Category Archives: family

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.

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.

The fun text misunderstanding that led my uncle to invite himself to our dinner

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My aunt texted me this morning to let me know she invited my uncle, my dad’s younger brother, to dinner with us on Monday. But since his eye sight is getting poor, he’s not comfortable driving in the dark. She asked me if I could do lunch time on Monday instead. When I told my mom this, she got really angry and said if dinner didn’t work, then dinner would not work; she did not want me to agree to Monday lunch so last minute. My mom sees this as my aunt “controlling” the situation by making lots of last minute changes, not informing everyone, but expecting everyone to comply with her random whims. I do think it’s ridiculous and extremely dysfunctional of my aunt, as I recently had this happen to me personally when she tried to invite her random JW friends to my house for dinner, and I refused.

So I told my aunt that we’d stick to an earlier dinner on Monday, and she said it was fine. This whole time, she’s texting my uncle back and forth, partly copying and pasting texts from me in between. Somehow along the way, my uncle got confused and thought that it was not Monday dinner, but that Sunday night dinner he was supposed to drive up to the city for. So he rang our doorbell at 3:30pm today and said he was going to dinner at my aunt’s place with me that evening. Unfortunately, I had to correct him and tell him that there would be no dinner, and that it was actually tomorrow… as in, Monday.

My uncle, for lack of better words, doesn’t really have the best manners. He will show up at people’s homes without notice, completely unannounced, expecting them to be home. When I say “people,” I really mean my parents or my aunt. In addition, he rarely takes the initiative to invite anyone to a meal unless it’s just one of his nephews or his niece (that’s me!) 1:1. When it’s any wider family, like my parents or my aunts coming, he expects that someone else will foot the bill. In my entire 40-plus years knowing him, I’ve never seen him offer to pay the family dinner bill a single time. And what’s worse: if my aunt is hosting, he will occasionally do his due diligence as a good guest and bring an appetizer dish or dessert. If my parents host, he will never bring anything — ever. So when he scrolled through his text message thread with my aunt and realized he misread it, he said to me, “Oh, well. My mistake! I guess that just means I’m having dinner with you all tonight!”

Oohhhhh. Trouble.

My mom was not happy about this; it was written all over her face. In fact, I could see the steam coming out of her ears when it dawned on her that he was not leaving the house upon realizing his mistake. She said to him a few times, “We have a dinner to go to and need to leave soon.” But him being him, my uncle took zero cues that this meant HE was not invited, and instead took the liberty of walking down to Geary where the restaurant was along with us. As Chris said, all of this could have been addressed if any of them had any balls to just say that he wasn’t invited, but of course, neither of my parents was going to be that confrontational. And I sure as hell was not getting involved. All of us walked down to Geary together, with my uncle and my dad chatting away as though it was no big deal. My mom walked slightly ahead of them, extremely pissed. And way ahead were Chris, Kaia, and me. At the restaurant, we met with my mom’s friend, who we had originally planned this dinner with all along.

At the end of the meal, as I expected, my mom paid the bill. My uncle never offered to cover even his own share of the meal. He said his usual effusive thank-you to her at the end, and then we walked back to the house. My uncle offered to drive my mom’s friend home so she didn’t have to take the bus as planned, and we said good night.

And that evening back at the house, my mom made random passive aggressive to aggressive comments to me, and I just said nothing. I know in her head, she probably blames me for this misunderstanding happening, which resulted in her paying for my uncle’s dinner, which she hates. But maybe if she were just more confrontational, she could have just flat out told him he wasn’t welcome to join. That is in no way on me.

My dad thought it was funny. When I was in the kitchen with him later in the evening, he chuckled and said to me, “Well, that was a misunderstanding. Not sure how that happened!” My mom did not laugh and scowled.

Welp. It’s just another day in the lives of the dysfunctional family I am part of.

