Tonight, Chris and I went out to the Beacon Theater to see a comedy show. John Oliver and Seth Meyers were performing standup. We’ve gone out without Pookster pretty infrequently this year: we went out for my birthday, when Chris’s cousin was visiting from Vancouver in March, for my friend’s 40th birthday in April, and in July for another comedy show. This means that tonight is only the fifth time this year that we’ve gone out on our own without our child and needed some form of babysitter. Twice, our ex-nanny helped. Twice, my friend graciously and generously looked after Pookster. And this time, we found a babysitter that was referred through a friend of Chris.

When we transitioned to daycare, we realized that all of the teachers at Kaia’s school were people of color: everyone was either Black or Latina. Our former nanny is Black. And even last year when we got backup care babysitters through Chris’s work, both those babysitters were also Black. So when our babysitter showed up tonight and we met her in person for the very first time, Chris realized that she was the first form of childcare (that was not family) that was actually not someone of color: this babysitter was the first White babysitter Kaia had ever had. I didn’t even think about it until Chris brought it up, but I realized he was right.

The majority of caregivers in New York, whether it’s for childcare or elderly care, are people of color. I suppose that’s probably the way it is in the rest of the country, as well. The hardest, most under appreciated work is generally almost always done by people of color.

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.