Category Archives: Hope

AFSP featured on CBS News Live – preparation

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About a month ago, the executive director of AFSP NYC asked if I’d be interested in representing AFSP in the media, so I agreed to it. She said it would include things like TV, newspaper, and magazine interviews. Given that the Manhattan walk is just over a week away, we’re trying to get the word out about the walk more, and we were able to get a segment on CBS News Live because Cindy Hsu from CBS is on AFSP’s board. Two of our co-chairs were not available for the recording timing, so our director asked the third co-chair plus me to represent. I’ve never had any experience being on TV, much less live TV, but I figured it would be a good experience. I’d learn something and get exposed to a world I know pretty much nothing about. In preparation for the media coverage bit, our ED asked me to prepare a “Why I walk and participate in AFSP” statement. She said it would be particularly powerful coming from me because I have now been fundraising for AFSP for 12 years now. So, with some thinking and assistance from ChatGPT to tighten my messaging, I came up with this:

My name is Yvonne Wong, and I’m proud to serve on the AFSP Out of the Darkness Manhattan Walk Committee as a volunteer and fundraiser. This year marks my 12th Out of the Darkness NYC Walk to fight suicide and save lives. Each year, I walk in honor of my big brother Ed, who I lost to suicide in July 2013 after a long struggle with depression and anxiety.

Living 3,000 miles away in New York while Ed was in San Francisco, I often felt helpless and unsure where to turn for support. When he went missing and was suddenly gone, I was overwhelmed by guilt, anger, and grief. I couldn’t understand why he had to die, or why our community hadn’t taken his suffering seriously. In searching for answers, I found AFSP, one of the few organizations that openly addresses suicide—not just mental health in vague terms—and creates spaces for honest conversations, connection, and healing. 

Since then, I’ve shared Ed’s story openly, year after year, through fundraising and community events. What started as a small gesture to honor his memory has grown into something that has felt transformative for me. People—friends, colleagues, and even complete strangers—have reached out to share their own experiences of loss and struggle; many of them confided in me and said I was the very first person they’d opened up to about their losses and struggles. Through AFSP, I found a community of understanding, hope, and connection. I can’t bring my brother back, but I can help ensure that others know they are not alone. AFSP has given me a way to heal and to help build a world where fewer families experience this kind of loss.

“Focus on what we can control and influence”

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Participating in the workforce and working for someone else is probably one of the most frustrating, infuriating, and annoying roller coasters a person can ever experience. And a lot of the time, I wonder if it’s all even really worth it. My dad always told me that the best thing you can do is to work for yourself because then, you don’t have to answer to anyone else. While it can be liberating to not have to answer to anyone, that also comes with immense pressure and responsibility that not all of us can handle… and not all of us frankly have the skill and ability to do. When he used to say this, especially after I became an adult, graduated from college, and entered the workforce, I always thought, but never said out loud to him, that I actually admired that he was skilled enough to make this leap for himself… because I don’t think I was ever brave (or creative or skilled) enough to do this for myself.

I was supposed to have a relatively relaxing day at the coworking space today. I originally had two meetings on my calendar and blocked off some time to work on some slides. And then suddenly, I got some bad news that came crashing down, and it was all hands on deck trying to figure out how to remedy a customer situation. I could not even believe how frustrated and angry I got, and I was even more pissed that this had to happen on a Friday at midday. A few colleagues and I were ranting about it, and everyone kept on repeating the same thing to try to ground ourselves: “focus on what we can control and influence.”

So much of what happens at work, with colleagues, customers, projects, data — is out of our control. We try to create narratives that this deal or opportunity happened because I did x, y, and z, and that person did a, b, and c. But chance and luck are very much in there as invisible drivers. People don’t like to openly acknowledge that, though, because unfortunately, we cannot replicate or quantify chance or luck. So in times like this, I just want to escape and do things that help me mentally escape. Tonight, I ended up double boiling and heat aerating a pot of chai. I added extra ginger because I figured I could use the extra spice. I find the process of making chai very meditative, and I can attribute that to watching many “chai meditation” Instagram Stories that Sunny from The Chai Box records every single morning. I used to watch her chai double boiling and meditation almost every morning when I was on maternity leave, and I always looked forward to it. And now, I still do it when I want a little mini escape.