Anxiety-ridden calls and the tit-for-tat nature of my family

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We stayed overnight on Friday up in Sacramento with our friend and planned to hang out with them in the area until early afternoon Saturday. Afterward, we would drive back to San Francisco. This morning after breakfast, we drove out to Placerville, California, which is known for lots of kid-friendly farms, U-Pick farms, petting zoos, and other large, sprawling suburban/rural areas to eat and support local. With our three friends, we enjoyed freshly made apple cider donuts and apple cider, while the kids got to feed and pet goats, pigs, and ponies, as well as run amok through kid mazes, wooden play structures, and man-made lakes. The greatest thing about this wide, open area was that vehicles were mostly blocked off, so the kids could run around and get all their energy out without us worrying that they’d get hit by a car. When coming home to visit, it always feels fun, enjoyable, and relaxing when I am out with my friends. It’s an extremely stark contrast from being with my parents, and most especially with my parents and extended relatives, where every situation seems rife with anxiety, anger, jealousy, and control.

Amid catching up with our friends, my mom probably called about four times. I called back twice, and in her anxious, nervous voice, she kept urging me that we had to drive back down to San Francisco “earlier.” I told her that we had to be back before 5pm because that’s when the car rental closed. She just kept repeating that I had to “respect” and I had to come back “earlier.” It made zero sense, but I know why she kept saying this. Originally when we told her we were going up to Sacramento Friday through Saturday, she said we’d keep it simple for dinner that evening, which I was fine with. Whenever we got back that evening, we’d eat takeout with just my parents. But since coming back from Brazil on Wednesday, my aunt asked if I could come up to her place for dinner on Sunday along with my parents. My mom, always wanting to “pay back” any meal ASAP, did not feel right about this. As is her usual, she wanted to “match” it, and so she invited my aunt down for dinner on Saturday. With all her nervous energy, she wanted me to be home as early as possible so we could eat dinner and be done with it all as early as possible. My mom is not a good or natural host. She hates having people over at her house. She hates serving them and the entire hoopla of company. She finds it all to be too much work and “suffering” as she always says. But how much earlier are you seriously going to eat dinner than 5pm?!

We got back to the house just past five. We ate dinner altogether at around six. As usual, not much was said around the dinner table. My mom tried to stand up and fuss over dishes that didn’t need to be cleaned right away in the kitchen or obsess over how little or quickly Kaia was eating, and I had to swat her away. The dinner was probably over in less than thirty minutes. Yet the entire time I could tell my mom was on edge, as she always is at any family group meal. My aunt loves to take photos before dinner, and my mom can’t stand photos. She always nervously laughs and asks, “Why do we have to take photos?” or “Another photo? Why? No need!” Then, she tries her best to weasel her way out of it by pretending to go to the bathroom or wash something needlessly in the kitchen. After dinner, my aunt Face Timed her son and his wife, the cousins I just saw last weekend, and Kaia chatted with them. My mom was seething that they didn’t drive up to join us for dinner and was adamant that my aunt told them not to come.

“Your aunt is so powerful!” my mom ranted to me after. “She told them not to come! See, her children always listen to her, but you do not always listen to me! He is so loyal to her. You are never like this with me!”

Here we go: the fun comparison of children. It always happens at least once during any visit, and it’s always putting me in an unfavorable position. I’ve gotten to a point with her where I shrug these comments off and say nothing. Not responding makes the interaction end quicker. Responding only fuels her, and whenever I am home, I am to blame for pretty much everything that sets her anger off.

I subsequently found out directly from my cousin that he and his wife didn’t come because they didn’t want to drive all the way up to San Francisco again (it’s not a short drive, ahem, for anyone who is aware of distances or traffic) given they had just come up last week. Plus, they got confused and thought I’d still be in Sacramento that evening, so why would they come for a whatever meal just with his mom and my parents? This did not seem particularly exciting or “worth it” for their driving efforts. I can’t share this with my mom, though, because she’d never believe it. She creates narratives in her head and runs with them. If anyone tries to provide reason or logic that counters that, fire starts blowing out of her nose and ears.

