Monthly Archives: February 2015

Clone

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I was walking up my parent’s block today from work, and the sun had just finished setting. I had a slight headache at the end of the work day, and I wasn’t wearing any glasses to see things clearly. But then I saw a figure who looked just like Ed from behind — same height and build. He was even in Ed’s default “going outside” outfit — a loose black jacket, a white shirt underneath, khaki-colored pants, and black shoes. His hair was cut just like Ed’s, and his walk was just like his. It was so uncanny… I couldn’t believe it. I kept walking toward him as he walked, and finally he turned so that I could see his face, and of course, it wasn’t my brother. The man was pulling keys out of his pocket to get into a car.

As the man drove off, I felt empty again. I know it’s ridiculous to think it could have been my brother, but he seemed just like Ed even down to his steps and the way he moved his arms around. There are probably clones of Ed everywhere walking around, just waiting for me to find them and hope that maybe one of them really is him. And then, as per usual, I will be disappointed and have to move on with my everyday life.

Bad blood

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I think I was really cursed. How is it possible that I could really have a family where a) when my brother dies, my cousin makes it all about him, b) that same cousin constantly calls or texts about how “miserable” his life is, and then c) that very same cousin says he can actually relate to my brother for not wanting to live anymore given that neither of them have any support system?

In a perfect world, I would not even be associated with this cousin. I would no longer see him or his text messages (thankfully, I can block his texts and calls now), and I wouldn’t have to invite him to my wedding. Who wants to invite someone to their wedding when that potential invitee explicitly states that he doesn’t care about your wedding? But then there are complicated things to consider, such as making his brothers angry, who would be invited, and even worse, making his mother, who is my aunt, angry. Bridges would be burned. Families would be broken. Well, our family is already broken, so what difference does it make? We’re not trying to be something we’re not. We’re openly dysfunctional.

 

Note

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I’ve had moments over the last year and half when I’ve thought about my brother’s suicide and the lack of note he left. I’ve wondered if I would have felt better or worse if there had been a note. Some people say a last note gives them a greater sense of closure. I’m not sure I quite agree with that because in my brother’s case, I know myself, and I probably would have obsessed over every single word in that note and never would want to get rid of it. I knew he was clinically depressed and spiraling out of control the last three months of his life. It wasn’t a surprise to me, and I could sense it more and more every time I talked to him over the phone in those days leading up to his death.

I did a quick search on how common suicide notes are. In an NIH study done in 1992 (the last year data was collected on this that I could find, which is pretty sad), less than a quarter of those who committed suicide wrote last notes. The majority of them were young females with no history of mental illness or previous suicide attempts. My brother’s not a woman, and he also had a strong history of mental illness with one previous suicide attempt. Ed was so lost in his own pain and suffering to even consider the idea of a note.

I feel an emptiness in this house without him here. I can feel his energy, but he’s not here in the flesh. It’s always the same feeling I get right before bed because I would have always gone to bed after him, and now that he’s no longer here, I can’t expect him to be in the bed next to me sleeping as I turn out the light. I have a strong urge to see him again. It would be nice to see him just once for a few hours, just to talk to him and hear his voice and laugh again. I’d tell him about how he’s going to be missing our crazy wedding in a year and how our mother is trying to control parts of it a bit at a time, and I’d let him know that I’m trying to incorporate him as much as possible because I haven’t forgotten about him — not even a bit. I just want a piece of him, and as the days go by, I feel as though I have less and less of him. It’s as though he is slipping further away from me even though he’s already been gone out of this life almost 19 months.

I look at the big framed photo of him smiling, the same framed picture we displayed at his funeral service, at night before bed while I am back home, and I just feel so hurt. Am I really never going to see you again in this life? Ever? Can’t I just hug you again, just once?

Framed photo

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I continued my scanning insanity today and decided that today was the last day I’d be scanning anything on this trip. As I’m inspecting the photos I scanned to ensure that I didn’t cut anything off, I notice one photo in particular where our cousin, Ed, and I are posing with a candle-lit birthday cake downstairs in our dining room. I can’t be any older than 3-4, which means Ed must be around 10-11. I notice Ed’s desk in the background, with piles of books, papers, and likely school assignments awaiting him. And in the back of his desk, I see a tiny pink photo frame with a little picture inside. I zoom in on the photo on my screen, and I realized that the photo is actually of me, just a month or so after I was born. The photo is right under a picture he taped to the wall of a baseball player I cannot identify.

