Thank you for your e-mail. I enjoyed the text conversation on Skype with you.
My kids and I are fine as usual. Zen and Yuma are well adjusted to their new school environment which started in April. We are all busy engaging in each sport activities; volley ball for Zen, swimming for Yuma, gymnastics for Eugene, and cycling and golf for me. It has been almost a half year since we lost Yuko. The concept of family resilience by Froma Walsh is highly relevant to us, how we can thrive in time of the adversity. Flexibility and stability, connectedness through mutual support, mobilizing kin, social and community networks, seeking a mentor, open emotional expression are some of the key processes which I found very useful (Walsh, Family Process 42(1)1-18, 2003).
I think I am slowly learning how to secure good enough environment for kids in a single parent family. They lost the most important attachment figure, but I realize it does not have to be a mother. Father can also be a good one, and we can look for good alternative figures outside of the nuclear family. Eugene is attached to his grandfather. Yuma found one of Yuko's friend who has children of the same age group to be somewhere between a surrogate mother and a friend. Kids can be happy if their father is happy. I try to provide them with a safe and loving family life, which seems to be not too bad so far. A girl is more sensitive than boys. I decided to take up Yuma's strong request to have a beagle dog in our family. Our family welcome a new member soon.
I also realize an attachment is crucial not just in childhood but also in adulthood. I realize by loosing Yuko, how much I had been attached to her for the last 20 years. The pain of attachment deprivation stays deep in my mind, and I cannot do anything to alleviate it. The only thing I can deal with my pain is to keep telling to the people and writing on my blog.
I am getting better enough to leave my kids behind with their grandparents for my trip to Okinawa in August and Taipei in September.
Tiki.
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