Category Archives: family

Not in that chair

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It doesn’t seem to matter how much times passes. Every time I open the door into my parents’ house, the part of my brain that apparently doesn’t register reality thinks that Ed is going to be sitting in his chair at his desk in our living room. That part of my mind thinks he will swivel his chair, turn around and see me, and then hurriedly get up to hug me and help me with my luggage. I thought this when I arrived home from the hotel this morning, turned the key, and opened the door to let myself in. He isn’t there, I saw, and a part of my  stomach just fell.

It’s not that I wanted him to be at home forever, living in this house with our parents and doing all his same usual things. But this is how I remember him. In an ideal world, he would have gotten a decent paying job and moved out years ago. In that world, when I’d come back from New York to visit, he actually would not be sitting in that chair when I would open the front door. Instead, he’d come home to see me, or I’d go to his apartment, or we’d all meet at a restaurant and reunite. So many options had the potential to exist for my brother. It just makes me sick to think that all those potential realities are now dead along with him.

Loaf on a plane

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I had left over sour cream from muffins I made a couple weeks ago, so I decided to use it up by making my favorite banana bread recipe from Boston’s Flour Bakery today. Chris asked me why I was baking the day before we’ll be away in San Francisco for a week and a half, and I said we’d just bring the loaf to my parents. He seemed displeased. He loves banana bread. “They’re not going to appreciate it, anyway,” he muttered.

He’s not all wrong in saying that. My dad’s been trying to pretend he’s super healthy since his heart surgery a year and a half ago by publicly fussing over foods like red meat and pastries. Last January when I came home, I bought scones from the Irish bakery down the block in our neighborhood, and he got mad and refused to eat them, saying they were bad for his health. Instead of eating a pastry or eggs in the morning like he might occasionally do, he’s been mixing about five different types of seed, oat bran, flax, and who knows what else, along with a heaping teaspoon of turmeric into his oatmeal. This is every single day. It looks just like vomit. Yes, I told him this.

What I want to know is – if we are all striving to have a long, healthy life, isn’t part of that life being healthy, as in, not just my heart and brain are functioning properly, but my mind is healthy and happy? Otherwise, what are we living a long life for? What are we waiting for?

“Home”

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“Have so much fun at home!” a few of my colleagues exclaimed as I was heading out on Friday. “It will be so nice for you to spend time with your parents and family!”

Home means different things to different people. Oftentimes when you tell others you are going home, it conjures up the idea of going back to the familiar, to the house or neighborhood in which you were raised in all of its relative sheltered glory. It can mean getting pampered by your parents with all of your favorite home-cooked meals, getting your mom to do your laundry for you since you’re a “special” temporary guest at the house for a finite period of time, and having whatever errands you don’t like doing done for you by your parents or siblings. It means seeing all your family and friends you grew up with again.

Usually, these feelings that “home” conjures up are happy. Colleagues think it must be happy. Friends from where you currently live think it must be relaxing for you. Well, “happy” or “relaxing” are not necessarily the first words that come to mind when I think of going back home. In fact, better adjectives to describe my feelings about going home include “conflicted,” “stressed,” “anxious,” and “torn.”

I love San Francisco. I love it even with how increasingly expensive it is becoming, despite the increasing homelessness problem that the city refuses to acknowledge or take care of, despite that neighborhoods I used to walk through look completely different today than what they were twenty years ago. What I do not love are all the unnecessary and completely made up conflicts of my family, immediate and not immediate, the senseless arguments I know will happen within days of arriving because of my mother’s twisted, negative way of looking at the world and assuming everyone is out to get her (and me, for that matter), and the awareness that every single time I go home, I know I will never see my brother again. It is a constant and inevitable reminder that he is dead, gone from this world by his own hand, and likely to get the hell away from all the undeserved, incessant criticism and torture he endured in that house on the hill we grew up in. Every moment I am there, I feel like I am waiting to get accused of doing something wrong or not doing something I should have done, or getting criticized for something about Chris or his family or both. I try to deal with it for a few blows by not saying anything, by being silent, but I’m not weak, so I cannot just sit there and take it. So of course inevitably, I will yell back and let her know I’m not going to take her made up lies and perceived hate.  I know most people say that all other (Asian) parents are kind of like this. After speaking with different families and therapists for most of my life, I know that what I face, and what my brother used to face, is quite a bit different.