Back in Sacramento after two years, and contemplations on the “sandwich generation”

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This morning, we drove up to Sacramento to visit and stay with a friend of ours who has a child close in age to Kaia. We have visited this friend up in Sacramento twice before, once while I was pregnant in 2021, and the last time in August 2024. We didn’t come last year because she was the primary caregiver of not just her son, for whom she is a single parent, but also her mom at the time, who was going through lung cancer treatment. So she just had too much going on at the time. She messaged me in December of last year with the good news that her mom’s cancer was in remission. Unfortunately, it seems that did not last long: the cancer had returned, and her treatments started again in the last couple weeks.

The kids got together after she picked up her son from school this afternoon, and we spent some time together at the NorCal Aquarium nearby, followed by dinner at a local South Indian restaurant we enjoyed five years ago. My other local friend joined us for dinner. Afterwards, we went back to the first friend’s house, where we chatted for the next several hours while the kids built a fort and made the most ridiculous mess in the dining room. The theme of our conversation was definitely around our health, our parents’ health and their aging and slowing down, and the overall maintenance of a home (and how overwhelming, exhausting, and expensive it can be). As I was participating in this conversation, it suddenly dawned on me how “middle aged” and “sandwich generation” this conversation felt.

That made me think about the time when the only grandparent I’ve ever known died. My paternal grandma died in 1995 when I was nine years old. At the time, my dad was 47 and my mom was 41. In the seven months leading up to her passing, my grandma was quite ill and eventually had to be moved into a convalescent home. I still have distinct memories of going to the hospital or the convalescent home almost every night after I got off school and my parents got off work. My parents somehow managed our household, worked full time, got food on the table and supplies for us, and cared for my grandma — all at the same time. I always look back at that fraught, frantic period and feel a sense of admiration for my parents and how they somehow kept it all together — at least sort of. I never felt neglected during that period, and I was always in the know with what was happening with my grandma’s state of health and treatment despite being so young.

To be frank, I am not sure if I could have ever done all the things my parents did. I can already see my parents slowing down a bit; I suppose I’ve been thinking about it a lot more on this trip. My dad, for the most part, seems to be in decent health. I know he monitors all his health results carefully and has modified his diet quite a bit over the last decade or so. My mom seems to be quite fragile, both mentally and physically. My main hope is that they live independently for as long as possible. I want them to have long, healthy, independent lives. I want to continue seeing them mobile, and I want Kaia to have a relationship with them and know them. But now when I think about how my grandma died when my dad was 47, and I am 40 today… that just gave me some chills. Death is an inevitable part of life. But I want to hope they will keep living for at least another decade or two. Here’s to hoping.

Happy 47th birthday, my sweet Ed

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Dearest Ed,

Happy 47th birthday. It’s strange to think that if you lived to now, you’d be three years away from 50 — half a century old. This year as you would know, I celebrated my 40th birthday. I realized that although it’s technically middle aged, I didn’t really “feel” middle aged, if you know what I mean. When we were little, I used to think “40” or “50” were “old.” Now, I sit in my 40.5-year-old body and do not feel old at all. In fact, I feel like I have just started to really live life in the last decade and that I’m only getting started in many ways! So when I think of it from that perspective, it makes me even sadder to know that you aren’t here… because that means that you never really got to begin living a full life. You left us just before you turned 34. I have now lived over seven years longer than you did. That feels quite unfair because it’s not like I did anything to deserve more than you.

I am in San Francisco now. Chris, Kaia, and I stayed at our parents’ place last weekend. We went to visit you at the Columbarium on Sunday. I got annoyed when visiting you because I noticed some internal fingerprints on your niche’s glass, plus some large dust particles that settled inside. So I went into the office to inquire about having it opened for cleaning. The employee who worked there told me that they would charge us $495 (YES, THAT MUCH) to open the niche. I told him that I simply wanted to have it cleaned properly, that I wanted nothing else changed. He said that in 2014, the year after you died, Dignity Memorial took ownership of the Columbarium. Once upon a time, if a family wanted to open a niche to clean or rearrange items inside, they could easily do so and schedule the visit to open and and make changes; no charges or questions asked other than to prove you were family. Now, when you want to do this because of this greedy private equity-like company, they want to charge us almost $500 to do this! This is just utter bullshit. As Chris says, “fuck those fuckers.” The moron who told me this actually had the balls to say to me that since Dignity Memorial took over the Columbarium that service has become “more refined.” No, Dipshit. Service has actually just become greedier, with all this ridiculous nickel-and-diming of grieving families and loved ones who want to have basic, simple things done in memory of their loved ones. To me, there are few things more sick or disgusting than taking advantage of people at their most vulnerable moments in life, and that’s what Dignity Memorial does.

