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 of all, none of us have any idea where you are at this point.

A lot has happened over the past year. Do you have any idea of any of this? Judith and I flew out to Taiwan last October, when this all first happened. And then Melissa and I came out to visit you again in April. We visited Taroko beforehand, so Melissa finally got to see the place that I’d always said I wanted to take her to in Taiwan.

I’m not gonna lie, though. Seeing you again after almost six months … and seeing you in exactly the same state after six months … that wasn’t easy. Seriously, where the fuck are you, mom?!?

In case you’re curious, I’m halfway through my MFT program now. I’m also playing in a new band. Oh, you’ll get a kick out of us. We dress as horror movie villains. Speaking of villains, I’m glad I’m typing this to you in English, because I’d have no idea how to say “villains” in Taiwanese.

Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that we finally gave the wax fruit tree a new and larger home. We still haven’t planted it, but we really want to wait until we find a permanent home for it. The patio of our condo … it’s just not big enough, ya know?

By the way, we named the tree “Elsa.” Haha, right? It seemed fitting.

You’d be amazed — actually, I think you’d be absolutely dumbfounded — as to how well dad has been taking care of you. He sees you every day, and he sends us updates almost ever day, too. We miss you, you know. We keep hoping you’ll still wake up. But … well, we’re aware of what the stats are on that after one year …

So, we’ll just keep taking care of you. Or rather, dad will keep taking care of you. And we’ll just keep hoping that you’ll still come out of this yet. (But hey, I understand if you just want to keep sleeping.) To be honest, we’re not sure what you would want us to do with you at this point, and we’re kind of afraid you’d want us to let you go. But … well, it’s not that easy, because you really are doing pretty well … I mean, aside from the whole lack of consciousness thing. Whatever … minor setbacks.

So yeah, we’ll keep taking care of you. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

I love you, mom. And now that I’ve caught you up … feel free to let us know what you’ve been doing for the past year …