Category Archives: Love

As we grow old(er)

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Today was Christmas Day, as well as Chris’s 37thbirthday. It’s strange to think how quickly time has gone by. He’s officially in his late 30s, and although I am in my early 30s, given I will be turning 33 in just a few weeks, I feel old, too. While much about us is the same as seven years ago when we first became a couple, much has certainly changed. I flipped through a few older photos of us seven years ago, and there are some differences that a nuanced eye could see: Chris’s hair is slightly thinning at the top, his sides are receding just a tad. My face has a bit more definition when I smile, with skin that isn’t as “tight” as it once was. They are not quite wrinkles as they are skin just getting a little looser with age. It doesn’t matter how much sun block I apply, what SPF I use, or however many hats I wear or sunglasses I put on; my age on my face is definitely showing over the years. Both our bellies are a little rounder, most likely from this time of year when food indulgences are at its peak, but also because it’s just simply fact that our metabolisms are slowing, slowly but surely. We’re getting older together.

It’s our seventh Christmas together, our seventh Southern Hemisphere Christmas together. And it’s always a beautiful and literally warming break from the cold and darkness that is New York City at this time of year. I wonder where we will be at this time next year at Christmas, or the Christmas after that, or the Christmas in 10 years’ time. I wonder if they will be just as happy, or what our lives will be like. I wonder what changes will come, for better or for worse, and how we will get through all of them. I do hope it is good. I hope it only gets better and fuller.

Christmas cards 2018

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As part of my nearly annual tradition for years now, I handmade a subset of my Christmas cards that I am sending out. This year, I made 16 for close friends and family and spent most of today baking and writing messages in them, getting them ready for either hand delivery or for mailing out.

As I sorted through all the different designs and laid them out to take photographs of them, it suddenly hit me that it had been many years since I first made a handmade card for Ed. It had been years since I had sent him any Christmas card. And the piercing memory of coming back to the house and going through the belongings in his desk after his death in July 2013 hit me: the moment when I opened his second desk drawer to find several years’ worth of my handwritten and handmade cards I’d given to him, neatly stacked in a short, single pile. I remember immediately tearing up, reading each message I wrote him one by one. And in a slight fit of rage, I tore all of them up and threw them into the recycling bin. Maybe I should have kept them. Maybe I should have preserved them to remember what I used to write to my Ed with pen and paper. But my emotions got the best of me and they’re now all gone.

He only kept my cards. He kept them because he knew I wanted him to. He actually listened to what I said. Each Christmas, it’s hard to forget how much Ed loved Christmas — all the lights, the trees, the smell of Christmas cooking and baking, the idea of togetherness in even a dysfunctional family. He isn’t here with me anymore, but each Christmas, I think of him constantly, both fondly and sadly, and hope that he is happier in a better and more peaceful place, celebrating Christmas in his own way somewhere above us.

Rockefeller Christmas tree

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Every Christmas season, as we gradually approach the day we are departing for Australia (or, last year, the UK and South Africa) to celebrate Christmas with Chris’s family, Chris and plan a special dinner out from our curated Yelp list, and then, we will have our annual “trip” to visit the Rockefeller Christmas tree. Yes, it’s touristy. Yes, it’s crowded as hell with both tourists and locals. But it’s our thing, our annual Christmas time tradition. And this year, I really did not want to go tonight. It was so cold and windy, and I felt cranky and irritable from the cold weather as well as the chaos and busy-ness of work and catching up from traveling this week. But when we actually arrived at the tree, all the complaining in my head stopped. It really is a spectacular sight every year. I get why people want to come to New York during the holiday period to see all the Christmas lights and experience the festivities. There’s something really magical about seeing this insanely tall and fat tree lit up with what is probably thousands of colorful lights that flanks the Rockefeller Center. When I saw this tree tonight, I thought… wow. I’m really lucky to live in this city that others marvel over, that others travel thousands of miles for just to see this freaking tree. There is really nothing quite like New York City.

