We went to Chris’s aunt and uncle’s house two evenings ago for pre-Christmas festivities. His aunt made a delicious Kerala chicken stew with appams, a fermented and leavened coconut and rice-based “pancake” that is spongy and puffy on the inside and crispy and lacey on the outside edges. I wasn’t really sure what the mood would be given that his aunt’s brother in Kerala had recently passed away in the last month, plus their youngest son had separated from his wife in July, but it was obvious that things were different because the décor had changed dramatically.

The last time I came two years ago, the house was pretty evenly split up with photos of both of their sons and their respective lives. Their oldest son is married with three sons, and their younger son had gotten married in 2015. On prominent mantles in the living room, the space was evenly divided: one son’s wedding photos on one side, the second son’s wedding photos on the other. On another mantle, photos of the first son and his wife, plus their children, with couple shots of the second son and his wife. The walls pretty much followed the same pattern. It was obvious that whoever decorated and chose the photos was very deliberate about making the love for both sons and sides “even.” That person is Chris’s aunt.

This time, all the wedding photos from the second son that I remembered that were on the fridge were removed. In fact, ALL wedding photos of both sons and their wives were gone. The only photos that remained were of the four grandchildren, three from the first son and one from the second son. The only time one of the sons appeared in photos was when one of the grandchildren was present.

Well, that was quite intentional.

His aunt at one point of the evening pulled me aside. I guess I have what the Charisma Mythbook calls “empathy” charisma; people just love to tell me all the things they keep a secret from others.

“I still haven’t told extended family that they have separated,” she confided in me. “I just don’t know what to say, especially with their child. I struggled with whether I should just keep the photos the way they were or just take down Andrew’s wedding photos, but then I thought when relatives would come over, they would ask why I only displayed Robin’s and not Andrew’s, and I don’t want to answer their questions. So, I thought it would be best to just take down all their photos and leave the grandchildren’s. I rushed to get it done before Andrew arrived back. This way, no one would say anything. Maybe Andrew will say something, but I can deal with him. Other relatives and friends, I don’t want to deal with them asking and wondering why.”

I felt sad for her. She’s powerless. She cannot do a single thing to make that situation better. But at the end of the day, I suppose there’s no reason to tell people who aren’t close because what good does that do? It only begs for more questions about why and how, which are all futile.

I tried calling my parents’ house line and their cell phone two days in a row to no answer. I wasn’t sure whether they just were ignoring the call because the number would come up as unlisted since I was dialing them via Skype, but they knew I was abroad, so I would have assumed they’d know I’d try to call at some point. So after the second day of trying to call, I emailed my dad and told him I tried calling. He responded and asked what number I was dialing from, and I said Skype. His response? “We blocked all international calls unless they are coming in through a pre-paid phone card.”

What is the logic in that, especially when they know I’m not in the country?

So I finally got through after he agreed to unblock the calls. I asked my mom about it, and she defended the decision, saying that she leaves those decisions up to my dad and that if that’s what he wants, then he should do it the way he wants to (that’s very nice of her, isn’t it)? Then, she grew irritated when I didn’t have much to share with her other than high-level updates she wants to know (who I am seeing, what I am doing). She never explicitly said she wasn’t thrilled with me, but it was pretty obvious from her tone and the words she was using that she was not happy I was in Australia with Chris’s family and that she thought it was unnecessary. “Send everyone my regards,” she said icily.

One of Chris’s cousins asked how my parents were doing, and I told him that my mom always gets jealous when I come here. I said she doesn’t think it’s “necessary” to come visit Chris’s parents. But she’s completely fine that I come to see her three to four times a year in San Francisco; in fact, she was really disappointed that I *only* came to San Francisco three times this past year. “She does realize that you’re visiting… your husband’s parents and family, right?” he asked, quizzically. “There are two sides to each couple — isn’t that true?”

Yes, she realizes it. And, well, she hates it. That’s what jealousy is.

I was chatting with a colleague this morning about traveling during the Christmas period. Although he and his wife both live in the San Francisco Bay Area now, they are both originally from Ohio, where they met, dated, and got married, so they have similar friend groups and their parents live only a 15-minute drive from each other. So when they go home during the Christmas period, they always fly back to Columbus and go back and forth between each set of parents’ places every few days between the days before Christmas and before New Year’s Day. “We’re really fortunate that we don’t have to travel far or take turns seeing sides each Christmas since we’re both from the same home town,” he said to me. “I know other people who have to drive hours and hours between homes or fly thousands of miles.”

