I got into the elevator this morning to go down to the gym for my workout session, and my belly was clearly on full display. We’re at a point of the pregnancy now where it’s pretty hard to hide my pregnant stomach. And keep in mind that most of my workout tops are pretty loose fitted, yet despite that, the belly is *still* sticking out. In the elevator when I got in was a dad and his young son, who I later learned was 3.5 years old. As soon as the little boy saw me (or, well, my stomach), he broke out into a huge smile (that I could notice even with his mask on), and he immediately started patting my belly and hugging it with his short little arms. He then started repeating, “baby, baby,” and put his face into my stomach.

I thought this was the cutest, most adorable thing in the world. Granted, yes, there is something to be said about learning that touching a stranger, especially someone’s stomach, is kind of inappropriate, and this kid likely needs to learn about physical space and boundaries. But I couldn’t help but find this completely endearing and amusing. It was so heart warming. The dad was immediately mortified as you’d expect, and he lightly scolded the boy in Japanese to stop and to get away from me, which the boy reluctantly complied with. The dad then explained that the boy’s mom was pregnant with their second child, and that the boy really loved patting and holding the pregnant belly, so he was likely excited because of that when he saw my belly sticking out.

Oh, kids. They just do the darndest things.

Today marks five years since our wedding. We technically got together as a couple in January 2012, which is the anniversary that Chris says counts more. That has a lot of validity, but the wedding anniversary still “counts” to me. We don’t really do anything to “celebrate” it, as in we do not exchange gifts or go out to a fancy meal for this anniversary. In fact, if I remember correctly, for our first wedding anniversary, we just got halal food that cost $6 per box from the famous 53rd and 6th Avenue cart. Yum, chicken/lamb and rice, although they have since gotten rid of the lamb as an option because they said it’s too expensive.

It’s made me sad to hear all the stories that my friend’s been sharing when she felt unappreciated, unheard, and unseen by her boyfriend of 10 years. One of the recurring issues seems to be when she’s been in a bridal party at a wedding or performing dance at a wedding, and because of her involvement, she misses some of the drinks or canapes during cocktail hour. While she’s scrambling around, she’s hoping her partner would have saved her some food or at least a drink, but wedding after wedding (and there have been at least 3 or 4, including my own) where she has performed or been in a bridal party, he’s failed to deliver. Even after the first or second time when she’s asked him to do it next time, he would make excuses, get defensive, and say he “had no place to put it!” She would try to brush it off, but after so many times of it happening, she realized that he didn’t even want to try to do something she wanted.

I thought about the one time I was in a bridal party and how Chris saved me food and drinks during cocktail hour while I was busy taking bridal party photos. I had at least one of each canape on a plate ready to be eaten. And when I got into bed this evening, I told him I loved him and appreciated him always saving me food.

“Huh? Ythi, you’re going nuts… talking to your friend and thinking about your own situation,” he mumbles sleepily in his half-asleep stupor.

Well, appreciation also needs to be stated…

In the last year, a lot of people around the world have died due to COVID, whether it’s directly or indirectly. But regardless of COVID’s spread globally, there are also people who have died whose deaths had nothing to do with the Coronavirus. A friend’s dad passed away after a multiple years’ long illness last November. And this past week, my mom’s best friend’s husband passed away. He’d actually been sick since 2015, which is why they couldn’t travel to our wedding in 2016. So while his prognosis wasn’t great in 2015-2016, when I look back, it’s at least a comfort to know that he got six more years of life with his loved ones than anyone had originally predicted. It was sad news to hear for me, especially since, regardless of only having seen him a number of times during my visits home, he always held me in high regard and frequently asked about me and talked about me, apparently almost like I was his own daughter. He even used to watch all my YouTube videos as soon as I’d upload them. He and his wife had the notifications on my videos turned on, so they always knew immediately when I launched a new video. His wife would message me every now and then on Facebook, letting me know how excited he was to see me on their big screen TV. It was always so sweet.

Every time someone from my parents’ generation passes that I learn about, I get a little bit uneasy. We all know that in a regular, conventional life, parents will pass before their children, so it’s only in time that I will have to experience the terrible pain of eventually losing my own parents. And that reminder is really scary. Even though they live 3,000 miles away, I still think about them every day, and I still speak with them at least once a week. You can’t predict the future or when events will happen, and that unknown just kind of sits there in the back of my mind. It is not a great feeling. So the next thing I think about is… what am I supposed to do with the time I’ve got left with them? What else can I do?

Whether you are aware of it or not, if you have an older sibling, you have probably been influenced in one way or another by this person. Growing up, even though my brother and I certainly fought and didn’t agree a lot of the time, I was influenced heavily by him in ways that I was not aware of at all until reflecting on it as an adult. My first music interests were most obviously influenced by him, as he was the one who exposed me first to tapes, then to CDs, then to mp3s, then to concerts on television and even live. When Ed was interested in Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson, so was I. Whatever CDs Ed bought in the ’90s, I listened to, as well.When Ed got into Shania Twain, I also followed him. And when he would play songs on repeat over and over again… even now, long after his passing, I still do the same thing when I get obsessed with a song. I just don’t openly tell anyone that. Except now, I don’t have to annoy anyone with the same song being played on repeat on the living room stereo; I just do it via my earbuds on my phone.

I was thinking about this a lot while reading The Meaning of Mariah Carey, and after as I got nostalgic for her music in the ’90s and 2000s, especially her live music, which I always thought was so powerful and tear-rendering. Ed was the reason I became so obsessed with everything about her: her personality, her music, her lyrics, her life. Even when Ed didn’t care for her music much after she released Butterfly and later albums from 1997 onward, he still cared. I knew it because he would still buy her albums, and he’d say they were “for me,” even though he still listened to them.

When Ed passed away seven years ago, my parents and I were trying to figure out what to do with all his belongings. Given that CDs are now obviously obsolete (do you even own a CD player anymore?!), I especially wasn’t sure what to do with all these albums… he had CDs. They filled up an entire shelf in the living room. And even if I may never listen to them again, even once, there was really no way I’d want to give up any of the Mariah Carey CD albums just for nostalgic reasons. So I told my dad to leave them all there and that, “I’ll figure it out.”

No, I still haven’t figured it out, even seven years later. I kind of just want them all to stay exactly where they are, just so that I can look back at that shelf and remember the time when he was healthier and a little happier, playing the music he loved that he got me hooked on, as well. I suppose in that way, when I listen to Mariah’s music, it ties me back to him and helps me remember his sweet, generous, loving self.