I was telling a friend today that my future in-laws have graciously and generously offered to host an engagement party for Chris and me in Melbourne. He said to me that if we were seriously not going to consider Australia at all for our wedding that he would really consider coming to Australia this December to be at our engagement party. He’s always wanted to visit Australia, so why not come when we’d be there and there would be a major event for us happening? I told him I didn’t think our wedding would be in Australia, and he asked why not. I told him that two-thirds of my bridesmaids are broke and already told me that they would not come if we had a wedding in Australia, another good friend explicitly said she would not come if it were outside the U.S., and worst of all, my own mother said she would not come to Australia for any reason. “Why not? She can afford to come,” he responded. Money is not the reason (to be honest; she won’t tell other people that). The main reason is fear of flying and hatred of travel. Yes, because those are healthy things to allow guide your life – fear and hate, he said to me.

Yes, I know.

Chris just told me that his parents would like to host an engagement party when we go back to Australia this December. A few friends have asked if we were going to have one, but it didn’t really make sense for us to have one in New York considering we have little family here, and the majority of our good friends are not here, either. Since Chris’s parents have offered to throw us a party, I guess this will be it — just in Melbourne. I’m touched that they want to do this. My own parents didn’t even offer. Then again, that’s probably because they dislike the rest of our family.

This is the hard part about being in a relationship with someone who is not from the same place as you are. You have to think about things that your old classmates and friends who married their high school sweethearts never have to think about, things like “where the heck are we having a wedding when you have family in one hemisphere and I have family in the other hemisphere?” Seemingly simple events like engagement parties are difficult because there’s no way in hell everyone you’d like to be there will be there. In this case, it will be Chris’s family, friends… and me. None of my friends or family will be there. My mom has already told me she refuses to go to Australia for any reason, and is terrified of taking a “long flight” anywhere given the plane crashes that have dominated our beloved media this year.

I just signed up for mentoring a child between the 4th and 5th grade beginning in October. The screening and interviewing took place last spring, but we get placed based on the school year. Mentoring is finally going to begin for me, which will be interesting since I’ve never been in a formal mentoring program before.

I’ve also managed with my friend’s help to get a few Trader Joe’s locations to donate food to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Manhattan Out of the Darkness Walk that I’m participating in and raising money for, so I’m doing a few things this year to help remember Ed and keep his memory going.

Sometimes, though, I wonder how good of a mentor I’d really be. Because of how I was raised and my family environment, I feel like I have so much negative energy pent up inside of me that it may have the risk of negatively affecting someone else I may touch in my life. When Ed saw that psychic over 14 years ago, the psychic emphasized how much negative energy surrounded his life. It’s not that much different from what I had growing up, but I’ve managed to escape it and be far away from it here in New York. I wish Ed had that chance.

My mom insisted that we go out to dinner tonight, and she wanted to have Korean. I have a feeling that she enjoys eating Korean food and cuisines other than Chinese and Vietnamese, but she doesn’t get much opportunity to since my dad is generally not open to eating anything new or even moderately priced. Her JW friends don’t have much money (or are just cheap), so they aren’t open to trying many new things either food-wise. So when I come home, it’s my mom’s small opportunity to branch out.

During dinner tonight, I tried to remember the last time we had Korean food together in the city, and I remember that it was actually with my aunt who lives upstairs and Ed. We all had Korean barbeque at Brother’s Korean BBQ along Geary, and we all enjoyed the meal — especially Ed, but even my dad. Ed was so relieved to not have Chinese “again,” and I was just happy that my parents were eating something new to them.

There’s a lot of good food that my brother is missing out on here. Whenever I have something fried or meaty, things men typically like which are the same things Ed likes, I always think of him and wish he could have a bite… or ten.

Ed and I grew up eating Gordo’s burritos here in the Richmond District of San Francisco. Whenever my mom didn’t want to cook because she was too tired, or she just wanted to give us a treat, she’d get both of us burritos from Gordo’s just down the block. They’d almost always be the grilled chicken burritos stuffed with pinto beans, their delicious reddish-orange rice, pico de gallo, a little hot sauce, and some cheese.

When I got to high school and became a little more mobile, I started exploring the Mission district and realized how good the burritos were there. Obviously now, these burritos are famous in this part of town, so famous that people actually refer to them as “Mission burritos.” At some point, I told Ed about the burritos and how good they were and that we should go together, and he exclaimed, “You want me to go all the way to the Mission to get a burrito?! But I can just go to Gordo’s, and it’s just fine!”

It would have been easier if we were allowed to drive together, as driving to the Mission is far easier than taking the dreaded MUNI from the Richmond, but I think he would have really liked the burritos we had at Taqueria San Jose tonight. This just another one of the million things we never did and will never do together.

