JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

While we were relaxing on vacation the first week of October, my friend from college, physician and blogger Enoch Choi, was working to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. I was surprised and amazed that he was able to post from his locations. Reading his descriptions of his days as I sat in bed each night, I became more grateful for what I had and more aware of what was happening after the hurricane, the health needs, heartaches and hope.

To read Enoch’s New Orleans posts start here and go forward.

On October 5th, he wrote

Today, the team reached a truly devastated area. St. Bernard parish is unbelievably destroyed. People walk into clinic wearing boots covered with muck up over their ankles. Their stories are heartbreaking, many say they came back today just to collect anything they could and they’ll never return. Some say they’ve been here for generations, since the 1700’s when they settled the parish, but they’ll still never come back. They don’t trust the levies to be rebuild strong enough to ever protect them.

The patients are shellshocked, such a contrast to the perky energy of the PRC Compassion teen volunteers. They’re so energetic, seeing them set up the food distribution depot yesterday was really inspiring and their faith uplifing in all of this squalor.

Patients we’re seeing have dermatitis, conjunctivitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, COPD exacerbations, cellulitis, lacerations, and sprains. In 3 hours we saw 55 patients and administered many tetanus immunizations, gave out antibiotics, let patients breathe in albuterol nebulized, gave much pastoral care and MFTs counseling. It’s great to be here and be of such help, it’s such an honor to hear their stories and care for their wounds…

In addition to his own thoughts and observations, Enoch has been posting what others from his team have said including Eleanor’s recollections. It’s an intense letter.

People were so touched that someone cared enough about them to write a personal message and to send a medical team, that they were visibly moved, some to tears. The survivors needed to talk and process their experiences, so I spent hours listening to the stories of these people who have lost everything. They said again and again that they wanted us to look at their community and tell our friends back home what we saw. They encouraged us to drive around and look into the empty houses and buildings. They want the word to get out so they won’t be forgotten.

This past weekend Enoch presented his experience for TechCrunch3. Dave Winer described it as a geek story:

People who come to open events are true web people — there’s no difference between 1.0 or 2.0 — it’s a constant. You come, like Enoch Choi, to share his story of helping people in a destroyed city (it’s a geek story, surprisingly, and a smart one).

I don’t often write about the ways we spend our money as a family or mention the gifts we make to others. However, Ted and I realized a few weeks ago that in the busyness of our fall schedule and travels, we had not yet gotten around to making a donation to help with Hurricane Katrina relief. What better way to give, than to give to someone we know and trust, someone who had shared his experience with us. If you, like us, have not yet been able to make a gift to help with the hurricane relief efforts, please read the links above and consider giving to Enoch’s team.

Donations for Enoch’s team can be sent to:

Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

950 Santa Cruz Ave

Menlo Park, CA 94025

Make sure it is clearly earmarked for the Katrina Relief Fund.

Thanks to Enoch and his team, and many others, for going and giving all they had to help. And thanks, Enoch, for sharing your geek story with us in your blog so we can see through your eyes.

This past weekend I spent some time alone with Abigail and took her to the Dancing Paint Brush in Poulsbo where she painted a box shaped like a fish. It was fun to have some time alone with her. If I remember any child’s baby days, I probably remember hers the best, since she was the first, yet it is still hard for me to remember what it was like to have only one.

On Sunday, when I went to the grocery store, I asked the girls if anyone wanted to accompany me. Elisabeth decided to come along for the trip. I think she wanted her own time to herself with me.

Somewhere inside each of us, we all want to be the only one.

Giraffes are often noted for their long necks, but I was surprised to discover how long (and dark and sticky) their tongues are also.

We had fun as a family, squealing and experimenting, bonding with each other and the beasts, offering pellets of food for the blue-gray tongues to scoop and slurp from our hands.

If you’re ever in Richmond, Virginia, it’s worth a trip to the zoo just to experience the giraffes.

The week of the much-discussed Web 2.0 conference, earlier this month, we were on vacation with family. For me it was an intense time of realizing what that word means: Family.

Family is a simple word with complicated implications. For some relatives, the word may have different meanings, different sets of definitions, obligations and expectations. Family defines our last name and our location. It creates its own culture. It seems constant and comfortable.

Family is both liquid and solid. We all know our family. We can trust in the trunks of the tree. The people whose donated their DNA to us will never change. Their lives are written in time, inside us. No one can alter the past or remake memories. We had holidays together. The traditions we continued. The cousins we visited. The gifts we got from our grandparents. For me family means memories of New Mexican lizards and German Christmas cookies. Embroidered pillowcase keepsakes and fading photos stored in my closet. Games played with siblings on hot summer days and stories whispered on winter nights. Family means familiarity. It is what we have known. It is what we know, to the core of our being. It’s the place where we are ourselves, past and present together. It gives us heritage. It gives us home and hope.

Yet family is flexible. It is fluid. People die. People divorce. People marry. People are born. We move apart from each other or closer together, in space and in the heart. Look through a series of photographs in a family album and watch the faces change. Even if the cast of characters remains the same, we are not who we were yesterday. We’re older. Wiser, perhaps. Or not so wise. We change our hair. We change our clothes. We get new habits. We get new hearts.

Perhaps the title Family 2.0 isn’t quite accurate. I don’t want to imply that families need upgrades. That the Family 1.0 version lacked some features.

But like software, family is always changing. We deceive ourselves if we think it stays the same. We want that familiarity. We want that consistency. We want a place to call home for our heart.

Yet people change. And we have to be open to letting people be who they are, even if that is not who they were years ago. We have to be as flexible as our family. And we have to forgive. Family means we grow and change together.

Earlier this month, I realized that I don’t even know what family means. The relationships I had when I was young were painful for me. At this time, for a variety of reasons, I am not in close contact with many of the people in my family tree.

But I’m willing to learn a new definition of family. And I’m hopeful for Family 2.0 and whatever new versions appear. Even if that means I get upgraded too. 🙂

one of my favorite photos from the past week…more favorites posted in my flickr account here.

I’ll try to explain some of the pictures later…