Work can really suck. But chai meditation always helps.

World Suicide Prevention Day

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Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. The international theme of World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) on 10 September 2025 is ‘Changing the Narrative on Suicide.’ Suicide is a serious global public health issue, with over 700,000 lives lost each year. Its impact extends far beyond the individual, deeply affecting families, communities, and societies at large.This year’s theme calls on people, communities, organizations, and government to foster open, honest conversations about suicide. By initiating these vital conversations, we can break down barriers, raise awareness, and create better cultures of understanding and support.

This is the 12th year that I’ll be participating in the AFSP Out of the Darkness Walk in New York City and fundraising to help stop suicide. It’s also been a painful year for donations. The donations have been slower to come in. When you’ve been doing the same fundraiser tirelessly year after year for over a decade, people get fatigued by hearing your story. They are naturally less enthusiastic to support you. Their time is limited, and with inflation and tariffs, their dollars don’t go as far as they once did. Hustling this fundraiser, for those reasons, is always awkward. But I keep doing this because I don’t know how else to keep Ed’s memory alive. As each year passes, it’s like his memory becomes more and more distant to me. The other night when I was thinking about him, I realized I had to think for much longer just to remember the sound of his voice. And that made me realize he hasn’t visited me in my dreams in ages for me to hear him speak. I wonder when he will come pay me a visit again. It’s been far too long.

These are the days I think of him even more: his birthday, his date of death, Thanksgiving and Christmas (because he always loved those holidays), and now World Suicide Prevention Day. I hope all this fundraising is doing some good, if even just a little. Sometimes, it’s hard to see what I am really trying to achieve by doing all this. But alas, I keep going.

Phone calls from PoPo and GongGong

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Since we got back from San Francisco, my mom has been calling occasionally to see how Kaia is adjusting to preschool and being back in New York. Given that Kaia is turning four in just a few months, she’s definitely far more aware of her surroundings and what’s being said around her now than she was one year ago. When people call, she always asks who it is. And now, she’s been requesting that we call PoPo and GongGong. She wants to “see” them via the video chat, but she doesn’t quite understand (or accept) that they refuse to do video calls with us, and that with them, it will always be voice-only.

The other day, my mom called, and Kaia asked if it was PoPo (she could probably recognize her voice through my phone) and asked if she could talk to her. She started waving and saying hi to PoPo. When PoPo asked her if she enjoyed San Francisco, Kaia responded, “Yes.” When PoPo said to Kaia, “Kaia, I love you!” Kaia even responded with, “I love you, too.” Even though I obviously have a complicated relationship with my parents, this still made me feel really happy inside to hear them communicating back and forth like this over the phone. I smiled at Kaia talking to her PoPo and then started laughing when Kaia replied “No!” when PoPo asked if she could come to New York and visit her.

Right after we got off with my mom, out of nowhere, my dad called. My dad hasn’t called me in three years since that difficult email exchange we had in August 2022, when he lashed out at me over something completely innocuous and lost his temper in a big way. He asked if Kaia was there, and then he actually asked to talk to her! I put my dad on speaker phone, and he asked Kaia how school was, if she was going home, and then called her a “good girl.” Kaia kept yelling excitedly, “GongGong! GongGong!” Then, he turned back to me and said it was time to go, and to take care. Then, we said bye and hung up.

