A letter of well wishes for my sweet Kaia Pookie on her first day of kindergarten

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I originally wanted to write a little letter, as in a real paper letter, to Kaia and read it to her on her first day of kindergarten. But then I wasn’t sure she’d want me to read it to her.. And that she may end up writing and doodling all over it since she cannot yet read herself. So, this year, I will keep it on this blog. I will save writing a real letter on paper for her when she is able to read… which is unbelievably just around the corner.

To my dearest Kaia Pookie,

It is with a bittersweet, squishy heart that I write this message to you, wishing you the very best on your first day of kindergarten, or your first day of formal schooling. 祝你幼儿园第一天超级棒！开开心心上学去! It is trite because it is so true: the days are long, but the weeks and years are so short. I can say with complete honesty in my heart and mind that taking care of you, protecting you, and loving you have been the ultimate joy and job of my life. I don’t think you are aware of how often I look back at old photos and videos of you on my phone, whether it’s a year, two, three, or four years ago when you were just a wee baby, and think about how precious all these sweet moments have been for me. The days were often exhausting, especially in your newborn days, but I could not get enough of sniffing your ethereal, sweet newborn scent. I regret none of my time and efforts in nourishing and taking care of you in the best way possible. I still look back fondly all the time at every moment with you, but especially your solid start days; those were some of my true favorite moments in raising my sweet Kaia Pookie. You were an amazing eater then, and you still are an incredible eater now! Please don’t stop!

It feels like it all flew by so quickly: triple feeding, pumping milk, endless diapering, prune juice (#ifkyk), blow outs, baby-led weaning, your first (and then endless!) words, your first steps, tantrums, potty training, and increasing understanding and awareness of everything around you. Where did all the time go? Sometimes, I get very wistful and sad. But that’s why sometimes I make your Daddy mad and am soft with you; sometimes I just want to sit in the moment with you and snuggle and cuddle and see you carefree and silly. You are my only baby, my one sweet baby, and I want to relish the moment with you. I’ve loved every stage of your development and hope you will continue to be sweet, kind, thoughtful, curious, affectionate, cuddly, and think of others. Kindergarten is a big step, Pookster, but there is a long, windy path ahead of you, filled with lots of learning. Remember: you always have to try, try, and try. Sometimes you will try and fail, but that doesn’t mean you just give up. You have to keep going and try again. I always say this to you: 加油! You have to keep going and keep trying! And when you succeed, we can celebrate the wins. Some things will come easily to you, while other things will be more of a challenge. If it doesn’t challenge you, it will not change you. And change is a good thing. Remember that the next time something is really hard. Don’t be afraid of failing, though; you can learn from every mistake, not just in school, but in life.

If there is one tiny piece of advice I will give for learning, it is to always be curious, to ask lots of questions when you don’t understand or may not agree. The more questions you ask, the more answers may come. Don’t be silent and keep lingering questions to yourself. You want to expand your horizon and your knowledge! This is what school and learning are all about!

I hope you make new good friends at your new school. The definition of “friends” will change and evolve over time and as you get older, but always remember to be kind and share with your 小朋友. You will not get along with everyone, and not everyone will like you, and that’s okay. You don’t have to be friends with everyone, but you should always be kind, always be true to who you are.

I hope you know how much Mama and Daddy love you, how your health, safety, and happiness are our utmost priorities. We hope that you will be open with us about what is going well and what is not. You should never feel afraid to share with us; you can always tell Mama and Daddy everything and anything. We hope you will always see us as your safe space. We are always here for you no matter what.

We love you so, so much, my sweet Kaia Pookie baby. Even though you are in kindergarten now and are soon turning five, you know you will always be my sweet baby, right? You are my one and only, and for you I want to do my very, very best and be here for as long as humanly possible to watch you grow and thrive. Wishing you the very best on your first day of kindergarten. Muah.