 

Thankful

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Every weekend before Thanksgiving in the U.S. as we are getting ready to leave for what is now our sixth European Thanksgiving away, all of my social media and even my news sources are flooded with posts and articles on the latest and greatest ways to prepare a turkey and all those beloved Thanksgiving sides: mashed potatoes – how to keep them fresh for longer because we know how temporary their fluffiness is? Cranberry sauce – to eat the canned or to do an innovative twist with additional spices and fruit that may piss your aunt off? Then there’s also the stuffing; everyone has an opinion about stuffing. Should it be traditional bread stuffing with white or wheat bread, or corn bread-based? Is anyone going to be upset if you sub in Chinese rice stuffing instead if there are people of Asian descent at your table?

But by this point, we already would have had our early Thanksgiving meal, or “friendsgiving” meal as others like to call it since we’re not with our immediate family members. I already would have done my early Thanksgiving cooking for the year. Any tempting recipes or cooking tips I pick up this weekend I would just bookmark or save for next year. It’s planning a year ahead and adding more to my browser bookmarks list and copying and pasting new recipes into my Evernote for Thanksgiving ideas in the year to come.

Sometimes, I have fleeting moments when I feel a little sad that I have no family to “go home to” for Thanksgiving, but then I quickly realize and remember how lucky I am to have a life partner who loves to travel and see the world, and what better week to explore the world when most Americans are stuffing their faces with turkey and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, when it is typically low season in most of Europe, to enjoy and relish the moments there with lesser crowds and American accents. I’m thankful to have what I have – the globe-trotting, worldly life partner I have, the money and work flexibility to travel as we do, and the good health to allow me to trek up endless hills and windy cobbled streets, and run through airports to get to the places we want to see and learn all about. I have a lot to be thankful for.

 

Costco chicken bake

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Today was Chris’s second time ever going to Costco. After we finished paying for our haul of goodies, Chris asked, “don’t you want your chicken bake?” It’s like I had heart eyes on the spot. The first time he came with me back in June, he was annoyed by the crowds and didn’t want to wait for a chicken bake in the Costco fast food line, breaking my personal tradition of always getting a chicken bake when visiting a Costco in Manhattan. This time, he humored me. So we got the chicken bake and took it home to share.

It’s really nothing that will wow anyone or be on the list of the most incredible foods you’ve ever eaten, but for me, it holds nostalgia from my Costco trips with my parents growing up, and my dad surprising me with one in the car. But if you really think about it, the Costco chicken bake encompasses most elements of what defines “comfort food”: meat (thick chunks of chicken breast), bread, cheese, a creamy sauce, bacon, a crusty cheesy exterior. You can’t really go wrong with that unless you are trying to entice a vegan, right? Chris smelled it, and he said he could already picture what it tasted like. And when he actually took a bite, he said, “Okay, yes, this is good, but it… just taste like pizza bread!”

It tastes like my happy memories of home. I will always love this baked goodness.

My supportive love

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After sending out a reminder email last night to previous donors and friends from my Gmail list who have not yet donated this year and also sending out a very public message via our Team Slack channel, my inbox has received over a dozen new donation notifications in the last 24 hours. Chris has been closely tracking the progress of my fundraising drive as he does every year, and him being him, he is very competitive and has a lot of commentary about the other people who are “competing” against me for the top fundraiser spots in this year’s Manhattan Out of the Darkness walk. He’s unhappy about the fact that every year I’ve participated, all the people who are usually ahead of me in fundraising are a part of a team, which means that they have more power in numbers in terms of raising funds. So, with that logic, there should be a differentiation between “team” rankings vs. “individual” (that’s me) fundraising rankings, and they should not be grouped together and ranked. I kind of get this rationale, but at the same time, each team member of a team has his/her own page, and therefore they are responsible for their own numbers.

