Living the Present Moment

In this story, I explore the memories of a doctor-in-training as a resident in the hospital. My memories of the intensive care unit (ICU) are filled with the intense emotion that colors the space between life and death. With these critically ill patients, we sit with them on the brink of death and the edge of life, and we hope that they can make it back over the precipice into healing.

I studied the volumes of information to understand ventilators, infusion pumps, and the many life support machines. I practiced procedures to intubate patients, place feeding tubes, and insert large central lines. I learned to speak with families and deliver news–both good and bad. And I got closer to the unseen force that supports us all and the thing that we call prayer.

This personal story is dedicated to my mom, Vivienne Ying.

This is the current working version of a story that is evolving. I like to think of it as version 2.

At some points along the journey, a story feels like it is ready to be shared. Enjoy!

This story began with an exercise to uncover a memory that would make a good story. As my attention narrowed to a particular moment, I had the feeling that there is a story in here somewhere that I want to tell. This moment with my dad held significance for me. I began to unpack the scenes and emotions of my eight-year-old self from the vaults of memory. Bringing this past moment into the present, I began to reflect on it and ask myself the question: “How did this moment change my life?” I began to unpack related memories, although not all of them made it into the story. Then, I asked myself, “What does this moment mean to my life today?”

Crafting personal stories requires these steps: (1) find a memorable moment, (2) unpack the moment from memory, (3) reflect on the impact that this moment had on your life which might require unpacking more moments, and (4) reflect on the significance it has in the context of your life today. After all this unpacking, the final step is to add creativity to the telling of the story.

If you had asked me why I wanted to become a doctor before I wrote this story, my answer would be very different.

Why did Persephone eat that pomegranate seed?

As seasons shift and the Spring Equinox approaches, science gives us an explanation. The earth rotates on its axis, and the side that faces the sun has daylight and the other side is in the darkness of night. However, the Earth also revolves around the sun with a tilt in the axis, and this gives us the seasons. When the tilt brings more direct sunlight to the Northern hemisphere for more hours of the day, it brings summer to the Northern hemisphere. The sometimes complicated stories of science allow us to understand the seasons and make sense of the world.

Myths and legends also allow us to understand and make sense of the world. These stories hold knowledge and wisdom in a different way. The Greek myth of Persephone is an origin story that explains why we have seasons. If you remember the Greek story, you do not need science to tell you that the world has seasons. You will remember Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.

You might dismiss the Greek myth in favor of the scientific explanation, but you would lose the rest of the wisdom captured in the story.

Enjoy my original version of this Greek myth. I’ve reimagined the story of Persephone and Hades… and the origin of the seasons.

“Stop making up stories!” I overhear an exasperated mom talking to her 4-year-old.

In this context, the word “story” has become synonymous with lying, making up fiction, not telling the truth.

However, in the context of the art of storytelling, making up fiction does not mean that a story does not contain a deeper truth, a universal truth, a deeper meaning.

What is Truth? What is Story?

Storytellers in my tradition look for stories that hold some sort of “magic.” We tell stories that we love–sometimes for reasons that we know and sometimes we just keep telling them until we figure out why.

This story has held me since I first heard it. Folk stories travel across the world and adapt to the cultures that they meet. The wisdom is distilled and often poured into another container. I first heard this as a Jewish story, and it took me some time to track down the original Korean version. I read and listened to several versions, took it down to the bare bones, dreamed on it, combined the elements that spoke to me, and created my own version.

The Spring of Youth … a Korean folk tale, told by Dr. Joel Ying, MD

There are some stories that you do not really know until you’ve heard it directly from the people that have lived it.

Growing up, I knew my parents story of immigration from bits and pieces of overheard conversation, stories gathered second hand told by other relatives, and gaps filled in from similar stories that I have heard. My parents left Jamaica to escape political violence and a failing economy to find a place with a better future for their children.

In June 2016, on my way to a storytelling open mic with the theme “Fathers,” I stopped at my parents house for lunch. The Moth is a non-profit that promotes “true stories told live,” but I could not think of a story to tell that evening. I had a sudden epiphany that I should talk to my father to get a story idea.

I sat with my a parents in the family room with the TV off (something strange for them), and I began to ask a few questions. The seed for this story began as they opened up and told me the story for the first time in their own words. On one level, I had known the story, but I did not understand the emotional truth of the story until after that conversation.

I can still see my father thoughtfully searching for the words to answer my questions and my mom sitting on the other side of the living room interjecting her own words with a humorous smile.

I still did not have a story ready to tell for that June 2016 event. However, the seed for this story had already started to grow. Several months later, the open mic theme was “Money.” With the realization that money was a theme in this story, I crafted the initial version. I put my name in the basket for The Moth StorySlam, but I was not one of the lucky ones chosen that night.

Fortunately, I have made my own luck. As a producer of events, I have found many other venues and audiences to tell this story. As a living entity, this story continues to grow–expanding, changing, flowering, and often getting pruned.

“Show me the manner in which a Nation or community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals.”

~ William Ewart Gladstone

In this podcast story, I explore the tradition of Ninth Night in Jamaica and celebrate the life of my Uncle Charlie.

It was a gift to be able to perform this story at a family reunion in 2019. In the audience were Uncle Charlie’s grandchildren who had never met their grandfather. The entire family was moved by the experience. It was a moment of healing, and I often return to the story when I need healing.

It has also been a gift to hear the many stories that others share about their families, cultures, and traditions after hearing this story.

Perhaps you will share yours.

“Don’t go into the graveyard after dark!”

Perhaps like my friend, Janis McCall, you grew up with this warning. But really… is there anything to fear in graveyards?

“Personally I have no bone to pick with graveyards,” said Samuel Beckett.

However, every story has a reason to be told. This story comes to me from Scotland, part family story, part history, part cautionary tale… and all parts spooky because it’s completely true.

Unsure of how to proceed, the young soldier prayed silently while he continued to pace. As if summoned by some invisible force, he homed in on one of the flag-swathed caskets. “I know this man,” he thought. His arms seemed to move of their own accord, placing the roses he held atop the coffin.

~ Excerpt from Patrick O’Donnell’s The Unknowns

I have this odd practice in public libraries. When I feel the calling, I will walk randomly through the shelves and listen for the book that is calling me. I love to walk to sections that I have not been to before. I will wait to feel the pull. A cover, a title, a picture, an interesting spine, a word, something about the book draws my attention. I open the book to a random page and begin to read… sometimes, I keep reading…. sometimes, I take it home.

On one of those escapades through the public library, I encountered The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America’s Unknown Soldier and WWI’s Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home by Patrick O’Donnell. The black and white hardcover stood out at the end of a shelf. I flipped to the middle, and the origin story of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier came to life in vivid detail. I flipped back a few chapters, and the personal accounts of WWI brought me into the trenches to see the war from a perspective that I had not experienced. I knew of the grand scale of “the war to end all wars,” but now I was faced with the personal stories through the eyes of the pallbearers that were chosen to bring the Unknown Soldier back home to America. The personal sacrifices of these decorated war heroes and the atrocities that they witnessed became even more real.

When I’m not called to these random adventures through the public library, I’m the kind of person that usually reads from cover to cover. It’s the obsessive-compulsive personality trait lodged inside my brain. I took the book home. I went into a deeper dive into the history of WWI, the aftermath, and a nation in mourning for her fallen heroes. I reviewed other sources. I felt the calling to tell the story of this National Monument. As I told people about the story, I realized that this was a forgotten story. I prepared the story for a live event on Veterans Day 2022. There are some things that we should NEVER FORGET.