Happy Birthday, Mom
Happy birthday, mom. I still think about you every day.
Happy birthday, mom. I still think about you every day.
Whether you consider Trump leaving office to be cause for celebration or despair, I hope we all can agree that we still have a huge problem — namely, that a tangible segment of his supporters are Nazis.
I see so many conservatives using this caveat as a way to continue tolerating the presence of Nazis on their side, to weasel their way out of what I seriously hope is the deep discomfort that they are on the same side as Nazis.
My mom died one year ago today.
Today is the one-year anniversary of my mom’s death.
This album is more for me than anyone else. It certainly isn’t for my mom, as she never liked being the center of attention. And it certainly isn’t for anyone out there on the internet, as these photos will undoubtedly mean nothing to you (though it would mean something to me if you actually looked at it).
Yet, for me, something about the idea of putting these photos out there, in public view, on an internet notorious for things being impossible to delete off of …
It’s like a form of security.
I created a page with responses to the most common arguments you’ll come across: https://dennis.blog/masks/ You’re welcome.
For my mom’s part, I know she was just happy that I was excited. I guess it makes sense now that I’ve realized how much dancing was a part of her entire life.
Ultimately, we chose to depend on each other. In the same way that partners in an arranged marriage can choose to love each other and become a family, we chose to love each other as well. We were arranged as a Marriage and Family Therapy cohort, but we chose to become a family.
Anyone who’s been to my parents’ house in Irvine knows about my mom’s fruit garden. Over the course of the 34 years she lived in that house, she slowly transformed a tiny stamped concrete-laden OC tract home back yard into a trove of exotic fruit trees — everything from apples and oranges to starfruit, guava,…
I was a mama’s boy. For literally my entire life, my mom and I were super-close, and it started partially from necessity. When I was two years old, my dad left Taiwan to pursue a new opportunity for us in the United States. The only snafu was that it took more than three years before…
I love this video from January 2015, when my dad was just starting his recovery from his aneurysm. It was a rare moment of affection and playfulness from my parents. The parallels between my mom and my dad were uncanny. Both suffered mysterious and catastrophic ailments that left them completely incapacitated and in the hospital…
After my mom’s passing, Melissa and I went up to Irvine last weekend and dug through some old photo albums. Here’s a set I found from a particularly special day on January 2, 1971. Mom, I wish it had occurred to me to dig these up and post them while you were still around. I…
You hung in there for over a year, which is pretty impressive in itself. But I guess we all knew how this was going to end. I don’t know where you’ve been for the past 14 months, but I hope you’re finally at peace now. I’m touched that you waited until I submitted my last…
Yesterday was exactly one year that my mom has been in a persistent vegetative state. I was drained by the end of the day, but that was more due to school than anything with my mom. I did tear up a bit at one point. But here’s the weird thing … I didn’t cry about…
Hey, mom. Hi. Hey. Where are you? It’s been a year now. Do you even realize that? It was one year ago today that you decided to take a break from … well, breathing. Fortunately, the doctors were able to get your heart beating again. Unfortunately, doctors still have no idea what happened. And worst…