This immediately made my eyes fill with tears. I had an image in my head of my big brother, studying his grammar or history or doing his math drills, taking quick breaks to glance over at his admired baseball player and also of his little sister, who continued to annoy him to death with her screaming and crying throughout the day and night. I don’t think there’s anyone else I know who has a brother with a bigger heart than his.

Scanning

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I planned to spend just an hour or so scanning old family and friends photos tonight, but I became almost maniacal about it and spent over four hours going through and scanning pictures. I thought, I’m just going to take my favorite photos of Ed and me and scan those. Well, I guess almost all of our childhood photos have managed to become my “favorites,” and I became overwhelmed with how many of them gave me warm and fuzzy feelings that I ended up going a bit overboard.

All of our photos together when we were little are my favorites. Even before he passed away, whenever I’d come home, I’d always take a look at our childhood photos for at least a few minutes, just to try to remember a time when I knew Ed was genuinely happy. They are the biggest collection of photos of my brother smiling before the world broke him.

But one of my absolute favorite photos of just my brother, before I was even born, is this photo of him standing in front of Spreckles Lake in Golden Gate Park, with a remote-controlled car in front of him. His hands are holding the remote, and he has the most endearing smile on his little face. His eyes are big and wide, naive to all the pain that the world is going to offer him in his young life. Every time I look at that photo, I can feel my stomach unsettling, and my heart feels so hurt. When I see that photo, I think, “Damnit, why is this world so screwed up that it had to steal away your love of life and pure innocence?” I ended up using that photo in his funeral program.

I’ve become obsessive over his baby photos. I’ve scanned a great number of them tonight, and it’s been taking a long time given the way this old computer is configured. I don’t know what it is with me and these photos. When I come home, and I see that he’s no longer here and his clothing and papers and writing are no where to be seen, I feel like I have nothing left of him. The only things I have left are Bart and his baby photos, and that’s really it. I want to take whatever I can get.

Surprise visit

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Despite living away from home for over 10 years now, I’ve never had the pleasure of giving my parents a surprise visit home. Just once, I’ve wanted to secretly fly home and call them from outside their front door and say, “Guess where I am?” And tonight — mission accomplished.

I was sitting in an Uber X car going down 280 and chatting away with my driver, who is talking about what assholes most cab drivers are and how Uber and Lyft drivers aren’t like that. He asks me what I’m here in San Francisco for, and I said, work and visiting my parents… But they don’t know I’m coming to their house now. He laughs and says, wow, you’re such a sweet daughter. And then he gets to listen to me call my mother when we are just two minutes away from their house.

“Guess where I am?” I said.

“Where? You’re still not home?” My mom said, sounding tired. I can hear Vietnamese music in the background.

“I’m coming home now!” I exclaimed.

My mom is clearly confused, and she isn’t sure what I mean. “What do you mean?”

“I’m coming off of 19th avenue and I’ll be at home in two minutes!” I said.

“WHAT? Are you CRAZY?” Now she sounds half excited, half exasperated. “Why didn’t you ask your dad to pick you up? What kind of crazy driver is taking you here?”

I told her an Uber driver picked me up and I’m almost at the house. She then says she has to tell my dad now and we hang up.

I rang the doorbell and they let me in. My mom has the biggest smile on her face, and my dad is laughing. “Yvonne, you know there’s this thing called ‘advance notice’?”

“Well, if I did that, then this wouldn’t be a surprise anymore, would it?” I said.

“I’m so happy that you’re here, but don’t you ever do this again!” My mom said while grabbing me to hug me. “How was I supposed to know who this strange male driver was and what he could have done to you or where he would have taken you?!”

Most things will never change.

