Dear Ed,

Today marks ten years since you jumped off that bridge and bid farewell to the world. This past week, all this anger and anxiety was building up in me, thinking once again about how you’ve been gone all this time and how screwed up that is. The world was truly unfair to you. I think about how you never felt safe physically or psychologically in the home you grew up in. Back in the days of our youth, no one ever talked about the concept of “psychological safety.” When we were growing up, people always said physical abuse of children was wrong, but no one ever talked about mental or psychological abuse. They never talked about how the harmful words that are spoken to us can stay with us longer than a bruise or a scratch. But that’s ultimately what hurt you the most in the end.

In the last ten years, our parents have done absolutely nothing to improve their lives. Okay, maybe that’s not 100 percent true: our dad got bypass surgery the year after you died. He probably tacked on at least another 15-20 years onto his life with that surgery alone. Yet, what is he actually doing with all this extra time? Is he trying to become a better person? Is he taking on all the hobbies he used to complain he never had time or money for, yet now he has plenty of time and money to do? Is he trying to be a better dad and actually be a grandparent? Is he treating his wife with more kindness? The answer to all those questions is… a big, fat no. As for our mother, she’s just as angry, resentful, manipulative, and twisted as she was when you were here. If anything, she’s only gotten worse in all those areas.

I’m tired of dealing with it all, Ed. And I hate to say this, but I’m tired of dealing with it all without you here to shoulder the burden with me. I know you always had it ten times worse than I did, especially as the first born and as a boy, but I just can’t deal with it anymore. These are the moments when I truly feel alone in the world, like no one really gets it. You were the only one who ever “got it” and understood how awful they were to us. My patience and tolerance for all this intergenerational trauma has really run out. I’m tired of being the one who has to have all the pressure on her to keep the peace when I am not even the one creating the drama. I am the one trying to make things at least APPEAR normal, but I can’t even get that to work because of their idiocies. Kaia is now over 19 months old. She’s perceptive. She knows when things are off. She gets upset when Chris and I have the occasional spat, and sadly, she was even exposed to an argument I had with our mom when we went back home last August. I don’t want her to grow up thinking that the way they act is normal, that families treat each other the way they have treated us. I want to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma and have her grow up in a loving, caring, empathetic home, one that takes her seriously and treats her with respect. And with all this anger building up in me, I just have zero desire to go back to San Francisco this year and expose her to all of that crap again. I just don’t have it in me. And I know our mom is going to be mad, asking why we aren’t coming, feigning total amnesia to how poorly she and our dad treated me when I came back last year. What kind of mother defends their husband, saying it’s okay for him to call their daughter a bitch? What kind of mother constantly tries to tell her daughter that she and her husband worked harder than any other parent on earth for their children? What kind of person perceives every meal invitation, every family outing, every major event like a graduation or wedding, as “more suffering” that needs to be endured? She will never get the help she needs, but that’s frankly her choice.

I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to deal with their uncalled for childish behavior and anger. I don’t want to see them admire Kaia from across a room and not interact with her. I’m tired of dealing with people’s questions, including Chris’s parents, on when I last saw my parents and when I will see them again. I’m tired of people not understanding the fact that my family is not normal. So I’m not going to deal with it anymore, and I will proactively shut it down whenever presented the chance. This is what I’m doing for myself to move forward and to create a better and more functional life for Kaia Pookie. I do it for her future, but I also will do it for your memory.

I miss you. I miss you every day. Sometimes, it’s just for a minute. Other times, it’s for hours at a time. On days like this, it’s all day long, and then the next few days. I saw you in Kaia’s face today. It suddenly dawned on me this morning that you and I have the same nose, which means Kaia has your nose. You will always live on in her and me. And she will always know it.

I love you, Ed. I hope you look down on us and are happy that we’re progressing, even if our parents are not.

Love,

Yvonne

When Chris and I went down to Chinatown today, I picked up some he fen (long, flat sheets of steamed rice noodle), cha siu (Cantonese-style barbecue roast pork), three pounds of longan, two pounds of rambutan, and four different types of Chinese greens, among a dozen or so other delicious things. When I saw the he fen at 46 Mott, I immediately had a craving for my grandma’s rice noodle rolls, so I decided I was going to make it once we got home. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy the jarred pickled cucumbers, but I figured no one would notice or care about that other than me (Chris wouldn’t mind, and Pookster still has no clue yet).

