Category Archives: Love

Dried scallops – a mother’s show of love

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Growing up in an Asian household, I rarely got complimented. Though I did get told “I love you” quite a lot from my mom, a lot of the time it was hard to really hear and digest that when it was in the midst of a lot of criticisms and comparisons. I will say, though, that the one area where my parents have never, ever failed my brother and me is around feeding us. We’ve always, always had more than plenty of food to eat in the house and lots of variety. And it is always one of their very first questions they ask me when they see or talk to me: “Have you eaten yet?” It’s a classic Chinese/Vietnamese way of greeting someone you care about.

When I graduated from college and moved to New York City, one really sweet and generous thing my mom would do is pack me a one-pound, carefully wrapped box of super premium, extremely pricey dried scallops. They would always be huge, fat, uniform, and perfect. She’d check in with me on calls to see how my stash was going, and when I told her it was getting low, she’d go to her favorite herb shop in San Francisco Chinatown and buy me another pack. She would either have it ready for me to pack when I came home for the holidays, or if she were coming to visit me, she’d pack it in her suitcase and cart it over to me. If you know what I am referring to, you know that this product is likely one of *the* most expensive foods you can cook with in Cantonese cuisine. The highest quality, most beautiful and unblemished dried large scallops, oftentimes from Japan, can be sold for as much as $80-110 USD for a single pound. They are truly worth what they cost, though: dried scallops bring an incredible seafoody, umami burst to anything they are added to. There is really nothing that tastes like them that can mimic the richness they bring any single dish. I would always use them to make Chinese sticky rice, Chinese turnip cake, or savory taro cake, would occasionally add them to stir-fry dishes, and oftentimes would even add them to my jook/congee as a decadent treat. Some particular friends used to tell me that adding dried scallops to congee seemed a bit wasteful given what a premium item they are, but because my grandma and mom would always add a little to their congee, I continued doing this with mine when I had them on hand.

Well, since Kaia has been born, my mom hasn’t bought me any more scallops. In fact, she hasn’t even asked me once how my stash has been looking. Her whole focus now, predictably, is on her only grandchild. All the gifts she packs when I see her are all for Kaia. I’m not complaining — it is what it is, and I get it. Well, I finally used up the last bits of the last box of dried scallops she gave me this time last year to make Chinese sticky rice and radish and taro cakes. So this year, I had to go to a specialty shop to pick up my own because there was no way I was going to make Chinese turnip cake or sticky rice without it. I hesitated when I saw how much the fattest, plumpest, and most beautiful ones in the shop cost: $98/pound. Ouch. I looked at the next tier: $80. And the tier after that was $68. Okay, it’s okay, I told myself. I only need a small amount to make my dishes, so I’m just going to buy a quarter of a pound. I asked for 1/4 pound, the employee measured it out on a scale, priced it out and handed me the bag of my dried gold.

Well, that just did it: that is the single most expensive item I purchased for my Lunar New Year celebrations: about $17.50 for a quarter pound of semi-premium Japanese dried scallops. And I am pretty sure if my mom examined these, she would say these weren’t that good and that I probably got ripped off.

Kaia’s first hong bao (red envelope) from a non-family/non-friend person

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At school pickup today, Kaia and I went down the stairs into the building lobby to exit. As usual, the friendly older Chinese male doorman was there. Since the beginning, he’s always been really friendly with Chris, Kaia, and me. At pickup, we always make sure to greet him and have Kaia give him a high-five (or “pai shou!” in Chinese). We call him “Ah Gong,” which is a friendly and polite way of greeting someone who is of grandpa-age in Chinese. Kaia is always excited to see him and say hi. We always give him a high-five, then say thank you and goodbye or “see you tomorrow” in Chinese. Ah Gong always says that Kaia is so cute, so smart, and so “guai guai” (well behaved, obedient).

Today, I lifted her up to give him a high-five, then I asked her to wish him “xin nian kuai le! gong xi fa cai!” given the Lunar New Year has already come. Kaia first said it very quietly. Then, when I told her to say it louder, she shouted it! And Ah Gong got SO excited! He started laughing and exclaiming how proud he was that she knew how to wish him a happy Chinese New Year in Chinese. Then out of nowhere, he puts his hand into his inside chest pocket, which had a wad of sealed hong bao, and immediately handed her one. He wished her a happy and prosperous Lunar New Year in Chinese and told her to study (haha) and continue being “guai guai.” Kaia thanked him in Chinese, gave him a hug, and we went on our way.