A real message of annoyance from my husband today:

“Bottom line …no. 1 isn’t a real individual fundraiser, …no. 2 as defined as 2 ppl, no. 3 is suspicious, and no. 5, I have said a lot already plus works for AFSP  … and all of them are teams. You win!!!”

I love my baby even when he’s being super cute and excessively competitive. My general response to all this is that at the end of the day, we’re all just trying to raise money for an important cause that often gets overlooked, so the rankings or the teams versus individuals don’t really mean that much to me. But my heart warms when he says combative things like this because he is always the most supportive and thus always wants me to win. I have the most supportive and loving spouse. Ed would be proud and grateful.

Ed’s 39th birthday in Vancouver

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It’s my first time celebrating Ed’s birthday outside of the U.S. It was just Bart and me today, so we had to make it worth it. We enjoyed the sumptuous breakfast buffet at the hotel’s Executive Lounge, complete with cold-pressed juices and even chocolate almond milk, wandered around Granville Island and enjoyed looking at all the local arts and crafts, especially the hand-crafted pottery designs. It reminded me of the ceramic designs that we admired while we were in Seattle together in 2004. I actually brought back a small little ceramic jewelry bowl from Pike Place Market during that trip that I placed next to my framed photo of the two of us together on our bedroom dresser.

We then took the ferry back to the West End and walked along the urban beach overlooking the English Bay. Walking through the streets of the West End, both residential and commercial, I found myself thinking that a lot of these streets felt like the ones I walked with Ed in Seattle 14 years ago. We walked through Canada Place and looked out at the harbor, admired the cruise ships and their massive fleets. I then sat with him at the bar of Miku, a well-respected aburi sushi restaurant in Vancouver, and we enjoyed the Miku Zen lunch special; he posed with the sushi and agreed with me that the wild British Columbia sockeye salmon aburi oshi sushi bites were truly the best and most memorable bites of this entire trip, if not ever. They were fresh, mouth-watering, savory, a little sweet from the Mizu sauce, and literally just melted as soon as they hit your tongue. We debated whether we would get another half order of the salmon aburi, but decided against it unless we wanted the bartenders to wheel us out.

We wandered over to a cafe in Gastown known for London fog lattes and enjoyed a large mug while gazing over at the Canadian baristas so naturally doing their day to day jobs and not even realizing that a little Bart Simpson was watching over them. Then, we headed back to Yaletown to pick up a slice of Erin Ireland’s “to die for” vegan lemon coconut loaf slice to save and enjoy for later when we’d be at the airport with lesser tasty options. We did some window shopping before heading back to the hotel, stretch our legs, pack up our last little bits, and grab a cab to the airport for our two flights home.

It felt nice to be traveling alone on my own today, to feel free and to go at the pace I wanted to go and wander around a little aimlessly, to stop at random places to take photos with Bart. I’m sure I almost mowed over a few Canadians and tourists alike with my speed walk and didn’t do my hamstring any favors today, but Bart seemed to enjoy himself for Ed. I hope Ed was watching today.

Happy 39th birthday, big bro. We ate well for you today and miss you. We’ll never stop thinking about you.

Going solo at a wedding

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A colleague and I were talking about the concept of going solo to a wedding. He told me  that he hates going to weddings since he’s almost always attended without a plus-one, and as an introvert, he hates socializing with people he doesn’t know. People tend to pair up at these events, and as someone who goes without being paired up, he feels like the weird outlier. Weddings make him want to go to the corner of the room and fall asleep.