Somehow, I got reminded of the fact that growing up, my family bought cha siu a bit differently than a lot of other Chinese families. When my grandma or mom would buy a pound or two of cha siu from their favorite Cantonese butcher and have them hack it up for them, it was not so that we’d eat it just like that with rice. They would actually incorporate cha siu into a dish they were making, whether it was my grandma’s famous stuffed rice noodle rolls (stuffed with cha siu, egg strips, minced cilantro, and pickled cucumber), stir fried into fried rice or noodles, or tucked into bao. I never recall eating the cha siu straight out of the container they’d bring home; it was always used as an ingredient or short cut to make whatever dish they were planning to make.

I didn’t realize this until college, when I started going through Boston Chinatown, and I noticed that cha siu fan, or cha siu on top of rice, was a common Chinese male worker’s lunch. It was always advertised in small hole-in-the-walls, and apparently, other families ate cha siu like this, too. When I asked an ex-boyfriend then what “cha siu fan” was, he looked at me like I was the biggest idiot and asked slowly, “what is cha siu?” to which I answered. And then he pressed, “And what is ‘fan’?” and I responded. And he then said, “So… cha siu fan is cha siu with rice.” He proceeded to question whether I even knew how to speak any Chinese or grew up eating any Chinese food. This was after I explained how cha siu was used in my house, as an ingredient rather than a main course. That didn’t really go over well because this guy was a myopic sociopath, but needless to say, this relationship was a total mistake and didn’t last long.

These rice noodle rolls are a happy memory from my childhood. Despite having a lot of issues with my parents to this day, the few happy memories we do have altogether have always been around food.

We’d never purchased a fruit/veggie pouch for Kaia even once until we went to Germany. I thought it would be a good time to introduce them to her given that we were on the go there and not in our home base, and so she might be interested in what most of her peers were having multiple times a day. It was a bit hit or miss: she seemed to want them, but when she’d have a taste or two, she’d get frustrated by the squeezing (read: MESS that never ended up in her mouth!) or get bored of the flavor. I tried to buy some more in Australia, and again, it was hit or miss: she ate entire ones with a spoon, while others, she’d reject completely. When our ex-nanny tried to give one to her at home, she’d always reject them, so I eventually emptied them all out and mixed them with oatmeal for her.

“Kaia is the only baby I know who doesn’t like pouches,” the ex-nanny would say, completely astonished. Secretly, I was pretty proud, but I never admitted this out loud.

Well, occasionally at school now, a fruit/veggie pouch is on the snack menu, so I allowed the teachers to give it to her. And occasionally, she’d actually eat them all. It was likely the peer pressure after seeing all her classmates devour them. On Qatar, she was given these pouches, and she would eat one and reject the other, but it’s clear now that she is okay with them and will eat them properly when she feels like it.

I’m a bit hesitant to buy too many of them, though. I don’t want it to be a regular food for her. I want Pookster to eat real, whole food the way it’s meant to be eaten, and pureed food out of a pouch is not regular, real everyday food. I would rather have it be a treat for her. So now, I’m researching different options for this occasional treat.

Thanks to a stubborn dad and even more stubborn son, our travel to Kerala and Sri Lanka is actually starting while Chris’s parents are still here. Chris had told his dad not to book certain dates that could interfere with our summer travel; his dad was insistent on getting specific dates for their frequent flyer/round the world flight bookings, and so while we are leaving for Kerala tonight, Chris’s parents will be spending two more nights in our apartment until they leave on Wednesday morning for Melbourne, connecting in Dallas. What a strange idea to think of my in-laws seeing us off… from our own home.

So we gave them instructions in terms of things they had to finish eating (two mangoes, two avocados, cherries, grapes), and how to take out the trash and recyclables before they leave. What we also wonder is: what will they do in New York while Chris isn’t here to drag them from point A to point B, being their de facto tour guide and control freak son?

Today, we took Chris’s parents to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. We stopped by a semi-recent favorite spot that we’ve found: Old Poland Bakery, which is a tiny little bakery that sells an assortment of fresh breads, cakes, and other pastries. I picked up some apple cake and babka for later, and we kept going. We had a late lunch (at Di an Di! One of our faves!), so we were quite stuffed and didn’t have a regular dinner that evening. But when we got home, I insisted that we had to eat the apple cake I picked up from the Polish bakery; surely, they had to have some space for a little sweet? So Chris’s mom responded and said she’d have a small slice. Chris responded and said, no, everyone has to have their full slice (I got enough for four people, since the bakery charges for these cake slices by weight). We served the cake to Chris’s mom after Chris’s dad insisted he didn’t want any since he was too full. His mom offered it to dad, who said, “OK, I’ll just take a bite.” What ended up happening? Well, without even realizing it, he ate half of her slice, and then said quite loudly, “Oh, this is actually quite light.” Chris’s mom got mad, responding, “Tony! Just say that you want your whole piece!” (This was his usual code for, “I want more, but I don’t want to explicitly say it”). So Chris gave him his whole piece, which he ended up inhaling in just minutes. And when Chris’s dad was almost done, with just a few bites remaining, he turned to me and said, “Yvonne, this cake is absolutely delicious. Did you make it?”