I don’t think I will ever have an uncomplicated, 100 percent peaceful relationship with my parents where we fully understand or even accept each other. But after all that’s happened in our life together, I know deep in my soul that they tried the best that they could… even if their best was not always great with Ed or me. I know they love me and want what’s best for me. At the end of the day, I have an infinitely better and more privileged life than they could have ever even imagined for themselves. And a lot of it is because of them and what they’ve given me. And well, even if our relationship continues to be complicated, annoying, and absolutely infuriating, I do want them to have a relationship with Kaia, their only grandchild, and I want Kaia to know them and love them. So, these brief little phone exchanges have had a weird way of almost feeling like bits of healing for me.

I hope Ed is able to see all of this and smile down at us. I only wish he could also interact with Kaia directly in the flesh now.

First day of Pre-K was what I expected: lots of “big feelings”

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Thursday was Kaia’s first official day of Pre-K, aka 4K, aka preschool. She’s attending the same school as she did 3K, so same commute down to Chinatown, same building, same set of faces. But this time, she’s in a different classroom with different teachers and maybe a few different students. The enrollment is pretty low right now: we were told there are only six kids in her class, three returning (so she has two familiar faces with her right now). The other three kids are TBD. On the first day of school, it was just the three kids from last year’s 3K class, so a tiny group.

I picked her up at around 5 as I always do. Kaia was pretty quiet. She walked and willingy held my hand, but as per usual, she didn’t really want to talk much. She demanded treats (she got two mandarins). And on the way home, I had this prediction in my head that she’d probably have a difficult evening. And I was exactly right.

Dinner was painful. She whined and whinged through the entire meal. She expressed she didn’t understand why some kids were no longer in her class or school anymore (some had left for other, closer schools; others were moving up to kindergarten at elementary schools). She didn’t know why she wasn’t in her same classroom with the same teachers as last year (different class, higher level up, so different teachers). We tried to explain to her, but to no avail. She cried and was really upset. Her shower wasn’t any better; she cried almost the whole way through it. Drying her off, applying lotion, and blow drying her hair felt like an Olympic feat. I was mentally exhausted by the end of it. Before it was time for Chris to read to her and put her to bed, I just held her for a little bit. My poor, sweet baby: she’s just so confused about all these things all at the same time.

I figured it would take time to adjust to all the changes. This is a lot to handle for her age — so many changes all at once, and so many big feelings for such little people. But that’s what getting older is all about: handling lots of change all the time and figuring out how to manage your emotions all at the same time. People my age and older are still trying to manage all that without losing their crap.

Scallion bun (cong you bao) in San Francisco is better than in New York

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Growing up, there are certain Cantonese bakery staples that would be on rotation at home. The most common ones were cha siu bao (Cantonese BBQ pork buns, both the baked and the steamed ones), nai huang bao (egg custard bao), lian rong bao (lotus seed bao) (my grandma’s favorite), occasionally ji wei bao (cocktail / coconut bun), and cong you bao (scallion bun). One of my dad’s absolute favorites was always the twisted scallion bao. There would be an ample sprinkling inside and out of chopped scallions/green onions, plus the bun would be rubbed generously with a lightly seasoned scallion oil. When made correctly, the bao itself was soft, pillowy, and nearly melt in your mouth tender and good. The best ones were like eating air; you had no idea how much you had inhaled until the whole damn twisted bun was gone.

I didn’t realize how good I had it getting Chinese bakery items through my grandma and parents growing up (plus the times when relatives would generously bring over the almost expected pink cardboard boxes of Chinese bakery items) until I moved out on my own – it was all trial and error by my own buying and tasting. When I was going to school in the Boston area, I had to figure out which bakeries were good on my own. The same was the case when I moved to New York. I had to rely on strangers’ reviews on Yelp and Google, plus the occasional word of mouth. Most were hit or miss. To this day, after 21 years of living on the East Coast, and 17 of them spent here in New York City, I can say with sadness that I still have not found a bakery that makes scallion buns as good as the ones I can find in San Francisco.