As one of your favorite Chinese songs, “宝贝宝贝,” (BaoBei BaoBei) says: 你是我们的心肝宝贝 / 爸爸妈妈的爱永相随 (You are the apple of our eye; Daddy and Mommy’s love will always be with you). <3

With all my love, your mama,

Yvonne

13 years fundraising and writing blurbs to encourage donations

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been 13 years since Ed passed, and now 13 years of fundraising for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). When I first sought out some nonprofit fundraising effort to preserve Ed’s memory and keep his spirit alive, I wasn’t sure how long I would do this for or even if I’d stick with AFSP. For a couple years, I thought I might switch organizations to change things up for myself, plus to expose myself to different nonprofit environments. But in the end, I stuck with AFSP because it was comfortable, familiar, and I got used to the setup, events, and the people. I’ve been involved in various AFSP events, including going on local TV to represent them and discuss why I walk. I’ve also been an AFSP NYC walk committee member for the last year and am continuing this effort this year.

Every year when I write my fundraising message, I try to change the message up so that it’s a little different and current to my life at the moment and what’s top of mind for me. The first couple years were about the shock of losing him. Then it evolved into missing him at milestone moments of my life, whether that was my wedding, my pregnancy and the birth of Kaia, and this year, my 40th birthday. And now, it’s really become about… every year I’ve lived past age 33… all the years he never got to live. So what am I really doing with my life to make it more meaningful and to make it “worth” living, both for his memory and for myself?

Sometimes I wonder if anyone really reads my updated blurbs, specifically the people who are in my repeat donor group. I am grateful for their repeat donations, but I always wonder if they really read anything I write. Then last year, one person actually texted to let me know that he loved “the evolution of my message” each year, and how my reflections about my brother and his passing have changed over time. That was something I really appreciated.

So, here we go again. This year, I couldn’t put my thoughts together as early as I usually do, as I typically target July, the month of his passing. I didn’t figure out what I wanted to write until around his birthday in late August. So here I am, scrambling to organize my message and fundraiser just a month and a half out from the walk on October 25! Wish me luck in meeting my goal.

The four Disney princesses from Ed

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Every time I go back to my parents’, I try to take something back to New York that is a reminder of my childhood. Sometimes, it’s really little things like random cards or photos I find in a pile that I’d forgotten about that remind me of a happy memory. Other times, it’s slightly larger things like my hardcover copy of The Complete Stories of Curious George, which I brought back this time around. Kaia is at a point where she can follow longer stories, and the original Curious George stories are actually not as short as one might expect them to be! She always plays with my Curious George stuffed animal, which Ed got for me during a Christmas back from my high school days when Curious George was the holiday theme for Macy’s. So she knows who he is and that her mama likes this monkey. We already started reading some of the stories together while we were in San Francisco.

On the last morning before we left to go to Chicago, I was rummaging through a bedroom drawer I rarely go into and stumbled upon the extremely heavy mah jong set purchased during my first China trip in 2006. This was a legitimate mah jong set, and an extremely heavy one at that! The truth is that I only ever played mah jong one time ever and have completely forgotten the rules. The only reason I even bought this crazy heavy set was that I thought it would be a nice souvenir to have from my first time in my fatherland… and then predictably, I never even opened or played it even once after buying it. So that was very practical of me at the time. Fast forward twenty years, and now mah jong is all the rage. I sat next to a White woman on the plane who said she took a four-day full-time intensive course to master mah jong! And as ridiculous as it sounds, there is the “Chinese rules” mah jong and the “American rules” mah jong (whatever the hell the latter means). For a split second, I considered lugging it back to New York with me… but then my true practical side took hold, and I immediately placed it back into the drawer.

In that same drawer, I found something Ed had bought me years ago: Four Disney princess figurines, still in their original packaging, never opened. We have Cinderella, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Snow White, and Belle (from Beauty and the Beast). They are all wearing glittering gowns. I knew immediately that Kaia would love them. Though the figurines are meant for display, I figured at this point, that didn’t matter anymore. The best thing we could get out of these four princesses was Kaia’s enjoyment, which meant being able to play with them. So I took them all out of the original box, tucked them into a ziplock bag, and put them into my checked luggage.