What is scary, though, is that oftentimes when kids feel this way about their parents, their parents have no clue they have these feelings. Mine are included here. They think we must be excited to come home. They’re temporarily excited to have us home for the first few days. They don’t have the awareness that their excitement is temporary, though. They cannot imagine why we would not want to visit. I mean, they raised us and brought us into this world, right? We owe them. How could we not want to visit? That’s… being ungrateful. The least we could do is visit, especially since in my case, we’re not… supporting them. Maybe it’s the immigrant Asian thing. Immigrant Asians think they gave their kids a “better life” by immigrating to a Western country with supposedly better opportunities and privileges. Because they made these sacrifices, they think their kids owe them. I’ve had to think about this almost my whole life, and I still cannot quite wrap my head around these two generations reconciling this conflict fully. It doesn’t seem like it has a resolution. It’s one of those things that just goes with you to the grave.

So, all of the above is why the concept of “home” is so conflicting for me. It’s why when other colleagues who live away from home tell me they are going home, I don’t immediately make comments like, “That’s so great!” or “That’s so exciting!” or “It will be so relaxing for you!” I don’t really mind hearing comments like this directed to me because they’re just generic, and I don’t expect everyone to be aware of my dysfunctional home, nor do I expect others to be sensitive to the fact that “home” is not a happy place for everyone. When others tell me they are going home, I usually respond with a comment like, “Are you looking forward to it?” Funnily enough, a lot of times, I don’t get a positive response to that.

There are more unhappy families out there than people realize. Or, maybe people just want to live in their tiny ignorant bubbles and believe that most families are happy and seemingly functional.

Food contamination and when it’s supposedly okay

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My parents are very much stuck in their ways. They like certain cuisines (really, 2 – Cantonese Chinese and Vietnamese), they like certain restaurants, and they don’t like to try anything outside of those unless I come back home (and force them to go, which one or both of them will typically express dismay about). My mom was set on having our first meal together at a restaurant in the Tenderloin district that has received the poorest health scores in the city. It’s made even more evident to me by the fact that when I go to their Yelp business page, a pop-up warning shows up, advising me of their extremely dismal health score and to check back frequently for health score updates. That is not comforting to me.

After seeing this, I told both my parents, and my mom expressed annoyance I didn’t want to go there. “You know, no one is perfect,” my mom said defensively. “Some days will be better than others at this restaurant. It’s the same at your own house: your own house will be cleaner some days over others.”

“Yes, some days my house will be cleaner than others,” I said in response, “But I have not been known to keep contaminated meat lying around to get people sick!”

“Well, then, you can pick another restaurant that will be more expensive if you have the money for it!” she said in response.

Is that what this is about — money? Yes, this Tenderloin restaurant is cheap, and the last time I was there, the food was definitely tasty. I’ll pay for the damn bill at whatever restaurant I end up picking. That’s really not that big of a deal, otherwise, why go out to eat at all?!

“Clutter”

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My mom has asked me to print some wedding photos for her when I go home next week. I asked her why she didn’t have my dad do it because it would be simple and probably cheap at Costco, and she said she originally had him do it there, but they messed up, and she doesn’t trust my dad with these tasks. I asked my dad what went wrong, and he insisted nothing was wrong with the photos; what was wrong was that there were pictures he printed where one or both Chris and me were not looking at the camera. I told him that’s the style of the picture that my photographer was trying to do, and those were not mistakes (sigh).

“Your mom is old-fashioned,” my dad grumbled. “She needs to have photos printed and in albums. Most people nowadays don’t even print photos anymore; they just view the images on their computers or tablets!”

“Daddy, that may be true, but wedding photos are different,” I insisted. “People still like to print special pictures like that, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s nice to display them in the house and in albums.”

“I guess,” he responded. “But that is just so much clutter. There’s too much clutter in the house already, and now you want to add more clutter? It’s just too much stuff!”

The conversation went on as insipidly as you can imagine, but the general gist was that I said that wedding photos, and photos in general, are not clutter; they are memories, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to display memories of happy times.

I can’t believe he implied my wedding photos are clutter.

No, wait. Yes, I can.

68th

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Today is my dad’s 68th birthday. Every year since my brother passed away, it’s hard for me to think about my dad’s birthday without thinking about my brother’s death and the fact that he’s not here. When I spoke with my primary care doctor two months ago about my dad’s heart surgery, she told me that because of the double bypass, he pretty much has a brand new heart with new vessels and should be good for at least another decade or even three if he takes good care of himself. If I were a parent, how would I feel knowing that I would outlive my son by over three decades?

I always wonder what my dad really thinks about his son’s death, if he ever looks back and wonders if he could have said something more, criticized less, spent more time with him and nurtured him. I wonder if he ever has regrets that he just refuses to share with us, or even worse, refuses to reveal to himself. It’s difficult to navigate the mind of someone who is so emotionally removed and stoic almost all the time. It will always be one of those eternal mysteries that lingers in the back of my own mind.