I am actually quite the opposite in mindset. I’ve gone to a lot of weddings with a date, but I’ve also attended quite a number without a plus-one and have been perfectly fine; in fact, at the weddings I’ve attended by myself, I always had a really notable and memorable time. At the last wedding I went to alone in March 2017, I had so many conversations with everyone from the grandfather of the bride to all the friends in attendance of the bride that I still thought about them days after I left. I consider myself more of an introvert than an extrovert; maybe a “closeted” introvert because most of my colleagues would never label me an introvert since I’m generally fairly social and friendly with everyone, especially new people. Being social at events like weddings is always a gamble, especially if you don’t know many people in attendance, but the worst thing that will happen is that the person you speak with will bore you to tears for a few minutes (or however long you allow), so then you just move on to the next person. It’s not so bad, really. If you do have a plus-one and you’re having a separate conversation that isn’t going so well, you can end it and latch onto whatever conversation your plus-one is having. That definitely can act as a crutch in times when you do not feel like being the screaming extrovert.

Today, I had a number of really interesting conversations with friends and relatives of the groom, and even had a chance to catch up with some of the groom and bride’s friends who I’ve previously met. I went a lot later than I thought I would and really enjoyed myself. And even if Chris had come with me, it’s not like we’d be glued at the hip to each other; we tend to be fairly independent people and have our own conversations at social events unless it becomes relevant to include one another due to where we are standing or the topic at hand. I’ve always loathed couples like that, anyway.

When chatting with friends and family of the groom today, it was so obvious how loved he is by the people in his life. And it was even more obvious how much he loved all of them, including me. He and the bride love food, culture, travel, and of course, the people in their lives, and that was pretty much everywhere as a theme of their wedding, being here in diverse and beautiful Vancouver, having local and sustainable foods and even ice cream on their reception menu, ensuring transportation is provided to and from the wedding ceremony and constantly checking in with people personally to ensure everyone has arrived safely (when you’re the groom!), and even providing the most thoughtful wedding favors in the form of local and organic maple syrup (because who leaves Canada without bringing home maple syrup?), a Canadian airplane magnet, and even a compass with their initials on it — all wrapped in a little drawstring patch with a map of North and South America.

When they first met, they bonded over their shared passion for films. So their wedding ceremony was actually full of famous movie quotes of films that they enjoy. It was so great to see their personalities and passions come through everywhere. They wrote their own vows, short and sweet. Surprisingly, this is the only wedding I’ve been to, well, other than my own, where the couple wrote their own vows.

Instead of table names, they went with photos of significant people who had passed on in their lives who could not be there to share in their wedding day; when they described this, I immediately started tearing up, especially knowing how close Adam was to his stepfather, who passed away just a month before Ed did. He is someone I have heard many things about from my friend, especially that he was likely the most intelligent person he’d ever known in his life; I was actually seated at that table. He was also very close to his biological father, who had passed many years before, who was represented by another table. It’s the personal touches of a wedding that always get me… assuming they are done.

During the MC’s speaking moments here and there, he noted that the bride is actually not a stereotypical “bridezilla” at all, and that on the contrary, she’s been extremely calm and collected throughout the wedding planning process. It is actually the groom that has been his own version of a “groomzilla,” obsessing over the little details and all the possible things that could go wrong, even as the wedding was happening today, even the choice of words coming out of the MC’s mouth, which were quite comical and borderline questionable (funny to me, though) at times. It is certainly true of the friend I know, but I know he does it out of love. He knows people are flying from around the country and the world who normally do not do a lot of travel, and so he wants to know that they all feel like he’s provided them a wedding that was worth traveling all this way for. It’s part of how he shows he loves the people in his life, by obsessing over whether everyone else is having a good time and enjoying this experience he has provided. His amount of care and generosity truly knows no bounds. I felt very grateful to be a part of this day for him and his new wife.

5.

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Dear Ed,

In the last five years since you passed on this day, I’ve occasionally awakened in the morning, feeling bad that it’s been some time since we’ve spoken. “I really need to call Ed to catch up,” I think. And then suddenly reality hits me, and I feel like a total idiot because the realization that you, my big brother, the only person who shares the same blood running through my veins, are dead and have been dead this whole time, grips me, and I sink into a miserable abyss. Sometimes, it is still a shock to me that you’ve been gone all this time even though it clearly doesn’t make sense.