Of course, Kaia being the little investigator that she is, she found the princesses in my luggage when I had it open in Chicago, and she asked me what it was in her usual tone of, “Is that for me?!” I told her if she was good, she could open it when we got back to New York, but only if she was good.

Today, Kaia was happily playing with all four of them and marveling over their sparkly gowns. I told her that her Jiujiu got them for her mama over twenty years ago. He knew that when Mama was young, she loved all the princesses, so he wanted to get these for me. Now, these are a gift for Kaia. So essentially, Ed got these for Kaia… he just never realized it back then. I told Kaia that these princesses are very special, and now Kaia can have a token of Jiujiu’s love. I am not sure if it’s just me, but she seemed to understand.

“I love them,” Kaia said quietly, as she hugged all of them at once. “Thanks, Jiujiu.”

Ed may not be here today to see Kaia playing with these four princesses he gifted me, but I know he is in both our hearts and minds. If he is somewhere out there watching, I hope he is smiling.

When both your mother and your child give you the death stare

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My parents were pretty strict with Ed and me growing up. From my perspective, in their eyes, it seemed like we could never do anything right and were constantly fucking up something. If I had a dollar for every memory I had when one of us was getting scolded, yelled at, told off, lectured, slapped, hit, or beaten with a fly swatter, I’d have a pretty cushy investment account on my hands today. So it was a weird transition to hear some of the things that came out of my mom’s mouth when it came to how I parent my own child… and how lax she is.

While on the phone with my mom with Kaia there, sometimes Kaia runs around and gets in potentially unsafe territory, so I have to use my stern voice with her. I am not necessarily yelling, but my tone has become more strict and direct. My mom has scolded me and told me not to yell at her, saying it will scare her and wasn’t good for her. Welp, that’s interesting. Does she suddenly have total amnesia over all the times she yelled or hit us as children for the most benign and objectively not wrong actions we did?

Then last week after I gave Kaia a shower, I told her she had to go to the bedroom after so I could blow dry her hair. She had to go do it immediately. Well, Kaia is stubborn and wanted to do things her way, so she said she wanted to go say hi to Popo first before blow-drying. I said no again. She started crying and yelling. Then Kaia ran off, right into my parents’ bedroom and into my mom’s arms.

“What did mommy do?” my mom said to Kaia, holding her and rubbing her back. “What did she do to make my Kaia cry?” Then, my mom turned her eyes up to glare at me. “What did you do to her? What did you do to make her cry? Don’t make her cry!”

As my mom stared up at me, so did Kaia. Kaia’s eyes turned cold, and she started mimicking my mom from her perspective. “Yeah! You made me cry! You made me cry!” Then, she started sobbing even more to get more sympathy and cuddles from my mom. What a little hack.

Okay, at this point, this was clearly an act. My mom was obviously exacerbating it even more, and this was not helping at all. I told my mom that I needed her to blow dry her hair first before coming to say good night to her and my dad, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. At her age, she needs discipline. But of course, it’s not up to the freaking grandparents to instill discipline; it’s up to the parents! I grabbed Kaia and pulled her back into my bedroom to blow dry her hair.

Grandparents will rarely be strict with their grandchildren. It’s just the way it is. But I will never forget the double cold glares I got from both my mom and my child at the exact same time. Talk about manipulation!

Some people can still surprise you when you least expect it

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Years ago, I asked a friend what my least attractive quality was. I could name at least a dozen qualities I have that would deter people from liking me right away pretty quickly (to be honest, today, I don’t give a shit, but at least I have self awareness unlike many). But she said something I did not expect to hear: “You are really predictable,” she said to me at the time. That was in 2008. We’re 18 years past that now, so I’d like to think that may have changed… maybe.