Morning chat

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Chris has been waking up at unGodly hours the last week or so. This morning, he decided to wake up early and include a morning chat (or late evening chat in Melbourne) with his parents. I joined the conversation when Chris put the phone on speaker at some point. We discussed our apartment search and how it resulted in us staying here, my desire for potted plants, recent work related events, and my rasgulla making project. It was jovial and fun, with the much-anticipated “Tried any good reds?” question from Chris’s dad.

“Why can’t you tell (insert annoying name that Chris calls my mom) about how the rasgulla turned out?” he said jokingly. He loves to do this.

“Because she isn’t going to care!” I shot back.

My parents don’t really care about these things unless they know what the food is. And they definitely should not be told that we were looking for a new and more expensive apartment because my parents have no real knowledge when it comes to renting property; they’ve never rented in their lives and just think everything is too expensive. These are the realities of conversations with my in-laws vs. own parents.

Three

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Dear Ed,

Today marks three years since you left us. Every year when we begin approaching the anniversary of your escape, I always feel an agonizing feeling inside my stomach and wonder if you will come back for a visit. Well, this year, I am not as naive. This year, I didn’t expect you to come visit on your anniversary in my dreams. This year, I was stronger than the last two years, and I knew I could get by without seeing you again. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel as miserable.

This year has been an emotional year for me. Chris and I had our wedding in March; in fact, I saw you when I walked down the steps to the aisle. You were there. No one else saw you. But I did; you were staring right at me and smiling, just like I thought you’d be. We did all these things to get you to come: we named the tables after your favorite foods, we had photos of us together around the venue; we put your name on our wedding program. Chris even gave a speech and talked about how important you were to me, to us, and how much we missed you that day. It brought tears to my eyes and to all three of my bridesmaids’, my childhood friends that you saw all the time when we were growing up together. There was some surprise regarding how much you were in the wedding, but I didn’t really want it to be a surprise. I wanted every single person to know that I’m painfully aware that you’re no longer part of this life physically, but you will always be in my life — in my head and in my heart. I miss you more than anyone could possibly imagine, and I don’t want you to think that on what is supposed to be the biggest day of my life that I had forgotten about you for even a second.

This year is an election year, and a scary one at that. Donald Trump could end up being our president, and that is absolutely terrifying to me. Sometimes, I slip back into my cynical thinking and I think that the world is going to be a worse place, especially if he ends up getting elected. But then I am quickly reminded that if I keep thinking negatively, I will do you and your memory a disservice. I need to be strong, even when it’s hard, for you. I need to work my hardest to prove to you that life is worth living, that the world is going to be better place in the future for the future children of the world. You know what I want? I want the world to become a better place so that you can look down on us and think, “Man, I wanted out on that? What was I thinking?!” We have a lot of work to do to get there, though.

I don’t want to upset you, but our dad didn’t say anything about the anniversary of your passing as I expected; he never has, and he probably never will. He’s too out of touch with human emotion to be able to do that with me or anyone. Some people and things will never change, sadly. Our mom is picking fights with me about Chris and his family since the wedding, but you probably already predicted yourself that would happen; you probably know our mother better than I do.

When I look back at our time together, I have many regrets… as useless as they are. But one regret I have that I always get reminded of every year is that we didn’t spend your last Christmas together. Under my bed in our tiny apartment here in Manhattan, I still have the collection of ornaments that you and I collected, and many that you so generously bought for me (70-80 percent off at Macy’s after Christmas, no less!). What I want to do is to have our own Christmas tree to hang up all these ornaments, and it would be an ode to you and how much you loved Christmas and everything about it. That home we shared never truly embraced Christmas, but you always looked forward to that time of year anyway. It would be amazing for us to have one more Christmas together, just us, away from the dysfunctional and maddening family we share. You would no doubt drive me crazy with your obsessive compulsive ways and your lack of desire to wash dishes or clean, but I’d suck it up since I haven’t seen you in too long.

There have been a lot of times in the last three years when I wanted to take a break from reality, pause it all, and just come hang out with you. That sounds ridiculous and is clearly impossible, but it doesn’t mean I don’t wish it could happen. I promise I wouldn’t complain about our mother to you, and I also promise that I wouldn’t try to beg you to come back. I just wish I could see you again. I know it’s selfish, but I occasionally find myself envious when I hear about my friends or my colleagues spending time with their siblings like it’s no big deal. I feel even more hurt when they express how close they are to their brother or sister. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is to me because I no longer have that option anymore.

