It’s like my subconscious is awakened when it knows I’m heading back home to San Francisco soon. For the first time in ages, I dreamt about Ed again. And this dream was not a pleasant one. It was like the dreams I had for the months after he died 11 years ago where he kept dying and killing himself in different ways.

I dreamt I was back at my parents’ house, and I thought I was home by myself. I went into the bathroom, and there was a large baby bathtub suspended above the regular bathtub. But it was weird because I could see a pair of legs under the baby tub. I moved the baby bathtub to reveal my brother, face up, eyes closed, half drenched in water and unconscious. He was wearing the Ed Uniform: long white-sleeved shirt, beige khakis, and black zip-up jacket, no socks. I screamed, grabbed and shook him, and asked him to wake up. He was completely unresponsive. I ran to grab my phone and call 911.

I woke up abruptly at about 3am. I felt sweaty and extremely irritable. Just a few hours before, I had woken up, asked Kaia if she needed to pee while she was still asleep. She clearly was fast asleep. But within seconds, I heard “ssssssssssss” — the sound of her peeing right onto her waterproof hospitable blanket mat. Great. I ran to soak up as much pee as possible. When I asked if she wanted to pee, I meant… pee in the potty.

I hate those dreams so much. It always is a reminder to me of how powerless I was in Ed’s desperate situation, how powerless I will continue to be in the constant miserable state of my parents’ lives. It’s like the theme of my family life with my parents and Ed: powerless, always, with nothing humanly possible to do to help.

My aunt, who was my mom’s only current living sibling, her older sister, passed away three days ago. She wasn’t feeling well, got hospitalized, and died from a stroke. My mom got a text message very early this morning and a call from one of her nephews, who informed her. Of course, my mom was completely distraught. She left Vietnam in 1971 during the Vietnam (American) War. She didn’t see her sister or any of her family until January 2008. That’s 37 years of not seeing your blood family. It was an emotional reunion, and one that was short lived since we only stayed there for about 2.5 weeks. My parents never went back to Vietnam after that visit. And so, that was the last time we saw my aunt.

It’s strange to call my mom’s sister my aunt because I didn’t really know her or anything about her until I went to Vietnam in 2008. My mom always said that her sister was why she had everything she had. My aunt was the one who helped her learn English when their mother refused to let my mom go to school, saying school was wasted on a girl, especially the youngest in the family. My aunt was the one who encouraged my mom to apply for the U.S. Army position, which eventually led to her meeting my dad at work. My aunt was the one who housed her in Quy Nhon while my mom worked. She was also the one who convinced my mom to reconsider the marriage proposal my dad had made, after my mom first rejected my dad, saying she couldn’t go to the U.S. and leave her family behind. My mom always said that she owed her life first to her sister, and then to my dad. When I first met her, she ran to me, cried, pulled me into her arms, and held me tightly. I held her back, but it felt strange since I knew nothing about her. I still remember how skinny, bony, and frail she was, yet her grip and hold were so strong. But I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry because I didn’t really know her. And given our mom never taught Ed and me Vietnamese, I could never communicate with her the whole time I was in Vietnam. My mom was the perpetual (and exhausted) translator.

I got food poisoning for the first only real time in my life on that trip to Vietnam in 2008. And I could see her worry; that’s one thing that she and my mom shared: constant worry about literally everything imaginable. My aunt made me ginger tea every day. She boiled me a special chicken broth. She took care of me like I was her own child. And all I could say back to her was, “cam on” (thank you) in my perfectly accented Vietnamese that only knew how to say just a handful of Vietnamese words. I guess my ear picked up my mom’s accent over all the years listening to her speak in her central Vietnamese accent, and I was told that even though I knew only a few words, I spoke them as though I was a native speaker.

I know my mom is hurting now. I am sure she feels deep regret for only having visited her sister once the entire time she’s been in the U.S. She probably regrets not sending her more money. I’m sure she’s full of complicated feelings and deep sadness now that her only living sibling is now gone. But on my side, I’m not sure what to do to help make her feel better. It’s a hard place to be when you want to help someone, but there’s literally nothing you can do to comfort them. Losing an aunt is a loss for me, too, given she is my blood-related aunt. But it’s such a distant loss that I don’t really feel anything, as sad as that may be. It’s like hearing that a friend’s friend passed. It’s sad, but there’s not much else there to feel.

I’ve probably joked multiple times (maybe half joked) that there’s no way that I could divorce Chris because I love his family too much. His parents have welcomed me into their family with open arms and always treated me with love, care, and affection. His mom has probably gone out of her way to be sensitive to my feelings, even being a bit too careful and making me wonder why she felt a need to walk on egg shells when framing certain questions she’s asked me. This year marks 12 years of having a relationship with them, and at some point, I really think she should just let her guard down and not be so careful about hurting my feelings with relatively reasonable questions. His dad has always been warm and amiable, always generous at even the most unexpected moment. And with Chris’s brother, I probably see him as close to a real brother as I possibly could. We even squabble and debate like siblings sometimes. We definitely complain to each other like people who have known each other forever.

I have never taken for granted the fact that every year I’ve gone to Melbourne for Christmas, they have always opened their home to me and asked me to treat it like home away from home. That’s a LOT of Christmases between 2012 and now; the only years we did not go back in December were 2017, 2020, and 2021. In total, we probably stay about 2.5-3 weeks total given we do a side trip somewhere else in Australia, and usually end somewhere in Asia. But when you think about it, that’s a lot of time to spend in someone else’s home. I always thank them multiple times throughout the stay for their warm hospitality and eagerness to make me feel comfortable and welcome in their home. It’s especially important to feel welcome in someone’s home when you are traveling halfway across the world.