I shared this story with Chris’s brother over text, to which he responded, “This story sums up Dad to a T: Not listening, saying he doesn’t want food, then eating all of Mum’s, and even has an example of Chris being a control freak.” All in all, it was a perfect summary of the von Jacob family dynamics.

Yesterday night at Korean BBQ, Kaia really stole the heart of the server who was helping us with our barbecue. Not only did she impress her by being able to eat kimchi (“SHE KNOWS HOW TO EAT KIMCHI?” the server asked me, astonished. “Yeah,” I responded. “I’ve been giving it to her since she was about 8 months old.” She then proceeded to tell one of the other wait staff this, who also murmured with amazement back), but she also impressed her with her vocabulary (being able to say “meat” and “beef!”), as well as blowing kisses. When Kaia finally got loose after she was “all done” with dinner, she started wandering around the restaurant, and each time she got close to our server, she’d demand a hug, which of course was given by our server, who clearly was obsessed with our demanding little toddler.

I wonder what the maximum age is when a little kid’s cuteness can no longer be the show stopper that Kaia is now. Everywhere we go, people stop us and oogle over what a little doll she is. And once she starts blowing kisses… it’s almost like everyone just wants to take her home with them.

Chris was out with his parents and Kaia this afternoon. They went to Central Park and the playground there to let Kaia burn some energy and have fun with the sprinklers. They eventually made their way to the Other Half Brewery at Rockefeller Center, where I met them after I finished my work day. As soon as I arrived, I thought that Chris’s dad seemed quite happy… a bit happier than he normally is. While he’s always the kind of person who sees the bright side in things and always is deeply appreciative of the littlest things, this time, he just seemed a bit… TOO happy, as in, did he have too much to drink? By the time I had arrived, each of the adults had already consumed one full sized beer each, plus a beer flight. To me, that sounds like quite a bit of alcohol per person, and for Chris’s dad, it was probably a wee bit too much. He kept remarking how amazing of a day they’d had, what a great trip this was, over and over and over again. It was a lot more frequent and with a much bigger smile than usual. Then, we went to eat Korean BBQ at a restaurant across the street from the brewery, and again, over and over, he kept declaring that this was the very best Korean restaurant and food he’d ever had in his life, that this was just the best of the best. And the other three adults kept chuckling, remarking how drunk he was, and carried on. Plus, on the way home, he kept poking and slapping Chris’s mom, who kept raising her voice at him and telling him to knock it off because he was embarrassing her.

It was quite amusing, and quite the sight to see. While I’ve always known Chris’s dad as a person who does quite enjoy alcoholic beverages, and wine in particular, I don’t recall ever seeing him in a state I’d label as “drunk” before, and it’s been quite some time — over 11 years! It was good to see him let loose and have some fun.

When our ex-nanny was here, she frequently said that if she had it her way, Kaia would have had anywhere from 5-7 outfit changes per day. Her rationale was: babies grow so fast, and so they don’t have much time to get too many wears out of their clothing. So the only way to maximize the wears was to have them wear a different outfit every few hours. While that is way too high maintenance for me, I also did not let the nanny do this just because I thought it was ridiculous. But when it comes to certain outfits, I do have my favorites, and one of the most recent ones is an Indian outfit, a top and a long skirt, that was handed down from a friend of mine, whose kids are also Indian and Chinese. Her husband, while on a work trip to Delhi, purchased the outfit for their daughter, who has since outgrown this, so she gave this to Kaia. I decided that Kaia would wear this while attending a Lincoln Center Summer in the City kids’ concert called My Paati’s Saris: Dance Story Time. And when I put her in the magenta and gold-flecked two-piece outfit, which fit her perfectly, Chris’s parents went absolutely nuts. They tried to photograph her in every which way possible to get the best angle. Even Chris’s brother was obsessed and made the photo I shared his lock screen photo on his phone. Little babies and toddlers wearing different outfits, especially cultural ones, is just the cutest sight. No one can resist them!