If “predictability” is a real quality of mine, I’d like to say that I got it from my mom. If you know her as well as I do, almost every single thing she says and does is entirely predictable: her likes, dislikes, criticisms, reactions, lack of reactions, purchases, objections, what she wants to do, see, or eat. You name it, and I can predict it. But during this last trip, she actually said something to me out of the blue that I did not expect at all.

“Yvonne! Can you come here?” my mom called across the house when she was in the bathroom. “I want to ask you something.”

I wasn’t sure this was going to be good. Obediently, I walked into the bathroom where she was. Out of nowhere, she had my clear toiletry case laid out on the bathroom counter.

“What do you put on your skin now?” my mom asked, with a very curious look on her face.”I was looking at your skin while we were at the restaurant the other day, and I couldn’t believe how nice it looks! It’s so bright and clear and young! What are you doing?”

I sheepishly smiled. I wasn’t expecting that she was going to say anything positive to me about my skin or appearance. I am so used to my mom pointing out all my sun spots or pimples over the years that I have just ignored her most of the time when she points out my flaws… even when they are blatantly staring back at me in the mirror.

So I walked her through my skincare routine, both morning and night time. I told her what I use and in what order. I told her I always, always put sunscreen on my face and neck in the morning even if I don’t leave the house. I even reapply it midday now, based on what my dermatologist suggested. I told her about my prescription skincare and the “cheap” skincare I get in bulk at Costco. I even admitted to her that I always wear a hat outside now… which she had always advised me to do since my teen years… which I just ignorantly declined to do… until the ripe age of 35 when my sun spots really started to piss me off. So yes, sometimes my mom is right about some things…

My mom looked like she was a in tizzy after I walked her through everything. “How do you have time to use so many products? This is a lot!” my mom said in shock. “No wonder your skin looks this good!”

I insisted to my mom that it only took an extra few minutes each morning and night. Now, it’s so routine that it’s really nothing for me. She then proceeded to test out every skincare product in my toiletry bag. She told me she wanted me to buy her a specific one I’d transferred to a travel-sized container… which happened to be one of the cheapest items in my routine, which is the Cerave Moisturizing Cream with ceramides I get in massive bulk from Costco and just started using in the spring. I told her it’s just from Costco and that I’d send my dad the link so he can buy it for her the next time he goes. That cream is quite a bargain and a little gem find at Costco!

I am shocked that at age 40, I’ve already gotten complimented about my skin by both a friend who does Botox and my own mom! It’s interesting what wisdom comes with age! Maybe being “middle aged” isn’t so bad after all.

The tale of the TSA-confiscated pink capybara

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While up in Sacramento, our friend gifted Kaia a pink “capy smoosh-a-bara,” which is a capybara, currently one of the internet’s favorite animals. This specific brand is a best selling squishable toy. The squishy animal is so squishable and loveable because it is filled with a gel-like material. When I was playing with it, I could see why kids love it (cabybaras, somehow, are all the rage now, and it’s very coincidental because I feel like it started since we first went to Chile and saw a real one in the wild two years ago!). Adults would enjoy it for its stress-relieving sensation. It’s an all-in-one sensory experience and stress reliever!

Welp, we don’t have the pink capybara anymore. While we carried it on the plane from SFO to ORD with no problem, somehow going through ORD TSA was a different story. For the first time, we had Kaia travel with her own carry-on, a blue Bluey backpack. In it, she had her books, doodle pad, headphones, and random toys, including the capybara, which she recently named Marshmallow Jay. Danger became apparent when going through security and the Bluey backpack got put on the “bad” conveyer belt for inspection. Chris forgot to empty the water bottles, so he had to exit the line, dump out the water, then go through security a second time. During that time, I stayed with Kaia and our other carry-on bags and waited for a TSA agent to grab the Bluey backpack for inspection. Given it’s the Friday before a long holiday weekend, O’Hare airport was a total zoo, so we had to wait longer than we would’ve liked. I could see the anxiety growing on Kaia’s face; she was clearly concerned and had her eyes staring like lasers into her backpack beyond our reach.