The reason I share this with you is that I honestly wish I didn’t even know what the fucking Columbarium was. I wish you never had to die so that our parents never had to find a resting place for you. I wish I could never have entered that damn place ever. Some people say that the more knowledge you have, the better. This is an area I would be so, so happy to be ignorant to, because all I see when I think of funeral homes and crematoriums is how their owners’ eyes light up with dollar signs at the thought of people constantly dying. Death is inevitable for all of us, right? But when people like you die far too soon, it’s hardly like they care. They’re just happy to collect our dollar bills and make money off our loss of you.

Here are some things I wanted to share with you that I’ve noticed in the last year since being back home. I was actually shocked to go down to the basement and notice that it felt like there was less “stuff” cluttering the rooms than before. Our dad apparently also got rid of my entire Disney VHS collection, all your old VHSs, and CDs. All my old DVDs are gone. So those two shelves flanking the living room mantle are pretty clear (just full of dust, which our mom wants me to clean during this visit). Oddly enough, I don’t even know where the hell my wedding DVD went…?

Chris noticed that funnily enough, there seems to be more alcoholic drinks in the house. I found a bottle of Canadian whisky, a new coffee liqueur, a pumpkin-spiced coffee liqueur, and two types of ready-to-drink margarita mix — standard and even mango! Chris uses that as a little drink for himself to keep him sane while he’s here.

I spent at least four hours vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning multiple areas of the house; after filling the bathroom sink with water and cleaning just our old bedroom, the water turned black. I also had to get a tall step-stool to vacuum up a bunch of cobwebs that lined the living room, dining room, hallways, and our old bedroom. It was not fun, but it seriously needed to be done. And every time I think I am done, I find a new area of one-inch thick dust or yet another cob web to vacuum up. I have lost count of the number of spiders I’ve vacuumed up this visit.

Also, can we talk about your bed for a second? Why the hell did you ever decide to buy a new TWIN SIZED BED for yourself as a GROWN-ASS adult?! Chris slept in it two nights in a row while Kaia and I slept in my old bed, and he had horrible, lingering neck pain for days after. The bed is so tiny; as a grown adult, you can barely move in it! It’s barely even big enough for Kaia to move around, and she’s 4.5! I didn’t understand why you did it then, and I still do not understand it. You always gave yourself too little — too little credit for anything good you did, fewer things than you ever deserved.

A few days before we left for this trip, Chris asked me if I was excited to go home. I looked at him blankly and said, “Meh.” He grimaced and said we go on this trip for me, so if I feel that way, I should question why I still keep going. The truth is that I feel very “meh” about it because San Francisco is a reminder that you are gone from this world, and that hurts my heart every time I think about it. While I feel your loss in New York or anywhere else in the world I am, I feel it the most acutely when I am back home… because that was and is your home. And obviously, I feel “meh” because I know I will inevitably have to deal with our parents’ emotional immaturity, their constant nitpicking and criticism, their endless drama, lack of reasonable rationale, and the eventual and inevitable fights based on a bunch of nothing. I am not “free” here. I always feel restricted here, even as middle-aged adult with a 4.5-year-old child. You were never “free” here. But now you are free.

Kaia is starting kindergarten at a new school in a couple weeks. She’s been asking a lot about you in the last couple months because she is just starting to understand death. She keeps saying on this trip that her JiuJiu used to live here, that he’s my brother, but that he died. And so she doesn’t get to see him. She’s said this a few times now, and a few times I started tearing up. It is a loss that you never got to meet her. It is a loss that she will never get to meet you. And it a loss that I can never see the two of you interact and have any kind of relationship.