Chris’s brother came down from Toronto to spend the long holiday weekend with us tonight. We picked him up at the airport this evening, and on our way back from SFO to the Richmond District, I thought about what it would’ve been like if Ed were still here. We’d have a packed house with six of us in total, and we wouldn’t even have enough space for everyone in the Camry. Ed and I would be sleeping in our own beds while Chris and Ben would sleep on the two sofas in the living room, one more comfortable than the other since one is far bigger than the other. Ed would ask Ben random questions about living in Canada and Australia and make an exclamation here and there about how brave Ben was for moving all the way from Australia to Canada to live. He’d also ask slightly annoying stereotypical questions about what “Australians” are probably like to see Ben’s take on it, especially since Ben’s accent is stronger than Chris’s. I would probably snap at Ed for asking such dumb questions so much… Because I guess that’s just what I used to do to him sometimes. I am his sister, after all. You can’t be a sibling and be nice all the time. Whether it would be at In N Out or some Mission burrito spot, I’m pretty sure Ed would win the award for the fastest eater. He’d also be the first one done with any activity, whether it was walking through Alcatraz’s prison cells or climbing up Lombard Street. I’m sure it would have been a bit awkward, but then again, everything that involves my family is at least a little awkward.

It would have been a happy day to have my brother meet my future brother-in-law. My brother knows he’d never be replaced, but he’d have someone else that he knew I could rely on. It’s a painful thing to think about what could have been, but unfortunately what will never be.

My uncle took me out for dinner tonight, and over Japanese food, we talked about the recent earthquake in the Bay Area this past week and the last big earthquake that hit us in 1989. I was just three, and somehow, I’m still able to remember it. I was at home with Ed, who was 10 then, and suddenly the entire house starts shaking wildly. I didn’t realize it was an earthquake, nor was I probably aware at the time what an “earthquake” actually was. When my dad used to come home from work in the evenings in those days, he’d always pick me up and place me on his shoulders, so it was like a fun, bumpy ride to me as he’d run through the house with me hanging on. When the shaking started, I naively thought it was just my dad shaking the house, so I ran to the window to see if he was down at the street moving the house. Ed yelled at me to get away from the windows as the shaking and rolling continued. He ran over, grabbed me, and pulled me underneath the dining room table and had me cover my head with my hands and crouch down.

It’s a vivid memory in my mind even 25 years later. It’s one of those very first memories I have of my brother being protective over me and trying to ensure my safety. I told this story to my uncle tonight and felt my stomach turning as the words came out of my mouth. I can share this memory now with him or a friend or even a stranger, but I’ll never be able to relive this memory with Ed ever again. It’s always the little things that make me feel the worst.

I came back home to San Francisco today, and after having lunch at home with my parents, we went to visit Ed at the Columbarium. I found out that my dad had picked a fight with my mom yesterday because he wanted to visit Ed on his birthday, but she refused and insisted that they should wait until today so I could join them. He didn’t think it was right and said Ed should be able to see them on his birthday. It’s the little things my dad does now that make me really sad; it’s like he is trying in his own small ways to try to make things right to make up for all the time when Ed was alive… when things were all wrong.

The Columbarium finally added Ed’s name to the search directory. When I had visited last February, his name still hadn’t been put into the system, and my parents told the director that it should have been added ages ago. Last month, they added in his name.. but instead of reading “Wong, Edward,” it read “Wong, Edwin.” My parents had to fill out a form to get this corrected (apparently because having his death certificate on record with his actual name was not enough).

The prompt says, “Type in the first three letters of the LAST name.” I typed in “WON” and hit “Search.” The results listed many Wongs… and there he was:

Wong, Edward

Born: 8/26/1979 — Died: 7/22/2013

Below this information, the screen shows what hall and floor he is on, as well as the section and niche number. I didn’t realize that there were numbers on each niche.

I stared at this screen for a long time and felt numb. The screen became a bit of a blur as my eyes watered. I couldn’t take my eyes off the Born/Died line. Why does it look so terrible? He was born in 1979 and died in 2013? Why can’t it say…Born: 8/26/1979 — Died: ________. Some of the directories are like this because of the reserved niche spaces. His unfortunately is not reserved; it’s occupied. This is real. His death is real. Even when I don’t want to admit it, he’s really dead and out of my reach. One year and five weeks later, it’s still not completely real to me.

Last night, Chris took us to a show at the Flea Theater downtown called “Smoke,” which is about a guy and a girl who both have twisted ideas for what turns them on. The girl loves to be tortured, while the guy loves to use knives… during sex. So this show ultimately culminated in some odd dreams for me last night. In the most vivid dream, I am sitting on a chair in the middle of my parents’ living room, which is actually empty except for the chair, and Ed has a small but very sharp knife in his hands. I am wearing a cropped top and have my midriff exposed, and as I am sitting there plainly, Ed is carving different letters of the alphabet across my torso. I am bleeding from the cuts, but I feel nothing.

The allergies are back, and apparently today, the pollen count is high according to what Chris read. My nose is stuffy and runny, my throat feels phlegmy, and my head feels like a big cloud has wrapped itself around it. The front of my face feels like it’s being blocked by something. Today kind of sucks.

I ended up going home early to rest, and then I spent a lot of time reading about suicide prevention advocacy programs and how to get involved. There’s so much to do in the world to help others, and seemingly not enough time to do everything.

I was also wondering why there are suicide prevention walks but not marathons or runs. Considering that suicide claims more lives each year than automobile accidents, you’d think that there might be runs or marathons to support it. Or maybe it doesn’t sound as cool as to say that you are running for suicide because of the stigma around it versus running to fight breast cancer.