Advertisement

Arts & Entertainment

From Thanksgiving to New Year's, we often face our families' love and pain

For many, the holiday season — that emotional sway from Thanksgiving to New Year’s — is a time we welcome our families or return to them.

Editor's note: This was  originally published Dec. 21, 2012. We're bringing it back as we approach Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving morning, I woke early. I had a long day of cooking ahead of me, and I wanted to doze some more. But my dreams eluded me, so I crept into the kitchen.

It was still dark out, my family was asleep in the guest room, and already I was feeling the crosscurrents: my desire to be closer to my loved ones and yet also be on my own.

Advertisement

I quietly made my coffee, sat down at the dining room table, opened my laptop and began my writing for the day.

News Roundups

Catch up on the day's news you need to know.

Or with:

From the table, I peered into the living room and discerned the small, still form of my 1-year-old niece in her portable crib.

I remembered what it was like, watching my brother as a baby. We shared a room growing up. Sometimes, late at night, he would cry, and I would pad over to his crib, reach in and pat him on the back until he fell back to sleep.

Advertisement

Now, as the new light filtered through the blinds, my brother’s daughter stirred. She lifted her head to look at me before plopping back down in slumber. This went on for a while, as if we were playing peekaboo.

When I finally stood to get more coffee, she stood, too, grasping the side of the crib. Very gently, I lifted her up and walked her around the kitchen. I was surprised that she didn’t cry or squirm away from me.

Then I sat down, with the baby in my lap, as I worked on the computer.

Advertisement

Along with the joy of getting to know my niece, I felt a twinge of sadness: I had spent years, whether on purpose or by neglect, creating a distance between me and my family — any sort of family, really.

For many, the holiday season — that emotional sway from Thanksgiving to Hanukkah and Christmas and on to New Year’s — is a time we welcome our families or return to them. For others, it’s a time of tension, when we confront longtime rifts and scars of dysfunction.

For me, the season often has meant being someone’s guest at an unfamiliar house or traveling solo to some distant land.

That is, until I decided to invite my parents and my brother and his family to my house this Thanksgiving — the first time I have ever hosted my family during the holidays.

As I held my niece, I wondered whether I had crossed some threshold, and whether I would ever have a family to call my own.

A separation

A few days earlier, I had left work early to pick up my parents at the airport. They had arrived from Illinois, and I agreed to take them to their hotel near the Galleria in Far North Dallas.

As we left the airport’s north exit, I steered my Honda haphazardly into what some call the “zipper,” that urban crush of two (and sometimes three) lanes of vehicles trying to merge into one.

Advertisement

The zipper wasn’t working well, thanks to a combination of rush hour and holiday traffic. As I tried to merge, a car to the left and slightly behind me began to honk. I ignored the driver and kept merging, slowly.

He honked ever more insistently. Neither of us would yield. Finally, he revved his engine and rammed his car into the left door of my car.

The advantage of driving a 1997 Honda Accord (that has been stolen, roughed up and abandoned twice) is that one can brush off a little holiday road-rage ramming. As the honking driver fell behind in disbelief, I waved at him.

A half-minute later, from the passenger side, my father, in his understated way, asked, “What was that?”

Advertisement

And I, in my understated way, replied, “I’m not sure. But he seemed angry.”

I had resolved not to get stressed out during the holidays — even in the presence of my parents, who know how to push my buttons.

Don’t get me wrong: I love my parents. I know they love me. But years ago, I had to separate myself from them, not only geographically, but emotionally.

Mustering the courage

I remember the evening I decided to do so. I was in my last year of college in Cambridge, Mass., and my parents were visiting. We ate dinner in a small Italian restaurant near Central Square.

Advertisement

I mustered the courage to tell them that, even though I would finish my degree in computer science, I wanted to become a journalist. I had worked at my college newspaper since I was a freshman, and had, much to my surprise, found my calling.

As I rambled on, my father cut me short: “Go do it, then.” I realize now that he was telling me to commit fully to my plan. Back then, though, it felt like a challenge without much support behind it.

It was a turning point. I come from a family of engineers. Even though I have always loved to write, I grew up believing I would become an engineer as well.

To venture into journalism, I knew I would have to break away from my parents’ expectations, which can sometimes become overwhelming in Asian immigrant families. It was a risk, because I didn’t know any journalists. I didn’t know what it would take to get into the business, let alone succeed in it.

Advertisement

As we sat eating in silence, I steeled myself. Then my father accidentally knocked a bottle of wine off the table.

It shattered on the floor. I look back on it as the christening of my journey, one that has taken me from Massachusetts to Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and Texas.

A birth story

Now, 25 years later, I sat in another restaurant with my parents, this one next to the Galleria. I had helped them settle into their hotel room, and then we went to dinner.

Advertisement

My mom was in a talkative mood. She told me the story of my birth, a story I’ve heard many times.

At 6 a.m. on the last day of the year, she had to take a cab to the hospital — my dad had to watch my two sisters. The cab driver panicked, dumped my mom at the door of the hospital and drove off.

My mom ran in and had to wake up a nurse who was asleep, her head resting on her desk.