“Why did they take my Bluey backpack from me?” Kaia cried. “That’s my backpack! That’s my stuff! I’m gonna go get it back!”

I urged her to be quiet and allow “the man” to do their job. I told her we couldn’t go back there because that’s only where the employees could go. When an agent finally came and went through the bag, she pulled out the pink capybara, squeezed it, then brought it to her manager for further inspection.

And it was in that moment that I remembered the capybara was filled with gel… which could get flagged as a no-go for being over 100ml “liquid” since it measures over 12 inches.

The TSA agent came back after consulting with the TSA supervisor and told us that this didn’t clear the liquid limit because of its size, so we had two options: we could exit security and check the capybara, or we could dump it. I told the agent that the capybara cleared SFO TSA security just fine; she told us that they weren’t careful enough and this clearly violated policy. Plus, I had just gone through a long “priority” bag-drop line for our one medium roller bag, and there was zero way I was going to deal with that ridiculous line again. Chris immediately vetoed the idea and told the agent to dump it.

Oh, shit.

As soon as Kaia realized that Marshmallow Jay was not coming with us out of the security area and onto the plane, I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. Her face scrunched up and her lips turned down into a huge frown. Then, she started bawling.

“That’s my capybara!” Kaia yelled out between sobs as we whisked her away from the security area. Her entire face was tear stained and she looked like she was going to explode. “That woman took it away from me! They took it away from me! That woman is not nice! She needs to give it back to me! IT IS MINE!”

Kaia was so upset that she refused to walk, so I ended up having to carry her to the lounge. She was sobbing that entire way and even after we got seated. I told her that the lady was very mean, that it was wrong she took the capybara away. I tried to validate her feelings. But I also reassured her that we’d get her a brand-new capybara she could also name Marshmallow Jay.

Then when we got to the lounge, I immediately got on the WiFi and tried to find a new pink capy-smoosh-a-bara to replace this damn thing. I felt so terrible for my sweet baby to have her brand new capybara taken away so soon, so suddenly and unexpectedly.

And there, in that instant, a TSA agent destroyed my child’s pink capybara dreams.

Kaia was still grumbling about it on the plane ride home.

“I want it BACK! She took it away from me! She is naughty!”  Kaia said softly but firmly. She knows to use her “indoor voice” on planes — at least, when she’s not having a tantrum.

“Well, now we know what that TSA agent is going to bring home to her kid tonight,” Chris grumbled.

And so, my friends, the moral of the story is: Terrorism can destroy our children’s faith in humanity.

Chicago as a visitor many times over and the Obama Presidential Center

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Given Chris and I have already traveled to Chicago a lot before, we didn’t have much of a tourist list of things to see and do when we got here. While I created a map of interesting restaurants and bakeries, there wasn’t any single place I felt we absolutely had to go to. The main thing I wanted to see this time around, which was obviously not around in any previous visit, was the Obama Presidential Center, which is located on the South Side of Chicago and just opened in June of this year. Unfortunately when we booked this trip in June, official tickets to enter the center were already sold out… through October. But upon doing research, we discovered that this wasn’t the worst outcome because so much of the center, both indoors and outdoors, was open to the public and did not require any ticket. We were still able to enter the library portion, which is part of the Chicago Public Library system, and see lots of personal belongings of Barack and Michelle Obama. We got to see photographs, murals, and paintings of their lives and the values they believe in. I loved the grounds, the walking paths, and the vegetable garden (of course, Kaia was also a huge fan). My favorite thing I got to see was likely the ridiculously long mural in the library with far too many colors and ideas to see in a single viewing. Even without access to the main museum, we could easily have spent a longer time there exploring the beautiful grounds.