“Oh, really?” I said to him, smiling. “I know what that is like. But I don’t see it as a misfortune. I see it as a benefit for me.”

He immediately realized why I responded the way I did and started laughing, though a bit awkwardly.

When others make comments about how hard it must be for Chris and me, both being from very different parts of the world and thus having our families thousands of miles apart, I usually laugh and say that I don’t see it as a bad or hard thing, that we actually enjoy it. We’ve both left our families and moved to new places where we pretty much knew no one, but that’s part of what growing up is supposed to be about — starting a new life for your new family with hopefully more opportunity and thus successes. And that oftentimes means leaving your hometown. No one ever really looks back and wonders how their grandma or great-grandfather left their parents to immigrate to a new country and how sad it must have been for them to leave their families. My dad’s mom immigrated to the U.S. with her husband and first son, and she never went back to China ever again, meaning she never saw her parents or any of her siblings ever again. No one seems to comment about any of that much. My mom married my dad in Vietnam and left her hometown in 1973, never to see her mother again, who died three years before I was born. She didn’t return to Vietnam until 2008, when she had only one living sister remaining and endless nieces and nephews, all other siblings and parents/aunts/uncles gone. But I get comments all the time about how hard it must be for me. It really isn’t. I get to have a home in New York City with my love, my original home in San Francisco with my parents across the country, and a third home away from home away from home in Melbourne, Australia, with loving family on Chris’s side. That’s three cosmopolitan, beautiful cities across two countries. That is not a “hard” thing. It’s quite a beautiful and blessed state of being if you ask me. That means I get to call three different places globally “home.”

I think we’re both better for being with each other with our different backgrounds. We’ve both learned a lot about each other’s home country and cultures, and we’ve learned things that we just wouldn’t get by being with someone from our own hometown or own ethnic backgrounds. We have an understanding to a depth that others would not have, an awareness about the pluses and minuses of both cultures and countries that would not exist without each other. As Michelle Obama wrote in her book Becoming, “Sameness breeds more sameness until you make a thoughtful effort to counteract it.” You can choose to only stick to the familiar, whether it’s the type of people, the places you choose to live, but you can proactively and consciously try to expand your knowledge and understanding of the world by stepping outside of your default bubble.

At this time of year, I actually oftentimes stop and think to myself, I feel like one of the luckiest and most privileged people to be alive. I’m no Bill Gates or Mother Theresa, but I have been blessed with so much good fortune that I wish everyone could have at least a bit of. I want for nothing, and I have people in my life who love and respect me. I have a lot to be thankful for, regardless if others view what I have as “hard.”

Chris’s aunt and uncle just left us yesterday afternoon to continue on to Philadelphia to visit more relatives. Throughout their visit, they were both visibly distraught at the recent breakup of their younger son’s marriage; although they were together about six years, they were “married” less than three, and the news came as a shock to all of us. Granted, none of us can ever be fully aware of what goes on between two people in a life partnership, and it’s even harder when we infrequently see them due to geographic distance.

His aunt frequently made comments about how strange it feels to be someone’s mother-in-law and then suddenly the next day, not. It’s weird to be comfortable enough to call your daughter on the phone, then be told that you cannot call her anymore… ever again. It’s deeply upsetting to know someone as your daughter-in-law, the person who gave you a fourth grandchild and your first granddaughter, and then be told that she is now considered just the mother of your granddaughter. She teared up frequently, saying she wished her no ill will and just wanted what was best for both of them and their child. It was really hard to see her and how emotional she was. She in many ways blamed herself. “Maybe if I had raised him differently, this wouldn’t have happened?” she asked me. “What do you think?”

I had nothing to say. What could I say, really? So many factors go into a relationship working and not working. They both clearly worry about their son a lot and want to help, even if they are unable to. They are concerned, loving parents. She said she hoped they’d be able to work things out, that a reconciliation could possibly happen.

It would be great if it did, but from what I can see, that’s next to impossible.

