Remembering Mikael Part 2

April 26, 2015, Sunday

To honour the memory of Mikael, at his funeral, we requested our friends that, in lieu of flowers, they might consider donating money to the Artspace on the third floor of the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard Church.

The Artspace would be dedicated to the memory of our son. We were pleased that close to $9000 was received to transform the Artspace into a multipurpose art gallery that hosts performances, visual art exhibits, language arts, and also serves as an intimate place of worship.

The dedication evening on June 24, 2011 was well attended by friends. A metallic plague with Mikael's own words embossed on it was affixed on one of the pillars of the room.


Nathan opened the dedication with his band. Mons played a song on the keyboard, I read two poems I wrote about our loss, and Debbie spoke.  The rest of the evening was a cordial visit among friends.

I put together a collection of Mikael's photography and two of my paintings on Mikael's home-going at a corner for visitors to see. It was a great evening that celebrated Mikael's robust and productive life on this side of eternity.

In December 2010, a few short weeks after
Mikael's passing, we planted a 12-year-old
oak tree at Assiniboine Park at a spot at an elbow of the river where Mikael frequented with his kayaking and biking.

An oak is a slow growing tree. Being a 12-year-old, it looked small and scrawny, though the Park really
took great care of it by tubing the bottom of the tree
and placing a protective fence around it.


The tree thrived for four springs and summers until an absolutely senseless act of vandalism killed it. It broke my heart. It was a memorial of our son, and it's gone.

The Park Forester is a very nice young man. He appreciates the significance of the tree in our hearts. He promises to replant another tree, may not be an oak,  in its place.

On Mikael's headstone where his ashes are buried, at Mons' creative suggestion, the latitude and longitude of the tree at the park was engraved so
one may easily find the tree with the use of these
coordinates:       49.873960 - 97.244460

                                                                              





The words on the plague at Artspace read as follows:

Funds Donated in Loving Memory of 

Mikael Vincent Tien-Doe Chan

 1984 - 2009

Composer, singer, oboist, photographer,

writer, adventurer, lover of the down-and-out

and a faithful servant of God.

"A life full of friendships and close relations

 a life full of love, a life full of music,

a life full of adventure and activity, 

a life full of contemplation and spirituality."

                                                           

                                                   Mikael Chan

Another "coincidence" happened when a teacher of ours, Tara Brown, was carrying twins last fall. Unfortunately, there was serious biological complications with regards to to the embryonic development of the twins. After an emergency procedure in a Toronto hospital, the concern lingered.

Premature birth contractions necessitated a C-section delivery of the twin boys at St. Boniface Hospital. Breaking the parents' hearts, one twin, Lukas, did not make it. The second twin boy, though not out of the woods yet due to a severe intestinal infection, is hanging on for dear life like a warrior. He is named Makale, and I suspect that Tara might have name him after our Mikael.

I do not know.  But, I shall inquire in due course when Makale grow sup to be a healthy, strong, and intelligent boy.

Bless Tara's heart, to honour me and our grandson about whom I bragged abundantly, she and her class of Grade 3 students created a picture book based on the lovely lyrics of Louis Armstrong's famous "What a Wonderful World". The students painted the pictures, and Tara sent it to a printer in the U.S.A. to be printed and bound as an early childhood board book dedicated to Atticus, our grandson.

Tara, I am so moved and grateful!!!

 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Remembering Mikael

April 25, 2015, Saturday

It has been practically over five years when I last posted on this blog since Mikael passed away on November 10, 2009.

I have not been able to do anything that reminds me of life with my son. Almost six years have gone by, I find that time does not heal any wounds; it simply provides me with different perspective with which to live.

There have been many significant life events that memorialize Mikael in the past near-six years.

A new baby boy was born to Mikael's good friends, Matt and Rebecca Van Otterloo, who attended the same home church as Kael. It was Matt and Rebecca who urged Mikael to go to the hospital for a check-up after an accident on his bike with a city bus. Mikael played his oboe to a hauntingly beautiful tune, "Gabriel's Oboe"  from the movie, "The Mission".

I did not know the Otterloos at that time. But, God, as usual, works in mysterious ways.

As I was leaving the hospital after having visited a friend, a young nurse came out of her nurse station and stopped me, "Are you Mikael's Dad?" I remembered the joy that swelled in my heart when I replied, "Yes. I am... You knew Mikael?" The rest is history. Matt and Rebecca came to visit us several times, the last of which, they brought along with them their new-born son whose middle name is selected to honour Mikael, Isaiah Mikael Van Otterloo.

Our Father God is a loving God to all of us, including an undeserving sinner like me, particularly and specifically to an undeserving sinner like me. He knows how broken I am at my deep loss. He gave us another boy to lift me up in my misery.

On February 16, 2014, our youngest son, Konrad, his wife and we celebrated the birth of our first grandchild, Atticus Leif Tsz Lim Chan. I know this graceful gift from God is not to fill the huge hole in my heart, but to lift me out of it to receive other gifts of grace God has provided for me in my life.