Another favorite, quiet part for me was the Ann Dunham Water Terrace, dedicated to Barack Obama’s mother, who was an anthropologist by training and a huge influence on his life. In his words, “My mother, Ann Dunham, was the biggest influence on my life. She had a core belief in our common humanity, and she made sure I recognized the inherent dignity in every person.” This was noted as a “touchstone vital not only for a political career but for a life of service,” hence why the structure is made of two massive round stones, with water that flows from one to the other. She died quite young, at the age of 52, from uterine cancer. This heavily influenced Obama’s desire and push for healthcare reform, as she spent her last days worrying about expensive medical bills. While his mom had employer-sponsored health insurance that covered most of the costs of her medical treatment, she still had a large deductible and uncovered expenses, which were denied by her insurance for coverage because the insurance company considered her cancer a “preexisting condition.”

I’m really happy that despite not having tickets to see the entirety of the center that we were still able to come visit and experience the vast areas open to the public. I was thrilled that Kaia’s first presidential library experience was at Barack Obama’s, and that we got to do the super touristy thing of “posing” with Barack and Michelle altogether (okay, fine, their statues!). While I am pretty pessimistic at the direction the U.S. is going, especially with the current Dipshit administration for the disgusting second time around, somehow being here for the few hours we visited imbued me with a little more hope, a little more faith for the future. I need to have a little more hope and faith… at the minimum for Kaia’s sake.

Back in Chicago for the first time since pre-pandemic

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We were not planning a family trip to Chicago this year. But given the insane fuel costs due to the war in Iran on top of the fact that we’re current in the U.S. Open season, flying directly back from SFO to JFK this week would have been ridiculously expensive. In the end, we decided to fly to Chicago, stay three nights here, then fly back to New York on Friday; we also used miles to book these flights. This wasn’t the worst idea in the world: both Chris and I love Chicago; we’ve both come to visit separately for both work and pleasure. Kaia has never been, and so we thought it would be fun to spend a few days here together. Plus, our timing is right: not only did the Obama Presidential Center just open, but the world’s FIRST Hello Kitty Cafe also just opened here!

Since it’s still a working week for me, I had to spend several hours this morning working and doing meetings before going out for the day. Chris took Kaia out (and to the Hello Kitty Cafe already!) in the morning, and I ended up meeting them at Millennium Park, right where the Bean, aka Cloud Gate, is. As I walked down from our hotel to meet them, I started thinking about all the times I’d previously come here and what I did each trip. I’ve done about half a dozen work trips here over the years, and I have always tried my best to eat at interesting restaurants or grab coffee from fun cafes to maximize my time here. On one work trip I took here back in 2010, I remember I had to arrive by Sunday for an early Monday morning meeting. So I took advantage of the day and arrived early Sunday to spend the whole day exploring Chicago by foot, which included a few hours at the Shedd Aquarium (AMAZING place!).

The one non-work trip I did was for a girls’ Thanksgiving long weekend trip in 2009. That was the trip when I stumbled upon a German-style Christmas market just a few blocks from my hotel, and before my friends arrived from San Francisco. There, I had some good chatter with the German vendors there, who happily educated me about the glorious and magical Christmas markets I could experience if I traveled to Germany during the holidays. I had no idea that was even a thing back then, so my curiosity was piqued. It was then that I decided that I absolutely had to go to Germany during the holiday season. Four years later, Chris made that dream a reality for me, as we took our first trip to Germany (Berlin and Hamburg) during Thanksgiving week 2013! That trip cast a spell on me for European Christmas markets. After that trip, we just kept on going with the European Christmas market Thanksgiving week trips. Fast forward to 2022 and to present, Kaia has now also joined us for four of these trips! A new family tradition was born, all ignited from my very first leisure trip to Chicago in November 2009.

I love Chicago for many reasons. I love the layout of the city, the river, the lake, and the L. I love how walkable it is. I love the parks and the green spaces. I love the food scene here. I especially love the great things I’ve discovered here, including the beginning of my obsession with European Christmas markets and all things related to them. So I’m quite happy to be back.