On the train, I let her open the hong bao. Inside the hong bao was a very crisp, brand new five-dollar note (in case you aren’t aware, notes placed in hong bao must be brand new and crisp. Banks in areas with large Asian populations know this, and so they always have lots of crisp bills ready during the Lunar New Year period). Wow, I thought. We have no real family or friend relation other than the fact that he works as a doorman at the building where Kaia happens goes to school, and he was so generous to give her $5?! When he handed it to her, I figured he would give her a crisp one-dollar note as a cute gesture. But I was surprised. As Blanche DuBois once said, ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” This line can be applied to so many instances of our lives, and this is definitely one of them. For every total dud, intentionally rude and obtuse, ill-intentioned person out there, there are, in fact, at least eight or nine really well-intentioned, kind individuals to even it all out.

How Chris is like Romesh Ranganathan

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Last night, we went out with some friends for a quick dinner and for an evening of comedy at the Town Hall to see Romesh Ranganathan perform. Romesh is a British actor/comedian of Sri Lankan descent. Chris originally found out about him years ago, and we watched his docu-series Just Another Immigrant, showing his journey and temporary move to LA to do stand-up comedy and “make it” in the U.S. — all while dragging his wife and kids with him.

Since Kaia was born, we haven’t gone out very much for live shows, but the majority that we have seen have been live comedy. This was the first time we got to see Romesh live, and there were moments when I laughed so hard that I was crying and wiping my eyes. I love his deadpan, self-deprecating humor, and I especially loved it when he talked about his little foibles with his wife. The two areas where I completely saw commonality between his perspective and Chris’s were around 1) making new friends, and socializing with new people, and 2) his attitude around having holidays/vacations with other couples/families.

Regarding making new friends, whether that’s friends organically or through Kaia’s friends’ parents, Chris has always been hesitant about the idea. He usually will say things like, “Well, you can make friends with them and let me know how they are,” or, “You can go to future birthday parties (with Kaia) and enjoy.” So in other words, he doesn’t want to commit to new people easily. He is always wary of anyone new, unless they are the spouse/partner of someone from “his” side.

Chris detests the idea of going on any trip with anyone else, minus his parents for max 3-4 days. Any time I have shared any story of a joint family big trip or couples/multiple families going on a holiday together, he grumbles and groans, insisting that it sounds like hell. He has said that the only way he’d ever agree to a trip with another couple is if he had full authority to decide literally every single thing that was done. So in other words, he’d need to be the trip dictator. Romesh shared, during his live performance last night, that during a drunken night out with other couple friends when he was not present, his wife had agreed to go on a holiday with another couple and their family to Portugal for ten days. It took a while for her to spit this out because she knew how angry he’d be about it. He said during the show, “I would have much preferred that she had shagged them!”

This sounded exactly like Chris. I felt so seen knowing that another person’s partner was exactly this way.

Hidden hotel floors in Hong Kong

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I feel like in the last two years, I’ve really grown an affinity to the term “if you know, you know,” aka #iykyk. The 2025 articles I keep seeing are listing “#iykyk” as an overused term that is “fini” for the new year, but I don’t care: it most definitely still will resonate. The reason for this is that… unless you are aware of certain things or certain events, you cannot fully appreciate something that you see or is shared. Why not? Because… you just didn’t know!

Here’s a case in point: at the hotel we stayed at during both legs of our stay in Hong Kong, the Renaissance Harbour View Hotel Hong Kong, which is part of the Marriott group of hotels, appears as though there are only 41 floors in the building. Floors 40 and 41 are the Club Lounge, where those guests who have a certain level of status get access (like us), or those who have purchased a hotel stay including club lounge will have access. Chris added a request for the second leg of our stay to be upgraded to a suite if one was available, and he was granted his request: we got a suite… that was on the hidden top floor 42.

I didn’t realize this until we came to the hotel on Saturday evening. Chris rarely shares these things in advance, as he loves to surprise. He pressed on the button for the club lounge floor to end the evening. I had originally thought he wanted to stop by to grab a beverage before heading to our room. But what ended up being the case is that floor 42 is not accessible by the regular elevator bank; you have to take the main elevator to floor 41, then either take a second elevator up just one level to 42, or walk up a short flight of stairs to 42. Once we got to our room, we were in what could have been an extremely spacious New York City apartment: 1.5 bathrooms (one of which could easily be the size of a bedroom, with a standalone soaking bathtub, his-and-her sinks, and a roomy rainfall shower), a massive living room with a dedicated work space, a large king-sized bedroom, and floor-to-ceiling windows that gave a full, unobstructed view of Hong Kong Harbour. The living room was so large that it had two doorways you could choose from to enter the bedroom. Kaia loved this so much and constantly ran in and out and around in circles, giggling and singing nonstop, relishing every inch of this newfound space she could enjoy for just a single night.

