To All the Songs She Loved Before

On the morning of October 27, 2016, my mom passed away.

Grief is a funny thing. Not like a "haha" funny of course but processing grief wasn't really what I thought it would be like and I didn't really know what to do with myself. I felt numb for the first few months. You have your classic stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. After the numbness passed, I definitely did not experience grief in that order and I think that I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate through it to this day.

I went to a school counselor during my spring quarter in the school year about my grief. Since I wasn't a danger to myself and I seemed to had a normal/healthy routine, all that she could suggest to me was to go to group therapy sessions where other people would share their stories of grief. At the time that idea sounded horrifying to me—Why would I share the details about the worst thing that happened to me to a group of strangers? Funny because now I'm writing about it for people on the internet to read. I quickly brushed it off and decided that I was going to find my own way to healing.

Life dragged on but eventually made some progress. I graduated from college in the Spring of 2017, moved up to the Bay Area a week later, started working 2 days after moving, and began living a life of independence that I dreamt about. Even though things were going well for me, in the back of my head I couldn't help but feel guilty and a sense of dread. Everyday, I thought about what my mom would say if she saw me now and how different things would be if she was still here.

More than a year into my new lifestyle, the movie "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" (TATBILB) released on Netflix during August 2018. I'm a sucker for teenage romance movies and it had Lana Condor, an Asian American, as the lead actress! I had to watch it.

So I watched TATBILB and I enjoyed it. It was heart warming, funny, and brought out my inner romantic. I didn't think too much of it aside from it being a cute movie.

Not long after I watched the movie, I stumbled onto an article by TeenVogue named, "To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before Is a Love Story — It’s Also One About Loss and Grief". As I was reading the article, I kept on going to myself "Oh my god, I can relate to that" and I went to rewatch the movie with a new mindset. I was in tears during the scene in the diner with Laura Jean and her dad as they were talking about Laura Jean's late mother. The song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears was playing in the background, which was a song that my mom also loved since it is an 80s classic. I kept on thinking about how they all processed their grief in different ways and how I have been processing mines.

After reading that TeenVogue article, it made me have a newfound respect for TATBILB. It is so important to share stories from different demographics. Since Lana Condor was Asian American and the story was focused on her, it felt like my story was finally being represented and I felt heard. It let me know that I'm not the only one and I'm doing okay in my journey of healing.

After watching the movie for a second time, it made me think "what can I do to help my healing? How have I expressed my grief?" I just let that question sit around in my head for a bit but I couldn't really come up with an answer, until my answer came through Spotify. I've mentioned this story before in an Instagram post but I'll add it here too.

One day at work, I was just doing my usual routine and listening to music. Then for whatever reason, the song "Last Night" by P. Diddy and Keyshia Cole started playing. I stopped what I was doing and just listened. "Last Night" was one of my mom's all time favorite songs and I haven't heard it in years.

As the song was passing by, a flood of memories with my mom and this song started pouring in. I remembered turning up the volume of the car radio when it would come on, singing the lyrics with my mom, her little excited dance she would do when she would hear the intro of the song, and that the song was her ringtone for a period of time. Tears came into my eyes and I quickly wiped them away at my desk. Luckily it was lunch time so no one was around.

This experience made me realize the profound effect that music has and it was a reminder that I had a lot of good memories with my mom that involved music. Then something just clicked, "I love handlettering, I love music, I need to practice handlettering more, why don't I handletter lyrics of songs that my mom loved?" and BAM, Mom's Playlist was born. I quickly went to jot down songs that would be featured in the series, which was quite easy since my mom was a music lover herself.

This project overall has given me a greater peace of mind because it reminds me of all of the good memories I've had with my mom. Before this project I was torturing myself by constantly saying in the back of my head that I don't have a mom anymore. It's making the best out of a not ideal situation. I want to remember all of the good things instead of focusing on what I don't have.

I just wanted to thank Jenny Han for writing TATBILB, telling a story about grief and healing from the perspective of an Asian American girl, and for being persistent that Laura Jean would be played by an Asian American. That representation is so important and she knew it.

Because of this movie, I have the courage to tell my story in hopes that someone else will feel comfort in the fact that they are not alone. I was once terrified to talk about my mom because I thought people would just give me a pity party, but instead this movie has shown me the strength in talking about grief. Below are some pieces for Mom's Playlist and a new piece, inspired from TATBILB, that I'll be debuting on social media soon. I hope you enjoy them!

P.S. another piece of media that does an amaaaazing job at talking about the subject of grief is the Amazon Prime/BBC show "Fleabag". It's so amazing and I love it so much that I'll probably write a separate blog post for it.

Until next time, my friend.