First post of 2016

...can we just ignore the fact that it's coming in MARCH?

Well, the holidays came and went in normal fashion.  And 2016 is well under way.

I first wanted to post about my niece, Alahana.  Anyone who knows me personally knows I have a very special relationship with my niece.  I feel more like a big sister to her than an aunt sometimes because we grew up together.  And if you know me and my family, you also know she has been going through some hardships with drug addiction.  

When I went home for Christmas I wasn't sure what to expect.  I knew Alahana was planning to stay with us for the time I was there, which would be more time than I have spent with her in the past three years.  It went surprisingly well.  I cherish the time I have with her and the times I can truly make her laugh.  Whenever anyone has ever asked me what my favourite sound is, I will always answer that it is the sound of my niece laughing.  And I take it as a compliment that she says I am the only one who can make her laugh that hard.

On Christmas Eve our family usually opens 1 or 2 (or 5 in the case of my great-nephew because he has so many) presents and Alahana said she wanted my sister and I to open our presents from her at the same time.  It turned out to be something she made herself and was partly inspired by the artwork I have been making.  I was so touched.

It is in a black shadowbox and she glued all of the crystals in the design by hand.  It took her hours.  She chose the semicolon as it has become a symbol for those of us who suffer from depression and as she explained, instead of ending her life with a period as she could have done, she is choosing to use a semicolon and to keep her life and its story going.  She isn't out of the woods yet and there are bound to be some missteps, but as I have always told her, as long as she makes the decision to try to better herself and be healthier, I will be and am still proud of her.

(Alahana and I together Christmas morning.)

Christmas was also a somber time for my mom last year.  She found out that her sister has cancer.  My mother is the oldest of the 4 girls and 1 boy in her family.  My maternal grandmother was disabled in a way that forced my mother to step up and take the head of her family role at a young age and I believe that makes her relationship to her siblings that much deeper.  When she found out the news that her sister has cancer my mother was devastated.  She is usually very upbeat, but for the first time, I saw her suffering and it was hard to watch.  I tried to be as supportive as I could though and urged her to plan a trip to Taiwan to see her brother and sisters as soon as she could.  I felt she would feel better if she could actually see her sister face to face.

She booked a flight for the end of January and she planned to stay for 3 weeks.  I haven't been doing my artwork as much as I was a couple of years ago, but I felt inspired to make something for my mom and my auntie, something that they could each look at and feel closer to each other despite the miles between them.  And this is what I came up with.

On the left it says "jiejie" ("big sister") and on the right it says, "mèimei" ("little sister").  I asked my mom to take the one on the right to my auntie when she went to visit her to let her know that my mom and all of our family here are thinking of her.  She took it and said that my aunt loves it.  She made sure to put it in a prominent place where she will always be able to see it.  And it's kind of cool to think that a piece of my artwork has a home all the way around the world in Taiwan!

I was asked to make a custom piece for a family member soon, so hopefully I won't let another 3-4 months slip by before posting again.  Until then!

<3

LH