The American playwright Thornton Wilder once wrote, “The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.” That could not be more true. In the last five years since you’ve left this earth, I also consciously wake up to the feeling of gratitude for everything I’ve been fortunate to have had: good health, my loved ones, my experiences — my experiences with you for the 27.5 years we shared on this earth together. I still grieve you, and sometimes I still feel broken that I’ve lost you, but above all, I am grateful for what you taught me, how you selflessly loved me and gave me things, both material and not, that have helped shape me into the person I am today. Because of you, I try to live each day with meaning, with purpose, to prove to you that this life is worth living. I always did love a challenge; I still want to prove you wrong in this case.

I still see you everywhere, and I hear you everywhere. It doesn’t seem to matter where in the world I am. I can still feel you with me, even if the thought is unrealistic or just flat out absurd. When I listen to songs like “Silence” by Marshmello and Khalid, or “Million Reasons” by Lady Gaga, I think of you and think you would have liked those songs. When I was in India, I kept thinking about how you’d like certain dishes we were eating, or how you’d grimace at all the wild animals walking amongst us in the streets. When I’m at work chatting with my colleagues and enjoying my time with them, I wish you could have had similar work relationships that I’ve been privileged and lucky to have had. There is an entire world of experiences that I believe you were robbed of. And it hurts me sometimes when I think… why am I so lucky to have these experiences, and you were not? It’s just not right. It’s not fair at all.

I’m sorry that this world could not keep you safe. I am sorry that I could not keep you safe. I am limited in my ability, in my reach, in my grasp of you. I’ll never stop being sorry for the wrong that was done to you. It’s a pain that never seems to stop for me no matter what I do.

I love you. I miss you. I hope to see you in the next world I will call home. And I hope you will be waiting for me.

With love and longing,

your little sister Yvonne

Conversations that will never happen

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In the summer of 2006, when I came back from a month in Shanghai, China, which was my very first time ever being out of the country, I returned home with lots of pictures and random souvenirs to share with my parents and Ed. Ed had endless questions about the way life was like there, what people were like, what the food was like. In his nearly 34 years, Ed had never held a passport, nor did he ever leave the country, though he did thikn about it in his last six months and asked me how he could apply. Sometimes, in our chats about China, he was so child-like that he’d just ask constantly variations of the same question and not even really realize it. Throughout the last week in India, I thought about things that Ed would have liked and responded positively or negatively to. Indian food was always one of his favorite cuisines, so every time we ate something new during this trip, I thought about how he would have enjoyed it.

I thought about the conversations we’d have about the dals, the pooris, the mostly vegetarian meals that we had. I imagined him asking me about the lack of beef due to the sacredness of cows, asking if idlis, dosas, or vada were really filling and satisfying enough, as I don’t believe he’d ever had any of those things before other than dosa. I imagined him asking if the gulab jamun was as gross and greasy as at India Clay Oven, the Indian spot we used to have lunch buffet at in the Richmond District back home. I’d tell him about the endless varieties of Indian sweets, the milky ones to the semolina-based ones, and how I would think he’d enjoy trying all of them. I thought about telling him about the traffic, especially in Agra, where we walked among cars, “autos,” cows, goats, and even chicken, and how freaked out he would be by all that madness. I’d tell him about how persistent the beggars and the auto drivers were to get our business, and he’d shift and get uncomfortable, wondering if he could handle all that himself if he were to travel to India.

But as I sat on the return flight yesterday, eating my meal, thinking about these potential conversations, it hit me that none of these conversations were potential; they were all just in my head. They could never have the potential to happen because Ed is no longer with us. I could have these fictionalized conversations with him in my head or in my dreams, but they’d never be able to happen ever. There’s no possibility that these conversations would happen because he’s been gone nearly five years now. These are futile thoughts — to think about conversations that will never happen, chats that a brother and a sister will not be able to have because they are separated by life and death.