A number of colleagues and friends, after learning about your passing and how it happened, tell me they’d like to chat with me about it sometime. For the most part, it doesn’t happen. In the beginning, because it was so new and still raw for me, I didn’t always answer the question of “how” directly, either. It was too much at the time. But as time has gone on, I’m more comfortable talking about it to reduce the stigma around it and to help other people understand what they may not want to or be able to understand. Now, I’ve realized that I’m not really creating the problem; the people who want to know but fear knowing are adding to the problem. I would love to openly tell anyone about this in an effort to potentially help someone else’s life, but so many people are scared. They are scared of my getting hurt (I’m not), they are scared of understanding, and they are probably scared of how they will react. I would love for the day when people would cut the bullshit and just ask what they want to ask and listen — truly listen and not just listen for the moment and move on to the next idea. I’d love for them to listen, digest what they’ve heard, and see how they could apply this knowledge to their lives potentially in the future. I’m sitting here waiting for that to happen.

Well, I decided to do a few things for you to remember you this weekend. I’m making one of your favorite soups — West Lake beef soup. I even made my own stock, used the egg whites, and everything. I’m also making Chinese sticky rice, and contrary to what our grandma used to do, I’m stuffing it like crazy with meat and seafood filling, so the ratio of filling to sticky rice is almost 1:1. I’m sure you would have enjoyed this. If you were here, I also wouldn’t have made you wash the dishes since I know you hate that.

It’s time for me to say goodbye for now. I’ve never really said goodbye to you because it’s too hard for me to say. I couldn’t even say it to you when they closed your casket, and I couldn’t see your face in the flesh again. I couldn’t even be there when they closed it because it was too hard for me that day. I hope you aren’t upset by that.

Each night, I still wait for you to visit. You only really come about once a month now, but that’s okay. You can do whatever you want now since you’re free. You’ve escaped. I won’t see you again here, but just like that Puff Daddy (or P. Diddy now as he’s known) song, “On that morning / When this life is over / I know / I’ll see your face.”

Hope you will be patient with me for that moment because there’s a lot of things I need to do in this life before it’s over. Until then, I’ll see you in my dreams… because that’s all I can really hope for. Love you.

Love,

your hopeful sister Yvonne

One week visit home

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Last night, I dreamt I went home again, and this time surprisingly, Ed was there. My scheduled visit was for one week, and when I realized Ed was home, I was so happy to be there for a full week and wanted to soak it all in… except, he didn’t really feel the same way. He was being moody and negative the entire week, making passive aggressive comments here, snapping at me over there. It was not fun at all.

When it came to the seventh day and I was packing my bag to leave, he said to me, “You must be really happy to be going back to New York.”

I was furious and let him have it. “Happy to be going back to New York? Happy to be going back to New York? I spent an entire week here with you, and you were being negative and annoying the entire time!” I yelled. “And now, I won’t be able to see you ever again! We wasted an entire week together!”

He was quiet for a moment and wrinkled his brow. Clearly, he felt confused. “What do you mean you’ll never see me again?”

My frustration was growing and growing. “What do I mean? I’m never going to see you again BECAUSE YOU ARE DEAD! You aren’t even alive! You aren’t even really here right now!!”

It was as though someone hit him over the head, and he finally understood the situation. He really wasn’t alive. He wasn’t human. He was just a spirit visitor pretending to be one of us. He perked up for a bit and said, “Okay, why don’t we go out together now, then?”

“Okay,” I responded. At least we could have an hour together alone and being seemingly normal without the watchful eye of our parents. And together, we left the house.

We’re almost at the three-year mark of his passing. He always manages to come back around this time, as though he thought that somehow, I’d manage to forget. Little does he know that I’ve never forgotten — in fact, that’s quite impossible, and not a day goes by when I don’t think about him and his eternal absence in my life. It doesn’t really matter where in the world I go or what current events are happening or what people I meet or how I may choose to ‘escape’ my reality — he’s always there in the shadows of my mind.

No response ever

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My aunt has e-mailed me a couple of times while we’ve been in Korea mainly to ask me how we’re doing, let us know that she went down to LA for her daughter-in-law’s father’s funeral, and to let me know that she will be cancelling her planned Hong Kong/China trip in August in favor of time spent in Southern California and Oregon for her JW conventions. She sent me some photos from when she was down in LA, and it reminded me of the times she’s been a bit exacerbated by my dad. “I always e-mail your dad when I am away and send him photos, but he never responds,” she said to me with an annoyed look on her face. “Your mom tells me to e-mail and send pictures, but never even one response I get back! How am I supposed to know if he receives them?”

I responded the only way I knew how to: “He gets them; he just doesn’t want to respond. He has nothing to say back.”

The reason I thought about this was that while I am abroad, my mom asks me to e-mail my dad once a day so they know I am safe. I actually do this most of the time, but like my aunt, I never tend to receive a response. It’s always a one-way communication street with my dad. I even mentioned the San Tung noodles to my dad yesterday, and still that even elicited no response.