Hi everyone, this post is long, personal, and likely melancholy. One of the questions I get asked often is “What’s one piece of advice you would give to those of us just entering the sector?” or “What’s the one thing you would tell your past self?”
I generally find questions like those difficult to answer, because distilling decades of scars and victories and lessons learned into a succinct few words is impossible. But as I get older, the answer is simple: Spend more time with the people you love. Lots more. And don’t let your work take so much priority that you end up with regrets.
My mother’s birthday comes up next month. She had died at 49 years old, and her birthday, Mother’s Day, and other holidays always bring up bittersweet feelings. We didn’t always have the best relationship. My parents did the best they could, but war and trauma and our traditional Vietnamese culture were not conducive to raising US-inclined children. I was resentful that they moved us from Seattle to Memphis right when I started high school, and I was bitter they made me work at the store they owned, something they expected as filial duty and never paid me once.
For years I didn’t say much to either of them. My mother would pick me up from school, and the 20-minute ride back was done in awkward silence. One day, five minutes into our trip, both of us staring into the distance, she said, with a worried look on her face, “Linda’s dog is not doing well. It lost 2 pounds.” I was surprised, because my little sister, seven at the time, didn’t have a dog. My mom was talking about Linda’s Tamagotchi pet, which was entrusted to her care while my sister was at school. My mother, seeing no response from me, said nothing further the rest of the trip. That was how it was for years.
I left for college, where I found an escape from the suffocating cultural and familial obligations. My parents and I talked on the phone maybe three or four times in total during those years. They did not like that I dropped my plans to be a doctor to study social work.
With distance and their selling the store and moving back to Seattle, our relationship gradually improved. I came home during breaks to the scents of my mother’s cooking. I had become vegan in college. She was worried, telling me I would be malnourished. But she made foods she knew I would like. In all my life, I don’t recall a single time hearing my mother say “I love you” to me or anyone else for that matter; her braised bamboo shoots and straw mushrooms, sweet and sour soup with okra and taro stems, and fried tofu simmered in tomato sauce did the work.
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