Coffee Stained Stories

May 3, 2022

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🎧 Transcript

— Music 

SB My grandma died last year. It was Valentine’s Day. I was lounging on my couch, in my apartment in Vancouver, when I got the text from my mom. I took a moment, cried a little, then called Mom. 

It was early morning in Korea where my parents live. They were getting ready to head up to Seoul. Mom seemed to be in a hurry, and I didn’t have a lot to say, so the call was brief. I sniffled a little before I hung up. 울지마, Mom said. Don’t cry.

There was a literal ocean between us. I didn’t get to attend the funeral. I haven’t hugged my mom or my dad since Grandma passed. Grieving in the time of Covid.

Grieving from afar is weird. My job had a bereavement leave policy, and I took two days off from work. But I didn’t go looking for the one black dress I have somewhere in my wardrobe. I think I stayed home and watched dumb shows. Mom sent photos from the funeral, and all I could do was reply with heart emojis. 

— Pause 

Isn’t that stupid. 

Now, it’s been a whole year, and I’ve moved even further away. I live in New York. But I’m thinking about Grandma. And so here I am, at Grief Garden. 

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— Music 

AM Um, It’s a quiet, soft, meditative space. There’s music playing at a low level. 

SB This is Amita Manghnani, Associate Director at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University, which is where I’ve come to visit Grief Garden. 

AM There are garden trellises surrounding you. There are butterflies hanging from the ceilings. 

SB Oh, she means paper butterflies. It’s a garden of paper flowers, leaves and butterflies. There’s natural light coming from the windows on either side of the room. 

AM Guests are invited to write messages to lost lives or lost loved ones. And then those messages are added to garden trellises and become part of the installation.

SB Grief Garden is an immersive interpretation of a poem On Visiting the Franklin Park Conservatory & Botanical Gardens by Khaty Xiong.

Kathy wrote the poem after her mother’s passing. And this is how it begins: 

I have come to collect the various species of America:

    ruby-spotted, tigers, kites & pipevines —  

SB Khaty is a daughter of Hmong refugees from Laos. This is Khaty. 

KX So this poem, it started out as a very personal piece that I wrote… in response to my mother’s sudden death in 2016. She died in a car crash in California. So I was in Ohio, when she died. Um, I live afar. I don’t live at home. And… that was a really hard experience trying to process her passing.       

SB I reached out to Khaty because I wanted to understand grief. And this weird thing that is grieving from afar. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know how to express my grief, that I went to talk to a poet. 

Anyway, back to Khaty… It was in the middle of the night when her older sister called, back in 2016.

KX You know, hey, Khaty, this is gonna be really hard to hear. But Mom got into a car accident, she didn’t make it. And… I thought it was a bad dream.  

Fast forward anyways, to after the funeral – when my partner and I, we came back from California to bury my mom, the first thing I wanted to do was to visit the Franklin Park Conservatory, in Columbus, Ohio, where we live.

— Music 

KX Whenever I feel really stressed, I just want to see butterflies. And that’s kind of just where the poem really began.

I grew up in a very strong animistic household and shamanism was very big in my family. And when I found myself at the Conservatory, one of the first things I started to look for was any sign of my mom, maybe if she was seeing me, or visiting me. 

———-

SB Her poem was turned into a physical installation in Chicago in 2018. It was a big success, and another showing was planned in New York City, scheduled for April 2020.  But then, the pandemic hit.  

KX Yeah, It was a little sad it couldn’t happen in 2020.

SB Here’s Amita again. 

AM During the pandemic, Khaty’s work began to take on really new resonance for all of us. As we were watching the death count rise in New York City every single day, as we were getting sick, as our family members were getting sick, as we were all dealing with social impacts of the pandemic, we decided that when we re-opened, we wanted to bring the garden back. 

SB Collective grief is something that’s been on Khaty’s mind a lot too. 

KX Now especially after, two years, of just staying in our homes… And all the stories that have been coming out about violence against Asian bodies. Yeah, I read actually, I read something very recently, online, another article about Christina Yuna Lee, who passed away, who was killed in her apartment… Reading and hearing about Christina has been really hard. I actually have been thinking a lot about them. Constantly. 

SB It’s been hard, being an Asian woman myself, hearing about incidents of women being followed, attacked on the street, shoved in front of a train, feeling unsafe simply, being. And how do you begin to process it all? It’s heavy. It feels like far too much. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. 

KX It’s hard to catch up and to process all the pain and all the violences and all the loss. You know, my partner’s white, and it’s hard to have conversations. I guess, I’ve not had anybody to talk to you about it. And so it’s all been internal, you know, I’ve been internalizing a lot of the sadness and the grief. And I just, they’re very little words. I think I’m still trying to find the language for it. 

SB Amita’s also thinking about how we’re experiencing grief on an individual level as well as collective.

— Music 

AM We’re losing lives in our families and then we’re seeing horrific deaths and murders of people who we may not know but feel a closeness to. I’m not quite sure how to make sense of it. And the one thing I have found comfort in is being with other people, reconnecting after a period of intense isolation is one thing that has helped  me. 

———-

SB You know, I came to Grief Garden, because I was thinking about my grandma. But being here, I realize I’ve been grieving a lot of things. 

I grieve because people closest to me have also lost loved ones.

I grieve because there is a lot of grim news from within the community and around the world. 

I grieve because when my dad calls and tells me to please be safe, I want to be able to say, don’t worry, Dad, I actually feel really safe here. But those are not the words that come out of me.

Grieving is still weird. But each time I come back to Grief Garden, I notice new handwritten messages that’s been added to the garden. 

— Music

Tape 1 The smell of donuts; The tattoo on your hand; your thick dark hair; the smell of your clothes…

Tape 2 Thank you for all you did to get me here. And to all my ancestors, whoever you are, thank you.

Tape 3 We all said love is simple. But I never feel that way. I’m all along grief in love. Shall we lose our love? Shall we love somebody? Shall we feel the love? Shall we hug and cry? 

SB Grief Garden is growing. It’s like a community garden. 

And there’s something kind of beautiful about it. 

Tape 4 I wish for a future. May the life of the future return to…

Tape 5  Mama, the questions I wish I could ask you. Like, what was your favorite flower? … Or where did my father’s name come from? What of your parents? I miss you. I love you…