just one more bite,
to bake a cake…or cookies,
to lick icing from our fingers,
to eat ice cream right out of the container
(Of course, will power always prevails!)
“I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.”
~ Mae West, actress
(1898 - 1980)