If this wasn’t enough, on our small dining table, the hotel management left us a tray of tasty delights: two beautifully packaged chocolate bars — one flavored with Taiwanese oolong and one with Sichuanese pepper; a small jug of Hong Kong style iced milk tea, a platter of fresh fruit, two crispy almond cookies, and two fresh, flaky coconut tarts. If this wasn’t the ultimate “welcome back to Hong Kong” experience by a hotel, I wasn’t sure what was.

“You live a really good life — far more luxurious and better than any of your cousins,” my mom once said to me back in 2019 when she learned of all our points-paid hotel nights, hotel room and flight upgrades, and all the little gifts that hotels have given Chris and me along the way for our loyalty. I suppose what she said is true. But a big part of the reason I have all of this is Chris: he always knows how to play the game, the system, when and how to ask. I’d honestly be lost navigating all of this if it weren’t for him. So really, he is the one who actually knows; I’m just coming to tag along and enjoy it all, and so is Pookster.

A well-meaning and loving mum-in-law / Suma

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I cannot count the number of horror stories I’ve heard from friends, colleagues, and in my different social media groups about people’s mothers-in-law. The common thing I always hear is that people generally always get better support from their own parents when they have kids versus their in-laws, who can, in some cases, even be oppressive. People have also just assumed this is the case with me, and I’m pretty quick to correct them. The sad thing is — I cannot relate to those sentiments. My in-laws are far more supportive with Kaia than my parents ever have been. When we’re in Melbourne, they’ve babysat for her a number of nights when we’ve gone out to be child-free. My mum-in-law does all our laundry, including Kaia’s. She helps with cleaning her up if she’s there when Kaia’s finished a meal. She pays careful attention (and I wouldn’t be surprised if she even took NOTES) to what we say Kaia likes and doesn’t like. She even thinks about things I don’t think about. During our first year here with Kaia as a baby in 2022, she bought baby/child-safe insect repellant for her since the mozzies can be quite aggressive down here. Back then, I was touched when she would roast and air fry vegetables for Kaia and prepare them almost exactly as I prepared them back home for her in New York; she carefully watched all the Instagram stories I posted about what I was making Kaia as a baby (my massive baby-led weaning feeding project) and did it all for her when we came.

This time on our first day, my mum-in-law baked mini banana muffins for Kaia modeled after the healthy snacks I’d occasionally bake her. She also asked her friend for her recipe for healthy oat-nut cookies that she’d bake her grandchildren, since she knew that Kaia loved having healthy cookies at home made by her mummy. When we arrived on our first day, she casually mentioned she had them in the cupboard and fridge for Kaia over our lunch. And I just felt floored that she’d go to this level of effort. She’d already made us this elaborate and delicious lunch to welcome us back, a low-sugar vanilla birthday cake for Kaia, and now she’s also made TWO additional healthy baked treats?!

I tell Chris this all the time, but I don’t think he or his brother appreciate his mother enough. She really does try so hard in so many ways. His mum has a really high level of empathy, and she’s always trying to do the right thing whether people appreciate it or not. The level of effort she exerts to cater to Kaia’s needs based on what she knows I want and prefer has been really touching; I was nearly moved to tears when she showed me the container of healthy, low-sugar oat cookies she made. They even had little chopped nuts and dried fruit in them. She’s been following all of my social media and trying to replicate what I do for Pookster while we’re staying at her home here in Melbourne. I could only wish my mom would go to even a fraction of the same effort, but instead, she would just insist her way is the best way and that I lack wisdom to know what is best for my own child.

Happy 3rd birthday to my precious little miracle baby

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To my sweet baby Kaia Pookie, aka Pookster, aka Hoji, aka xiao bao,

Happy 3rd birthday, my precious little. It’s crazy to think that exactly three years ago, I thought my uterus and vagina were going to explode when I was in labor with you. But somehow I didn’t die and made it through with flying colors, and out came sweet, affectionate, thoughtful, curious, cheeky, flavor-loving YOU.

Every day you surprise me with what you learn and absorb in this world: your massively increasing vocabulary and syntax in both English and Chinese, your thoughtfulness, your adventure seeking ways, and your love of travel in all forms, whether it’s on the bus, subway, high-speed train, or airplanes; your crazy good memory that remembers faces and names of those you’d seen ages ago, as well as who is whose mummy and who is whose partner.