So when I heard that my friend, who lives in San Francisco, was told directly a number of times that she and her family probably shouldn’t stay longer than two days at a time at her in-laws’ home in Singapore, especially given her young kids were loud and screamed, which caused the mother-in-law a lot of mental distress, I felt hurt myself. San Francisco to Singapore is not a short trip, and on top of that, they’re always there for about a month, which is a LONG time. So to think they are unwanted when so far away just seems like daggers for the sake of daggers. While I felt hurt for my friend, I felt even more grateful for my own situation and how I’ve never, even for a moment, felt that way while in Australia. I am really lucky, really beyond lucky.

I called my dad today to wish him a happy 76th birthday. Unfortunately, he did not pick up, so I’m hoping he saw my missed call. Afterwards, I texted him to say happy birthday, and that a gift would be arriving in the next few days from the three of us. I’m not sure if he will call back since he never calls me.

When I first graduated from college, I used to call my dad on his birthday every year, assuming that I wasn’t in town at the time. But I started realizing that he never called me. He might send me a birthday card or a birthday email, but he never reached out on my birthday. I didn’t really love it, though I know he’s just socially awkward in general. And I recognize that any acknowledgment is better than zero acknowledgment. But it never made sense to me that my dad never wanted to wish his only daughter (and now, his only living child) a happy birthday by voice. So in recent years, I’ve actually stopped calling. I send a birthday card or gift, and I usually text to send happy wishes. But that’s really it.

I hope he calls back. But I don’t want to hope too much since oftentimes when we raise our expectations, they’re just never met. As of today, he’s now officially lived 12 years longer than both his own father and his older brother. I hope he feels like he’s had a life better lived than the two of them did.

I have one email account that I use almost completely for mailing lists, whether that is news summaries, shopping, food blog reading, and the related. I noticed that this year for the first time, I got a lot of suggestions for different businesses I follow that if I don’t want to see Mother’s or Father’s Day-related emails that I could just do a one-click opt-out for these specific promotions. My social media seemed to be peppered with how “triggering” Mother’s/Father’s Day can be for various reasons, whether it’s because you have a less-than-ideal relationship with your own mother or father, your children, or if you’re struggling to conceive, etc. All of the above can be true for many people, so I understand why businesses are trying to be more empathetic about what promotions they are pushing, and to whom.

I always get annoyed by Mother’s and Father’s Day when I really think about them. But I think the crux of my annoyance is that my relationship with both my parents is quite far from ideal, and it’s certainly not from a lack of trying on my part. I think about all the years when Ed and I tried to do nice things for our parents, and it was met with indifference or open dislike. Sometimes, we got scolded at and told we spent too much money. Once, my mom flat out rejected this cashmere sweater my brother got her and yelled, insisting that he return it because it cost too much money. Ed was so upset at this response, but he obediently returned it. In some cases, we gave gifts that were literally left on a table for months on end, never opened and barely even acknowledged. Even when it happened repeatedly, and you would think after a while we’d get used to it, it still always hurt. These responses, and sometimes lack thereof, always made us feel as though our efforts went unappreciated. NO ONE likes to feel unappreciated for the efforts they make to please another human, particularly partners, spouses, and children.

My parents just don’t appreciate gifts or when people do nice things for them. When people do things like treat them to meals or buy them gifts, my mom immediately feels “guilt,” and compelled to return the favor as soon as humanly possible. It was always infuriating to watch. So I always hate giving them gifts unless they are things they explicitly ask for, like skincare for my mom.

This year for Father’s Day, which was this past Sunday, I decided to go the “safe route” and get my dad something he could easily consume with little effort on his part. So I got him some hibiscus flowers to steep for cold hibiscus tea (it’s good for blood pressure, so I figured that would resonate with him), plus some chai concentrate, to which he’d just have to add his choice of milk. My dad rarely says thank you unless my mom reminds him to because he’s an overgrown child, so I usually have to prompt him with a message like, “Just checking to see you got (name the gift)/wanted to see if (X gift) arrived?”

Eventually he will respond to the text or email. This time, this is what he wrote:

“Hi Yvonne,
I received the hibiscus
Yesterday. Thank you. Whatever happen to the Kaia’ videos? She is very depressed so can you resume sending them?”

The underlying message here is that I am basically fueling my mom’s “depression” by not sending regular videos of their grandchild. This is not the first time my dad has sent me a message like this.

I have very little patience for people like my mother who do nothing to help themselves. My mom is hardly in a dire life situation: she gets a pension check and a social security check in the mail regularly. She doesn’t have to work or support/raise anyone. She has a roof over her head, one that was fully paid off decades ago by her in-laws that has the teeniest property tax known to the average person. She gets regular free, prepared food and produce from Meals on Wheels (how valid this is that she qualifies for this program is another story for another day). She’s in reasonably good health. What exactly is she “depressed” about?

As I’ve learned the hard way with Ed’s ongoing depression, no one person can save another person from the pit that is depression. It really starts with the person in question. When a person who is depressed refuses treatment or therapy, there’s not much that can be done, as sad as it is. I told my dad that if she’s really depressed, then she can seek a psychologist referral from her doctor. My dad simply responded, “She doesn’t want it.” Well, then, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink. Nothing I do can “cure” her depression. And if she chooses to have no relationship with her only grandchild by never doing any video/phone calls with her, by not even interacting with her when she’s right in front of her face, then none of that is on me.