I was reminded of this when I visited two excellent bakeries in San Francisco this last week. We visited Cherry Blossom Bakery on Clement Street in the Inner Richmond, then Good Mong Kok Bakery, one of my family’s staple SF Chinatown bakeries. Cherry Blossom Bakery has had rave reviews and been on my list a while, but I finally popped in while going to the nearby Kiss of Matcha for my reliable and favorite matcha latte. I chose the scallion bao, which was $2, and whe we brought it home, I realized it was truly perfect. It was exactly as I described above: pillowy and deceptively light, with a rich scallion flavor throughout. It must have been made with an excellent tangzhong, or milk bread base paste. Then a couple days later, we visited Good Mong Kok, which my family has been going to as long as I can remember. They are known for lines out the door and very typical Cantonese (read: yelling/barking and quick) service. I picked up one cha siu bao for Kaia, and one scallion bao for us. The scallion bun was very long and only $2. And it was also super pillowy, almost flaky at the edges, and unbelievably fluffy.

While digging into Good Mong Kok Bakery’s perfect cong you bao, I lamented why I still haven’t found this perfection in New York City across any of the endless Chinese bakeries I’ve visited. Even my most favorite Manhattan Chinatown bakeries don’t come close to this taste or texture. Or worse, they like to add extraneous toppings like sliced hot dog (ugh), Chinese sausage (unnecessary), or other meats. When you have a truly delicious and perfect scallion bun, it needs nothing else other than its perfect dough, scallion oil, and scallions.

Who knows – maybe next year when I come to San Francisco, I may just be desperate enough to buy a bunch in bulk and freeze them to bring back to New York with me…

What changes in ten, twenty-plus years

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I feel like every time I come home to San Francisco, I notice yet another thing that has changed. I hadn’t passed 6th and Geary Blvd in ages, and I was shocked while walking along Geary yesterday to see that the entire area that used to be the Ashley & McMullen family owned funeral home was not only demolished, but completely replaced by a multi-story condominium building. There’s no way this happened in just the last year, and I guess I hadn’t passed this part of Geary to notice it. I don’t know why that felt so strange to me, though; condos replace older buildings all the time everywhere, especially places like San Francisco that have a housing shortage. Both my grandma and my uncle had their funerals at this funeral home, in 1995 and then in 2000.

The Alexandria theater at 18th and Geary is still abandoned and looking worn down, a pigeon-poop filled home that is blocked off to humans by aggressive gating. Gaspare’s, the neighborhood Italian American restaurant in the Richmond, still seems to be going strong; we ended up getting takeout pizza and clams with linguine from there on Friday night for family dinner at home. B. Patisserie, a popular (and at that time, very innovative) bakery run by a Chinese American female pastry chef that opened in 2012, is not only humming along in the same location on California at Divisadero, but they have even opened a second location in the heart of downtown now. We went there yesterday and enjoyed some pastries and coffee before walking to Japantown. While I was there, I thought about the week and a half I spent at home in November 2014 because of my dad’s scheduled bypass surgery. His hospital was walking distance from the bakery cafe, so I remember meeting my friend there for lunch one day, and also going there on my own a separate time to decompress a little.

On Friday, I took Kaia to the South Park playground to play while I caught up with an old friend there who drove out to meet us. She was meeting Kaia and also seeing me as a mother for the very first time. It was funny to be in that area after so long, as the last time I remember being in South Park, it was summer 2003, when I had a full-time summer writing internship at WireTap Magazine, a now defunct youth magazine that was owned by the Independent Media Institute (which also used to own Mother Jones). Over twenty years ago, I was an aspiring writer in high school, and today, I am living across the country and am a mother. The play structure had completely changed in the children’s play area, yet the park and surrounding buildings all felt the same. Even some of the fancy cafes that were there twenty years ago still remain today, like Caffe Centro.