My sweet Kaia Pookie — I have loved and appreciated far more about life and love since you literally plopped out of my body and into my world. It sounds ridiculous to say this, especially given how many women get pregnant and how many babies are born every single day, but sometimes, I truly feel astounded that I was lucky enough to get pregnant, carry, and birth you. There are so many people in the world who would love to be mummies and daddies and do not get the privilege or pleasure; infertility/sub-fertility are on the rise globally, and not a day goes by when I do not remember that or hear a related story that is affecting a friend or colleague, or someone else tangentially related to someone in my circle. Daddy and I were lucky on our IVF journey. Not everyone else is so lucky who embarks on that tumultuous road. That’s why every day, I know exactly how lucky I am to call you my baby, and for you to call me your mumma.

Motherhood is all at once the most infuriating (oh, your tantrums and strong AF opinions!) and most incredible thing I’ve ever done. But I thank you for giving me the privilege and opportunity to be your mumma – mumma to the cuddliest little globe-trotting tiny human I’ve ever known. I love you to the ends of this earth, my sweet baby. You will always be my baby no matter what — even when you are 5, 15, 50, and 100. As I tell you in Chinese every night before bed; Every day, mama will take care of you, protect you, and love you — always.

Last full day in Paris: beautiful food and floral displays, La Biblioteque Sainte Genevieve, and Place Vendome

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I don’t know how it seems like even the littlest displays of fruit and food are always so gorgeous here. There can simply be a florist shop on a street, and it will look like someone with a keen artistic eye spent a lot of time arranging all the flowers, pots, and accessories so that every object is just so to make the scene look perfect. Today, we ate at a cute little bistro called Le Petit Cler on Rue Cler, and on the same street there were endless little grocers, shops specializing in specific types of meats, seafoods, and other epicurean delights; each simple display looked like it could be photographed for a magazine. But all those foods, whether it was a display of fruit or a very earthy setup of mushrooms in baskets, all were edible and ready to be purchased, cooked with, and eaten.

There was also an architectural wonder I had on my list for a while that I never got around to: The Sainte Geneiveve Library just a block away from the Pantheon. The library is known to be a beautiful place to read and study and houses about two million historic documents that date back to the 9th century. What is crazy about this place is that as a student, you have to book a time slot and an actual assigned seat in the library, showing proof of your student status via a university ID. And any old visitors are not welcome at any time, as you cannot simply walk in. You have to book designated (and very limited) tours at specific hours, and the areas where you are allowed to stand/look are very small.

I didn’t do my research on this beforehand and thought we could just walk in. Alas, my timing was fortuitous because as I poked my head in to ask the security guard if we could enter, a library employee had just come back from her break. Without hesitation, she ushered me in, telling me in French that they usually don’t do this, but she’d make an exception for us given we were tourists from out of town. We got to stand in the same limited standing area overlooking the reading rows. And I looked up and snapped a few photos of the big windows, reading rows, and interior. And I remembered how I first learned about this library: the Boston Public Library, very well respected for its architecture both on the exterior and interior, was modeled after La Biblioteque Sainte Genevieve.

In the evening, after a last stop at the Paris Christmas markets, we walked through Place Vendome on our way back to the hotel for the night. Paris is one of those global cities that really takes Christmas seriously: all the department store facades were decked out in holiday cheer, and the plaza of Place Vendome and the shops that lined it were the definition of Christmas’s “merry and bright.” The lights twinkled all along the plaza, and it even had this beautiful children’s carousel with endless surrounding yellow and white twinkling lights, wreaths, and glittering Christmas trees.

While walking through the plaza, I actually thought about my mom and how even before she became a Jehovah’s Witness, she never enjoyed Christmas. She used to find the entire holiday a chore, from buying and wrapping gifts to making food to even having a Christmas tree with lights on in the living room. She used to insist that if she were sitting or lying down in the living room that the Christmas tree lights had to be turned off. She would complain and say, “They hurt my eyes! Shut them off!” So when she started studying to become a JW, it was an easy argument for her to completely nix any Christmas tree and lights. And while walking through Place Vendome, I just felt a little sad for her. Had she experienced so much trauma and hate in her life that she couldn’t find it in her heart to embrace this one “merry and bright” season of the year, especially since she knew her kids loved it so much?

But that’s why we learn from the past and try to create better experiences for our future. It’s why I’m so happy that I can create new family traditions for the own family I’ve chosen and formed and move away from all that inherited negativity of the past.