“What’s going on?” the nurse muttered.

Advertisement

“I’m having a baby! My water broke!”

“My God!”

They rushed up to the delivery room. Later, my mom woke up. The doctor said, “He’s a big baby for a Chinese lady like you.”

As children, if we’re lucky and not harmed by dysfunction, we see our parents as special beings who know what’s best for us. As adults, if we’re lucky, we come to see our parents as ordinary people who did the best they could.

Advertisement

As I sat across from my parents, I could, after all these years, see their flaws, and see those same flaws within myself.

Stubbornness, for one. As teenagers, they fled war in China, became sweethearts in Taiwan and came to America as graduate students. For them, a life in academia and engineering was the one sure way to succeed, and that is what they wanted for their children.

I chose to go my own way. This is hard to admit, but I have rarely, if ever, shown them a story I have written.

And yet I still love my parents; that’s all I can do.

Advertisement

Rushing home

Newspaper editing has taught me to multitask under tight deadlines while maintaining a calm and soothing voice.

This is what I realized the next day — the day before Thanksgiving — as I rushed home from work, giving my brother and sister-in-law directions from the airport to my house in East Dallas, jokingly saying “recalculating” in a GPS-style voice whenever they strayed off course — talking to them as I myself was driving and avoiding holiday road rage.

And then my dad called my cellphone, and I told him we would get him and my mom by 6:30 p.m.

Advertisement

Then my brother and his family arrived at my house and we dropped their stuff off, while the baby was sleeping, and we rushed up the Dallas North Tollway to get my parents.

And then the baby woke up crying, ready to eat, and we finally arrived at the restaurant, but the restaurant didn’t have our reservation. We finagled a table anyway.

This is what editing is like; you have to believe it’s going to work out. Or at least act that way.

Later that evening, I did my best to make my brother, sister-in-law and niece feel at home. Through the generosity of friends, I had borrowed a Pack N Play, a booster seat, stuffed animals and children’s books.

Advertisement

I marveled at how fatherhood suited my brother. He shared with his wife all of the duties in caring for the baby, changing her diaper, bathing her, dressing her.

My brother is seven years younger than me. I remember helping him learn how to swim, ride a bike, shoot a basketball, throw a football, play chess.

I watched my brother lift his baby girl high. We listened to her laughter and her baby-speak, which included “hi” and “no.”

Life has a funny way of turning inside out: My brother will have lessons to teach me, years from now, if and when I join him in fatherhood.

Advertisement

That’s a big “if and when.” In recent years, I’ve begun to realize that I do want my own family, but I haven’t made that pursuit a top priority. My work has usually come first, even though I know that a life filled with work can grow hollow.

I thought of the woman I loved for many years. When we parted ways, through our tears, she told me that I would make a good father and that I would have my own family someday.

I have faith that will happen; I am hopeful, but my path remains unclear.

Thanksgiving Day

On Thanksgiving Day, after the quiet morning with my niece, I prepped a small, 5-pound turkey breast. I massaged it with butter, garlic, salt and pepper, and placed the bird on a greased, aluminum pan and slipped it into the oven. I asked my sister-in-law to keep an eye on it.

Advertisement

I drove up to Far North Dallas to get my parents and bring them back to my house, while my brother picked up some fast food for my family’s lunch.

We spent the day cooking a large feast of turkey; salmon; mashed potatoes; rice; a stir-fry of squash, tomatoes and asparagus; and steamed broccoli and green beans.

During breaks, we watched the baby, who wasn’t yet walking on her own, push a toy lawn mower and toddle gleefully across the hardwood floors, occasionally yelling, “D’oh!” or something close to that.

We went for a walk through my neighborhood, passing small Tudors and stone cottages and the occasional McMansion. As my parents trailed behind, I had to remind myself to slow down.

Advertisement

I also had to be fair to myself: In recent years, I had reached out to my parents and tried to visit them more often, knowing that they are in their twilight. Despite our differences, I tried to be a loyal son.

That evening, at the dinner table, I sat back, exhausted, and knew what it was like to cook for the ones you love.

I drove my parents back up Central Expressway to their hotel, and the SUVs and impossible pickup trucks hurtled past us, weaving in and out of traffic.

My father, in his understated way, said, “There are a lot of crazy drivers here.”

Advertisement

And I, in my understated way, replied, “Yeah.”

A sense of self

After my family’s visit, I made plans to travel on my own for the Christmas holiday. I have done this several times before, exploring Spain, India, Vietnam, Cambodia and Japan.

This kind of travel isn’t easy, but it nourishes my sense of adventure and my sense of self. There are moments of bliss and revelation, but also moments of utter loneliness. I compare it to running a marathon. It’s not always enjoyable, but you learn something about yourself at the end.

Advertisement

I leave for Istanbul this week.

And as I leave, I will be thinking of my family. The ache I felt after Thanksgiving reassured me that I am alive, and that I haven’t become coldhearted or cynical.

The morning that my family left, I lifted my niece into my arms and carried her out to the minivan. I whispered in her ear, “I love you.”

And I could tell that she understood. She fell quiet, gave me her half-smile and then, ever so gently, leaned her head into mine.