Last day with family in San Francisco for this year

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My family tends to go through the same behavioral patterns in the last day or two when I am home. My mom goes through an anxious, angry period where she is either aggressive or passive aggressive with me, getting mad at me for innocuous things or accusing me of having feelings or intentions that she makes up. If I am not home during a given period, she will call repeatedly and ask when I am coming home; this is her way of actually saying, you need to come home now. On Monday, we planned to have dinner at my aunt’s upstairs, and my uncle would also be joining us. She asked us to come at 5 since my uncle needs to leave early since he cannot drive in the dark. So at around 3 while in Mission Bay with Chris and Kaia, I called home to let my dad know that we’d be back before 4. I could hear my mom in the background saying I was late and that I needed to come home right away. I could hear her angst, but I shrugged it off.

We went to pick up ice cream (black sesame and mango!) from Joe’s Ice Cream, a neighborhood ice cream shop that’s been around since I was a kid. Then we walked home from there. When we arrived back and I came into the kitchen, that was when I could feel my mom glaring at me with her eyes burning. “It’s almost 4 o’clock now. You are late,” she hissed at me. “You should have been home a long time ago! They are already upstairs waiting for us and eating.” Um. It wasn’t even 4pm. Who the hell was going to be eating dinner at this time? I said nothing and did as I promised, which was to help make a steamed eggplant dish to bring to the dinner along with my purchased dessert. She proceeded to get mad that we went out at all today and didn’t tell her, as she was hoping we could “talk more” together. I did not have that same hope.

As 4:50 rolled around, my mom started yelling that we’re all late and that we all needed to get upstairs, pronto. I was still cleaning up and washing dishes in the kitchen. Kaia was running around happily. My dad was doing something somewhere in the basement. Chris was lying on my bed, asking what the rush was. The reason she wanted us to go upstairs as soon as possible was that she wanted us to be done with this family dinner as soon as possible. She can only keep up her “family dinner” face for so long, and she had nothing to say to my uncle. While at dinner when we were asking my aunt questions about her potentially changing living situation, my mom got mad at me for asking questions and insisted we “let her eat her dinner.” I told her that it’s normal to have a conversation at the dinner table, and that shut her up; not everyone wants to eat in silence and call that a “family dinner” for god’s sake. It’s almost like she is in pain being at a dinner table with any wider family members and she needs to find a way to make it stop as soon as possible. When they invite her, she feels a need to “return the favor” and invite them back right away, which is “suffering.” Thinking about this is so exhausting.

There were some nice moments, though. This morning before we left, Kaia kept insisting to my dad that he show her his worms in his compost pile before leaving. Obviously this made my dad beyond thrilled, so he was happy to comply with her ask. Then as he rummaged through random junk in the garage, she insisted she wanted to stay with him to watch what he was doing. This attachment she’s developed to my dad has been really endearing. Every time she yells, “GONGGONG! GONGGONG!” and runs after him, it makes me smile and chuckle. Chris commented that my dad has probably never felt more desired or more affection from another human in his entire life before now. He is probably right.

And as we packed up the car to go to the airport, while she was being a little bratty and refused to give my mom a hug and kiss until the very last minute, she had zero problem giving my dad endless hugs and kisses and grabbing onto his leg until she had to let go and get into the car. My dad’s big goofy grin in this moment was pretty epic… and this is coming from someone who never uses that word.

When we got to the airport lounge and sat down, I asked Kaia if she missed Popo and Gonggong. She nodded her head and quietly said a drawn out, “Yeah.” Then, she didn’t say anything for while, but out of nowhere looked at me and said, “We never got to see Jiujiu… because he died.”

Yes, that is true. At least she waited to say that until after my parents were gone because I am not sure how they would have reacted to hearing Kaia say this.