Kaia jumps into the water

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On Sunday and Monday, Kaia had swim lessons on back-to-back days since we had to schedule a makeup class from last month. I took her to class on Sunday while Chris had a dentist appointment, and Chris took her to the makeup class on Monday. In the last month, she recently graduated from level 2 swim to level 3 swim, which some people remark and (half) joke that it could be considered more of a “graduation” for parents than the kids: once level 3 starts at British Swim School, the caretaker/parent no longer needs to be in the water with the child. The child has to clear several requirements, though, including being able to float on their back unassisted (the instructor keeps their hand under their back just in case) and being able to not cry/be content without the caretaker/parent in the water. 

Chris got a really good video of Kaia jumping into the water on Monday. The instructor asked her to jump in, and seconds later, without even a hint of fear on her face, she simply jumped in, then rotated onto her back on command from the teacher. Her usual teacher was doing admin work that day at that pool, but he’s in the background of the video watching. When she eagerly jumps in, his whole face breaks out into a huge grin. Clearly, Chris and I are not the only ones proud of Kaia Pookie! 

I played the video several times and marveled over her bravery and eagerness in the water, and she’s not even three years old yet. I feel so happy and proud that she’s done so well with swim lessons so far and that she’s quite fearless overall. I was never as lucky as she was when I was her age to have swim lessons this young. I didn’t even learn to swim until I was 15, and to this day, I’m still terrified of open and/or deep water. In my summer swim classes I took after sophomore year, I never graduated from free-style swim strokes to diving. So I’ve never properly learned to dive either. Even though I didn’t have those things, I’m so happy to give Kaia the opportunity to have what I didn’t have. I can live vicariously through my baby. And I’m also grateful she has teachers who are clearly passionate about her achieving swimming mastery. 

Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood

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I recently started reading a book called Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood, written by Lucy Jones. The term “matrescence” still doesn’t seem to be recognized by the dictionary in the year 2024, which is quite sad and pathetic considering time has evolved. Matrescence refers to the state of a person becoming a mother and all that this transition entails. I first heard of the term in a news article my friend linked to me, which I think was in NPR, about matrescence and how it doesn’t get nearly as much research, news coverage, or talk as it should. My friend sent this to me as she was sharing with me how much her body and her mind had changed after giving birth. She said it was hard to describe, but the way she thought about things and saw the world was completely different. She expected it to be different after becoming a mother, but she wasn’t prepared for exactly how different her perspective would be in her postpartum state.

A lot happens to a person when they become a mother, both mentally and physically, yet somehow, we’re all expected to just “bounce back” in every sense of the word after giving birth. Children do not give birth to themselves; mothers give birth to them, and that’s a very wild and intense ride, and for some women, can even be traumatic. To this day, the 25 hours I spent in labor from beginning to end was the most intense 25 hours of my entire freaking life; I doubt anything will ever top that – physically, mentally, emotionally. IT WAS BEYOND INTENSE. It is said that it takes somewhere between two to four years for a woman to feel like “herself” again after giving birth. Unfortunately, in the U.S., you’re meant to go back to work the next week, in six weeks, and if you’re “lucky” like me, in the next 16-20 weeks. So who cares if you are “yourself” again!

A lot has resonated with me as I am going through this book, but what I wasn’t expecting was this excerpt near the beginning:

“During pregnancy, cells are exchanged between the mother and fetus in the placenta. When the baby is born, some of those cells remain intact in the mother’s body. For decades. Perhaps forever. The phenomenon is called microchimerism. The exchange creates what the leading geneticist Dr. Diana Bianchi calls “a permanent connection which contributes to the survival of both individuals.

“Cells have been found in subsequent siblings, too. If you have a younger brother or sister, they may have your cells.”

I figured that something would likely be left behind from my baby after giving birth, especially given the role the placenta plays and how that also needs to be birthed out of you, but I didn’t realize that my baby’s cells could stay in me potentially forever. Nor did I ever think that any subsequent siblings would have their older siblings’ cells in them. But that then made me stop and think: Wow. That means that I physically have some of Ed’s cells in me. He actually is a part of me, and in more ways than I had previously thought or known. I always knew that a part of Kaia would be in me, and I’d obviously be in her, but Ed’s in me? But it gave me this sense of joy and warmth, as strange as it sounds. He may no longer be living, but he physically is still living on in me, through cells that I got from him through our mother.

I think it goes without saying that I am definitely enjoying this book.