People always say things like, “If these walls could talk….” The truth is that there are memories that are conjured every time you walk through old hallways, streets, and neighborhoods that you had frequented, especially when you call the city or town your childhood home. The memories are always a mix of happy, sad, infuriating, and even indifferent, but they are ultimately what colored our lives at a given point in time. Because Kaia is with me, I can see the city through her eyes now. On this trip alone, I’ve lost count of the number of neighborhoods we’ve taken her to and playgrounds/play areas where we’ve played: the Richmond, the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, Chinatown, North Beach, South Beach, downtown/the Ferry Building area, the Tenderloin, Noe Valley, the Fillmore. I love watching her run around and play on these local playgrounds. Of course, they are not the same as the playgrounds and structures I played on as a kid, as all of them have been redone regardless of the neighborhood. But when I asked her if she likes San Francisco and being here, she vigorously nodded, “yes.” And that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Unexpected tears when watching the field trip bus unload the children

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On Thursday when the field trip bus was delayed coming back from the Melville farm, I stood at the other location of Kaia’s school several blocks down with the other parents and waited for the kids to arrive. As bus arrived and parked, all the parents got into a commotion in regards to where the bus would park and when they could actually collect their children. But our school had a pretty careful system: they had all the teachers get off first and arrange themselves by class. Then, they slowly asked each child to get off the bus; the child was then received by hand by another teacher to stand by their appropriate class group. When all the students were in their respective class groups and the teachers were all present, they then walked them, class by class, to the front of the school where us parents stood, and then each lead teacher or admin would release kids by class one by one.

As I saw all the kids get off the bus, I suddenly felt like my heart was heavy. My baby is 3.5 years old now, turning four this December, yet she’s already gone on three field trips with her summer camp! This means that she’s had three fun-filled experiences involving school bus transportation without me. And of course, she will have even more of this fun and learning-filled experiences without me in the future. I wasn’t able to be there to witness her excitements and little joys and new discoveries. Her teachers and classmates were, though. And as the groups approached the school building, I could see Kaia spotting me from the crowd and poking her head out as much as possible to give me a cheeky smile to let me know she knew her mummy was there waiting for her to take her home. There was just something about all this orderly off-boarding the bus and obediently walking in lines that made me feel sad, resulting in my eyes welling up with tears. My baby’s growing up so quickly, and there’s nothing I can do to pause or stop it even for a second. It was like just yesterday I pushed her out of my uterus and was struggling with breastfeeding her. Yet now, she’s already going on field trips in Long Island and acting like a real student in a real school.

I guess that’s another thing about motherhood: so many emotions all the time like a roller coaster, and like a really good roller coaster, you cannot always see all the twists, turns ahead of time. Sometimes it’s the littlest things that catch you off guard that make you cry your eyes out or feel like your baby is growing up just a little too fast for your liking.

12 years since you left us.

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Dear Ed,

I can’t believe it’s been 12 years since you left us today. I feel like I say that pretty much every year, but I actually do really mean it. Our cousin Russell actually messaged me this morning to acknowledge this. Russell has his own problems, but I know he loved you very much and still misses and thinks about you all the time. Each year that passes feels like a bigger gap between us. But it also makes me realize how quickly time flies the older I get (I can definitely say I have more white hairs right now than I did a year ago today). Sometimes, the day of your death is crystal clear in my head, while other days, it’s fuzzy and as though it was made up and never actually happened. I still remember how numb I felt when I found out you were missing. Even though I was walking around and doing things, it felt like my eyesight had become cloudy, like I wasn’t really walking but instead was floating just above the ground. My entire body felt weightless and extremely heavy at the same time. Nothing felt real. And then, just like that… you were confirmed gone, dead, passed away — a corpse in a refrigerator at the Marin County Morgue. Sometimes, it still doesn’t even feel real now that you’re gone.

I always wish I could have told you more, shared more about myself and my thoughts with you. I wish I could have been there for you more. I wish I could have really listened to more of what you had to say. But it was hard. I wasn’t physically always there. And even when I was, it was hard to talk to you. You had a large grey cloud looming above you all the time. It made our conversations non-continuous, choppy, never able to get past a certain point. We could never peel the outer layers of the onion away to get to the core of anything. You had a mental block that I couldn’t quite see or understand. I’m sorry I never told you all I wanted to say. And I’m sorry I never let you tell me all you wanted to say.