 

 

Morning smell

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It’s always there. And it continues to be there even though I don’t want it to be. Every weekday morning, whether it’s 6:40am or 7:15am, when I am getting out of the 42nd street/Times Square stop along the yellow lines to go to the gym before work, I’m thinking about the workout ahead of me and how productive I’m going to during the day given how early I’ve woken up. And then at the same corner, no fail, that smell wafts towards me — the strong, unmistakable smell of fresh, crisp, fatty bacon, the scent lingering in the air around a tiny food cart set up just a block from the subway station.

I always scowl every time I start smelling that delicious smell. It’s such a tease. It’s like a reminder that yes, I came on an empty stomach to the gym, and no, I did not get to eat any fatty bacon before I got there. No fatty bacon for me — just a healthy workout awaits!

Why can’t the guy who runs that cart realize that he’s parked the freaking cart just across the street from the gym where all of us are just trying to do the right, healthy thing to start their day, and all he is doing is creating a distraction?!

Contracts

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Has anyone ever really looked at all the fine print in all the contracts that they sign? How much of it do you actually question, and what do you let go because you know that no matter what you say, the rules won’t change anyway? Chris was reviewing the catering contract for our wedding venue the other day, and he pointed out that in the event of an unforeseeable disaster, i.e., earthquakes, fires, or one or both of us dies (they call these cases “force majeure” or “Acts of God,”) our catering vendor still requires that thirty-five percent of the total contract value still be paid and/or forfeited to them. This is to “protect” themselves. Well, what about us? How are we not protecting ourselves in this situation, or why are they not thinking about us in a situation like that? It makes sense to have a policy like this if we decide to either not get married or to screw them by eloping, but how can we ultimately be partially held responsible in the event that we die or that the entire venue burns to the ground?

Even our venue’s contract says that in the event that something like this happens, the full amounts of deposits are due back to us, as long as legitimate documentation is provided. It sounds pretty absurd to both of us, and though clearly none of us want these events to happen, it stinks that a policy like this is in place.

Engineering

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I had my second iMentor session today. Today’s prompt was “What are your dreams?” We were asked to think about what our lives have been like in the past, what they are like now, and what we hope they will be in the future. I asked my mentee if she has any dreams for the future. She simply responded, “No, not really. I just think about today. I think in the moment!”

She said something similar the last time we met, and the more I think about it, the more I can understand it. She doesn’t speak English with pretty much anyone other than me. She even speaks in Spanish with the majority of her teachers at school. She comes from a lower income background, and her mother had her when she was just 16 in the Dominican Republic, and they live in a crowded apartment in the Bronx. It’s hard to think about the future when you’re not even sure what you’re going to eat for dinner later today, or if tomorrow will even come.

The focus of this mentoring program is to get kids excited about the idea of going to college, and of course, to ultimately get them into college. I asked her if she thought about going to college, and she said no. I asked her if she did go to college what she’d want to study. She thought about it for a while and said that she wanted to do engineering. “Wow, why do you want to do engineering?” And then, she said she wanted to engineer homes for people who are poor and less privileged because she wants everyone, poor or rich, to have a home. “Everyone should have a roof over their head!”

I could feel myself almost melting, as cliche as it sounds, when she said this. She herself doesn’t have that much, but she still acknowledges that there are people who are far worse off than her that she hopes will have a chance of a better life.

Mini movie

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I saw Ed again last night. He seems to be making very frequent appearances in the last month. Maybe it’s because I’m thinking about him a lot every time I think about wedding planning.

I dreamt I was at my parents’ house in their living room, and I was staring at the mantle, where photos of us throughout our childhood are displayed. I glanced at one photo in particular, which was of the two of us at Spreckles Lake in Golden Gate Park, or what we called “the duck pond” that we visited often growing up. We used to go there with our mother, occasionally our father, our grandmother, and sometimes even my aunt and her three sons. Out of nowhere, the photograph in the frame starts playing a movie from our childhood. It’s like I’m seeing a complete reenactment with the photo frame as my mini television. I watch my brother and me play and yell and laugh, and together we feed the ducks their bits of stale bread that they gobble up. I see my mother get into the picture as she sees me getting ominously close to the edge of the lake, and Ed goes chasing a pigeon since he hates them.

These are the little moments that you never really forget.