Happy 45th birthday, dear Ed

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Dear Ed,

Happy 45th birthday. I wonder what you are doing to celebrate… another year not around the sun?

Guess what? I managed to survive the trip to San Francisco this year, and it was actually quite enjoyable, more so than the last one two years ago! It’s likely because I had very small windows to have one-on-one time with our mother, who would likely use the time to complain about our dad or me. But all in all, it went better than I expected. Our dad actually had small spurts of a minute here and there interacting with Kaia directly, after our mom would hiss at him to get off his phone (which he had, up to his face, almost every time Kaia was around), play with, and talk to her! Was it pathetic? Of course, but it was still more than I expected. Our mom took my words to heart when I told her that she barely spent any time with Kaia when we came two years ago and instead, always made excuses to go clean or walk somewhere. So this time, she actually did make an effort to play with and talk to her.

I took a photo of our parents’ yard. It looks just as awful, if not worse, than two years ago: completely overgrown, weeds galore, and turned over buckets and flower pots everywhere. At least Kaia enjoyed rummaging through it and searching for big sticks. The one tiny thing that my dad did to improve the room going into the yard was that he actually put in mini blinds (ugh) instead of those ugly black tarps used in cheap housing. At our family dinner the first night, our uncle was showing the family his flourishing orchids (you know, the ones our dad got me one birthday that he failed to take care of, so our uncle took them off his hands… and then now, so much time has passed that now, he thinks they were his all along. He denied that they were actually mine…!), and our mom makes these ridiculous remarks about how — of course he’s able to grow things in Pacifica because the weather is better there. The weather in Pacifica, as we all know, is the same or worse as in San Francisco. How about we just say what this is really about: one of them was able to put the time and effort into the flowers blooming, while the others didn’t and so that’s why they have the yard of shame? I didn’t bother taking photos of the inside of the house. I think the outside yard says everything about what inside looks like. It’s the house where nothing thrives or grows, just as that dream I had in my senior year of high school so clearly illustrated.

Our mom whined to me and said that she spent so much time cleaning the house before we arrived. I don’t doubt she did. I know she probably spent a lot of time taking care of all the bedding and cleaning the bathrooms. But honestly, with everything else, you could have fooled me. There was not an uncluttered area to walk in a straight line through, not even from the living room to the damn dining room. All table surfaces in every single room were completely covered. The few surfaces of my book shelf in the bedroom I could see were covered with at least a half-inch of dust, which I actually cleaned off (but they’ll never notice). She said our dad is filthy and never cleans anything. How did he get like this? He was once a minimalist and always throwing things away. And now, he hoards like the world is ending. Is this what old age has done to him?

Chris, Kaia, and I went to visit you at the Columbarium on Saturday. When we arrived, Kaia had to go to the bathroom, so Chris went to take her (with her little potty seat). And in those moments alone with you, just staring at your urn in your niche, I started sobbing. I felt so terrible looking down at you, knowing you weren’t here to see and hold and play with Kaia. You’ll never be able to see her, and she’ll never be able to see you. I felt like she and I had been robbed. It didn’t seem fair to me at all. You should be able to meet your niece and enjoy her company. Kaia should be able to enjoy time with her jiu jiu; that was the way life was supposed to be for us. And it isn’t. I also felt guilt I hadn’t come back to see you last year, but I honestly just could not stomach it as I told you. But it felt like in not coming, I was also abandoning you. And that made me think about all the guilt I felt about leaving home, and leaving you to rot there under the constant bullying and criticism of our parents. I’m sorry I was never enough for you. I’m sorry I could not save you.

I told Kaia it was your birthday today, and she said, “Happy birthday, Jiu Jiu.” She has seen lots of pictures of you. She even recognizes your face when I show her photos of you. I thought about going to the Golden Gate Bridge to see the suicide barrier this trip, but a big part of me didn’t feel I was ready to see it myself. A former colleague had messaged me about it late last year when the construction had completed. It made me happy to hear it had completed, but I also just felt sad thinking about you. Maybe I’ll go see it next year. At least that barrier will hopefully save other lives.

I’m getting older every day and aging without you, Ed. We were supposed to age and get old together. You’re eternally 33, and I’m 38 going on 39 soon. I’m not sure how this happened or why. Kaia will get older every day and not know what it’s like to know you, and that will always be something I’ll be sad about. Though I will do my best to have her know you as much as possible. We won’t ever forget you or pretend your life did not matter. You will always, always matter to us and live on through us. I love you so much and hope you are feeling peace.

Love,

Your little sister, Yvonne