It’s funny, though. Now that you’re gone, out of nowhere, I think about the most random things to share with you that I think you’d find interest or amusement in. None of these things are particularly meaningful or deep or interesting or things I’d expect anyone to remember beyond the moment, but they’re more “in the moment” things that I think you’d appreciate. One of the latest things that happened that I thought would make you smile was when I wore a top with chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream cones on it. Kaia always gets excited when she sees food she likes in print or on clothing. So she pointed out that the shirt was new (to her) and that it had ice cream. I asked her to tell me what the flavors were, and she said from left to right, they were chocolate (brown), cherimoya (white), and strawberry (pink). And I just giggled because I thought it was so adorable… as we just came back from South America, where we ate a lot of cherimoya, so now, at least temporarily, Kaia associates “white” with “cherimoya” instead of the expected vanilla flavor.

My friends share about their kids and their siblings spending time with them. One of my friends lives a block away from her dad, who is caring for his granddaughter during the work week (so my friend’s niece). She goes over there frequently to spend time with her niece. And even though it has nothing to do with me or you or Kaia, a part of me feels envious. I wish that you could spend quality time and have sweet moments with Kaia. But that is never going to happen. A lot of amazing things were robbed from you, Ed. And for that, a large part of me will always be resentful on your behalf.

It’s July 2025 now, so a year and a half since the safety net was installed at the Golden Gate Bridge. We’re planning to go back to San Francisco next month. Maybe this visit, I may actually feel ready to go see it. I want to see this barrier that is saving lives… just not yours.

We haven’t forgotten you, Ed. We’ll never forget. Twelve years later, and I still haven’t forgotten you. I also haven’t stopped missing you. I love you. You may never read this, but I love you; I really do. And in her heart, I know Kaia loves you, too, and wishes she could have a real relationship in flesh and blood with you, too.

Rest in love, my sweet big brother.

Back from a 15-day vacation and home-cooked food is all I want

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Our Northern hemisphere summer trip is always our longest trip away without any home base. This year, we were away for about 15 days, which according to Chris, felt like a longer trip than last year given that we had an overnight flight form New York to Santiago in June 2024. It felt like a good amount of time to be away to feel like we really got to reset and be offline. But at the end of this trip, while I am always a little sad the trip is ending, I’m actually happy to come back home, get back into my daily routine of exercise, work, and cooking. The part I tend to miss the most when I am away from home for a long while is cooking. A friend of mine thought I was crazy when I shared this, but I actually do mean it: cooking is one of my passions, so when I haven’t made anything in a while, my mind and hands tend to feel a little idle. Maybe at some point in the future, we could do an AirBnB where I could have access to a proper kitchen, cooking equipment, and be able to buy local ingredients to cook. But until then, this trip will always mean that we’ll be eating out the whole time, even if “eating out” can simply mean going downstairs to our hotel breakfast.

For dinner today, I made sure to soak lentils and rice the night before so that we’d have dal and rice as our base. I thawed some frozen chicken and frozen tomato onion masala. I trimmed the chicken and cut it into smaller pieces for a Malaysian style curry using the Sambal Lady’s Burlap & Barrel curry spice blend packet. The tomato onion masala got used in the dal I made in the Instant Pot. I cooked some jasmine rice in the rice cooker, and then I made two salads: Chinese-style cucumber salad, plus an arugula salad with beets, carrots, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, and toasted pepitas, tossed with a French-style vinaigrette. I also made a side of stir-fried bell peppers for the Pookster.

It always feels good to come back home from a trip and have home-cooked food that is less fatty, oil, salty, or sugary. I’m not saying all the food we eat out is salty, fatty, or oily, but well, you can’t really know what’s in your food unless you make it yourself. That’s what “home sweet home” is all about.