Even though our parents obviously drive me crazy, I will say that during this trip, I do enjoy the quick moments of watching them interact with Kaia a lot more. Our mom is now 72, and our dad is now 78. They are getting older, more frail, and more tired. I can see it a lot now. But I can also see they are trying with her. And so you know what — that effort is enough for me now. I’ve made peace that they will never be the parents we needed, nor the maternal grandparents I wish Kaia had. This is okay for me now. It’s no longer a mental struggle.

Maybe I just feel this way because I’ve finally reached an age or the stage of “wisdom” where I’ve just accepted life for what it is. I just let things be the way they are. Even though it’s been over 13 years since you’ve passed, I can still feel your presence in this house every time I enter and exit it. You are still here to me.

Okay, I think it’s time to wind this down and go to sleep. I miss you, Ed. I wish I could see you playing with Kaia here. I know you’d have so much fun playing catch with her and teaching her other games the way you did with me.

I love you. I hope I can see you in my dreams again soon — it’s been quite a while.

With all my love,

Yvonne

Breathing room, space, and more intergenerational family dynamic contemplation

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We spent the first two nights of this San Francisco trip at my parents, then moved over to the Marriott Marquis, Chris’s favorite San Francisco hotel (previously for work) in downtown for these last two nights. Given his status, we got upgraded into a suite, so we have a large amount of space and separate sleeping areas for us and Kaia. Every time we first enter our hotel room after being at my parents’ place, for me personally, it feels like a weight off my chest almost instantly. I feel less cluttered mentally because I have less physical dirt and clutter around me in the hotel room. I feel more peace because I don’t have either of my parents hovering over me to tell me something that Chris or I did that is wrong or not the way they do it in their house. I don’t have to feel like anyone is watching everything I am doing or lurking around the corner to give me unsolicited feedback. And because I have more open space, I feel like I have the permission to just stretch myself out and loosen up.

The physical space from my parents and their house is much needed. But I suppose it also gives me time to just think about our convoluted, complex dynamic and the fact that it has never been simple and never will be. One thing a friend of mine told me she liked about living in San Francisco and having her mom take care of her daughters from time to time was that she knew her daughters would have a closer relationship with her mom versus her in-laws, and she actually wanted that. She told me that if she were in my shoes, she’d be pretty jealous if my kid were closer to Chris’s parents than mine. I kind of wrinkled my brow at this and told her that honestly, I’ve actually never felt a remote bang of jealousy over this. All I knew was that I wanted my child to have a relationship with grandparents, period. I grew up only ever knowing my paternal grandma, and I only had her around for nine years of my life (and in those nine years, it also wasn’t that simple, either, unfortunately). I’m just grateful if Kaia has any relationship with any of her four grandparents, all of whom are luckily living.

Even though I don’t have the ideal relationship with my parents, I will say that I have moments when I am happy that Kaia does think of them lovingly, is excited to see and spend time with them, with their limited attention spans and ability to be what she needs. It does warm my heart when she has these fleeting, sweet moments with them. On Sunday when my dad showed her his remote-controlled car that lights up, spins, and even jumps up into the air, I was really amused watching how excited Kaia got and how happy my dad was in that moment teaching her how it works and how to operate the remote control. My dad is the furthest from a natural teacher, but I know he enjoys telling people how something like this works. When my mom said she had to go lie down because her back was hurting, Kaia started fussing with her, saying she couldn’t leave her and that she wanted her to stay with her. Kaia physically blocked my mom from getting off the couch, and then from leaving the living room. It was hilarious and cute, though I am sure pretty frustrating for my mom. Though my mom did feel loved from this; it was pretty obvious from her face. I couldn’t help but smile. Yes, my 4.5-year-old can be a demanding little shit, but what made me happy about this is that Kaia would not bother fussing over anyone in the same way unless she truly felt connected to the person.

My mom, unlike most traditional Asian parents, always tells me that she loves me. She does the same with Kaia. Every chance my mom gets, she kisses Kaia and says she loves her. And Kaia never hesitates to say it back eagerly and kiss her back, “Popo, I love you, too!”

No family is perfect. But I will say that there are many little moments here with my parents and Kaia that do make me happy and feel like these visits are worth it.

(I say this now. Though… I will likely change my mind in a few days when a different explosion happens).