Debbie and I were over-joyed to have our first grandson. I was successful in making a special request of my employer to allow an extension to my Spring Break. Debbie and I flew to Hong Kong to welcome this new-born grandChan into our family. Atty, by which he is known, is a joyous blessing in our lives.

Though we are oceans apart, Konrad, Bena, and Atty came home for Christmas, along with Mons, Ming, and Erik. This past Christmas was a jubilant family reunion since Konrad and Bena's wedding five-and-a-half years ago in Vancouver.

I decided to retire at Christmas, 2014. Thus, the past Christmas we celebrated our family reunion, Atty's birth, Debbie and my 41st Anniversary, and my retirement from a fruitful and wonderful career for the past 41 years as an educator.

Both the students and staff gave me two heart-warming farewells. I felt that God has called me to take care of the young, and I left at the highest note in my calling.

Mikael would be proud to be at my retirement parties!

Now that I have learned to couch-potato for the past 4 months, I figure I must take care of my most unfit self festered by an inexcusable and sedentary lifestyle. I decided to dust off Mikael's awesome bike in the basement and take on a new activity.

Having spent nearly $200 to have the bike tuned up, I was ready to take it for a test-ride. Lo and behold! I fell down each of the three times, the last one hurt my left shoulder and bruised my ribs. I am still limping after a visit to my doctor's office, an X-Ray at a lab, and a sound chiding from my physiotherapist.

Oh well! I live to tell more stories. This is just a sequel to the "Misadventures of Mikael Chan", Mikael's own blog that lightheartedly story-tell his misadventures in life... and he had many, being the extreme adventurer that he was.

A Father's Grief Observed

A Father’s Grief Observed

Thomas V. Chan

Today is a particularly dreary and windy Sunday in April.

Listening to the hauntingly beautiful music our eldest son composed while driving home from an awesome worship service in which our God is exhorted as the risen Lord who wants to come in and reconstruct our broken lives - mine, in particular - I felt led to reconnect in a tangible way with our 25-year-old son, Mikael, who took his life two-and-a-half years ago. I drove to the park where an oak tree was planted in honour of his memory and then the plot where his ashes are buried.

The oak tree still looks bare, scrawny, and dead as if it has not grown an inch since we planted it soon after Mikael died. I immediately drew a parallel between that young, slow-growing oak and the enormity of my grief which continues to be raw, fresh, young-in-age, and hopelessly pitifully.

Since our tragic loss, there has not been a day when I stopped thinking about our son and lamenting his untimely death. Since the day Mikael left this world, the sun hasn’t shone for me. I have lost my joy and passion in most things I once enjoyed. I merely exist in a monochromatic sepia world drained of all living colour. I find the present difficult to bear and fear what other pain the future might bring. I am changed. I am no longer who I was. This persistent self-diagnosis frightens me.

I had a close relationship with Mikael, as I do with our other three sons, but, Mikael tugged at my heart in a special way. Debbie, my wife, and I became shockingly aware of the severity of Mikael’s mental illness after his first failed attempt at his own life a year before. He was admitted into a psych ward for several weeks while we made arrangements to move him back home with us upon release from hospital.

During the months before his death, Mikael and I did many things together. We went on a canoe and hiking trip in Whiteshell Provincial Park. On school days, I offered him rides to the university before going to work. We talked. He confided in me about his spiritual struggle as he walked through “the dark night of his soul”. I encouraged him to take life’s struggle one day at a time. On hot summer days, our neighbours would see the pair of us sitting on the front lawn, reading and enjoying a cold drink between us.

The slide shows in my mind remain as precious memories of my son, whom I miss so desperately each day. These happy remembrances, ironically, grieve me deeply, but not as deeply as a life-time of regret that I chose to pour my time, attention, and energy, during the children’s formative years, into my work, instead of into my family.

Yes. Many regrets! Yet many happy memories!

I wonder if my life, at its conclusion, will be reduced to unzipped mental images, many of which are fading fast in fidelity, colour, and pixels.

My wrestle with God as to why Mikael died continues daily. My wrestling and hoarse-sounding laments are, ultimately, my own deep-seated struggle with my own faith in a loving Father-Creator-Redeemer-God.

One day shortly after Mikael’s passing, I persisted with my daily questioning of God: “Lord, where is my son?”  To which both God and Mikael responded in unequivocal black-and-white as I read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 where Paul shares his belief about those who die in the Lord. I was reading from Mikael’s Bible, and in his inimitable tiny hand-writing, Mikael wrote beside the verses in the margin: “The dead will precede the living in getting to heaven.”

Cool!  Very cool!

As I read and re-read the laments I have written about our son, I noticed the tentative rising of a  resounding hope out of the ashes in a particular one.

                                    In the midst of my loss

                                    Unimaginable pain

                                    Unfathomable grief

                                    I behold your radiant countenance

                                    Smiling broadly into His.

                                    I smile and shudder

To ever doubt that

                                    His grace is more than enough

For here, now, and eternity.

Is that not sufficient for me for now in this pilgrim’s progress?