Chris’s aunt and uncle, who have been visiting us the last few days, don’t do much travel. His aunt goes to Kerala in India for long spurts to visit her parents, brother, and other relatives, and it’s easy for her since they own an apartment there. But other than that, they only travel when there’s a family event to go to, like our wedding back in 2016 when they came to California.

I learned a lot about them during this trip that I had no idea about; his aunt was saying that traveling with her husband was more hassle than it was worth since he has a short temper when he gets confused or lost during travel, which is pretty often and can be counted on. She prefers to travel and be in India on her own rather than with her husband. “It’s like taking a child around; I want to do my own thing and at my own pace, and he’s useless there on his own!” she exclaimed. She said it was important for them both to have their own time separately. She also said that the more she thought about it, while it is nice to travel and see sights, the both of them are fairly like-minded and prefer to travel to places where there are family and friends. They rather spend time catching up with friends and relatives than see sights; it would mean that if they do see sights that they’d have a guide and would not have to worry about getting lost; it would also mean that they’d get quality time with people they know that they normally do not have.

It’s funny to hear them say that. My friends and family are not that spread out, so it’s not like I have a reason to go travel to those places because I probably already know them. But I’d rather travel to see sights and have new experiences than visit people I already know. Or maybe that’s just because I don’t care about my people as much as his aunt and uncle do? What does this say about us as people?

Chris said I was talking in my sleep last night. I dreamt that my mom called a week before Thanksgiving to tell me that my brother decided to finally finish college and get his BA, and he got accepted at some school in Boston. I asked her why no one told me anything; obviously, if you start school here, you can’t just randomly start in November. She said she just forgot to tell me, and Ed probably was so busy studying that he forgot he just relocated across the country and didn’t realize his sister needed to know immediately.

“He doesn’t have anyone to spend Thanksgiving with,” she said. She explained she was concerned that he might harm himself if he got too lonely, and so she told me she wanted Chris and me to bring him to Portugal with us.

I was really confused.

“He’s not even alive! How can we bring him to Portugal?! How can he possibly be studying in Boston??” I exclaimed back to her. I had no idea what was going on.

“You need to buy him a plane ticket to Portugal,” she insisted. “Who else does he have nearby? You have to take care of your brother. He’s your blood.”

What is reality, and what is a dream? I had no idea what was real and what was imagined in my subconscious. All I felt was confusion. But a part of me felt happy at the possibility that the last five years had been imagined, that Ed could really be alive, and that I could actually bring him to Europe. It certainly would not be part of the original plan, but who the hell would care if it meant he was alive.

But then I woke up, and he was still dead. Again, it’s just a dream that he’s still alive.

Chris’s aunt and uncle are staying with us the next few days, and on their first night with us, we spent the evening enjoying Chinese Indian food, wine, and also talking about a lot of different topics, including mental health. It inevitably led to conversations about Ed, his struggles, my family and how they handled my brother’s illness (or, well, chose not to), and just how I have dealt with it the last two decades of my life. And then I learned all these new things about Chris’s aunt, about her own struggles with her family, especially her dad and her brother. Her brother was never able to garner enough of his dad’s approval and love, and despite being very talented and well educated, went through a downward spiral and ended up having electric shock therapy to his brain, similar to lobotomies as what people in those days had because no one understood the concept of depression or mental illness. So he was pretty much rendered useless, like an immobile child who could not function as an adult anymore. He’s now living at the same nursing home that her 100-year-old mother is living at, but neither has any idea that the other is so close. As a result, his aunt has a lot of anger towards her father. Even though he’s 105 years old, he is still critical and unaware of his negative effects on her brother and his life. It’s very similar to how I feel about our father, how he didn’t help and if anything, really made Ed worse. I always wonder if he ever contemplates it when he’s alone. I’ll never know, though, because discussing emotions is off limits with my dad. We realized our similarities in feelings immediately.

They asked me multiple times if I was okay to discuss it and apologized if they were making me feel uncomfortable. It’s never a fun topic that anyone enjoys, but it must be discussed. There are moments when I felt a bit uneasy or tense, but the openness is needed to address the complex feelings and thoughts around this. If anything, I am grateful when people ask me to talk about it all because it means they want to learn and they also want to be heard. And that’s what we need more of in a world that is facing an increasing rate of mental health problems and suicide ideation and risk.