The soft side of my dad

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In the evenings before bed, my parents like to make hot chocolate. They don’t do anything fancy; they use 2% cow milk, a little heavy cream for extra richness occasionally, and different forms of hot chocolate mix. The latest versions I see that look quite depleted in the cupboard are Whole Foods brand or some random organic cacao blend. My dad already pre-measured out the evening mugs for milk and was planning to warm them in the microwave and mix in the hot chocolate blend. But I told him that I’d make it properly over the stove for all of us tonight. I finally asked him why he didn’t use the Dandelion Chocolate hot chocolate mix I got him; two of the three glass jars were still sitting in the cupboard fully sealed. He hesitated initially and said that he found it a bit too sweet for bedtime, which I could understand. So we compromised, and I mixed some of his unsweetened cacao into the Dandelion hot chocolate blend.

As I heated the pot over the stove, my dad stuck around while I mixed occasionally. We actually had a pretty decent chat. We somehow managed to cover glucose and cholesterol levels, general health maintenance, diet modifications based on age, dental care and insurance, my work, the Nepal flooding (!), and general house maintenance in a very short space of time while in the kitchen together. I’ve realized over all the years of returning home that my dad really does not enjoy table side conversation; he actually detests it most times and rarely says anything at the table unless it’s something specifically interesting to him. Because of this, I usually don’t probe him much at the table. My dad’s favorite way of talking to anyone is while each person is sort of side by side. One person may be occupied with a task like heating milk over the stove (me) while the other person (in this case, him) lingers nearby. One person asks the other person an innocuous question out of the blue. The other person responds. Then the conversation either builds on that topic or another unrelated topic comes up. But the door has already been opened to allow the conversation to flow pretty easily.

Long ago, I gave up on the idea that I could change my relationship with my dad. We’ve had many ups and downs over the years. I spent a lot of my childhood living in fear that he’d lash out at me the way he did with Ed. And yes, of course every now and then, he definitely did lash out at me with his fangs. But I have forgiven him for his shortcomings because I know he had a miserable, difficult, and impoverished childhood, with very little love or direction given by either of his parents. I have moments when I get pissed because I am human, but I try to remember his childhood hardships. I have come to terms that we will never have the ideal daddy-daughter relationship or closeness I wish we could have had. I have made peace with it, mourned it, and let it go. Instead, I do exactly what ChatGPT suggested I do, which is to find power in the moments instead of forced, idealized, longer periods of time together. So if that means offering to make him hot chocolate and chatting over the stove one on one, or dusting the living room surfaces side by side while having random chatter, then I will embrace it. Those are the times he feels the most relaxed and open to me. Those are also the times he seems the softest to me.

What I’ve also loved watching during this trip particularly is how much Kaia has embraced my dad. She actively engages with her Gonggong, shows him that she wants his attention, and will not accept any less (this level of stubbornness is truly amazing and so hilarious to watch). On Sunday, he had to go out to pick up dinner takeout; she blocked the door and prevented him from leaving. When he tried to climb over her, she grabbed his leg and said he would not be allowed to leave. Eventually I had to intervene and pick Kaia up to let my dad out of the house, but it was such a cute and sweet (and likely infuriating for my parents!) moment to see.

Each night we’ve been at my parents’, I tell Kaia she has to go to each of them to hug and kiss them good night. What she has also done, which I did not tell her to do, is she proactively tells each of them she loves them. The first time she did this with my dad, he patted her on the back (his version of a hug…). Then when she actually uttered the words “I love you,” I could see the shock spread over his face… then eventually melt into this huge grin. Then she kept doing it with him night after night. I just loved seeing how big my dad’s smiles were each time. It was almost like for the first time in his entire life, at the age of 78, he was experiencing verbalized love and physical affection repeatedly, all from this tiny little human who has been a temporary resident at his home.

I loved seeing my dad feel loved. I had a moment when I almost started tearing up. For his entire childhood, my dad was deprived of love and affection, which turned him into this hard, stoic, emotionless man that he became. He focused on survival and financial independence only because that’s all he knew. And now, his little 4.5-year-old granddaughter gives him the love that he always needed but didn’t realize he needed.