It's 6 AM and New Year's Eve and if you asked me to tell you how I was feeling right now - I know I wouldn't be able to. I never thought that I would ever be surrounded with so much love in my life and still feel so uncertain about everything to the point where it was harder to sleep at night.
I keep wondering if it's worth me getting upset over this. Wasn't it a loss in the first place? What if you woke up and the thing you thought you had always lost... might not be lost after all? Does that mean that even if you go through all the effort of searching for it - that if it goes lost again...everything is back where it was? And I remain the same?
Somehow, no matter how many times I might try to tell myself that you can't feel loss over something already lost...that I inevitably will. Because initially, isn't it always 'hope' that we feel anyway? 'Hope' that we could find that missing piece to our puzzle...and then when the hope disappears, it isn't necessarily the actual piece that we're missing. I think I'd start to miss the feeling of hope that it was ever there in the first place.
I am a step away from possibly knowing everything...or maybe even having more questions than I know what to do with. How do you differentiate between the questions of a 6-year old and the logical questions of a 23-year old? You can't, I guess. There is probably little difference of importance in my mind between: "Whose nose do I have?" and "Were you economically in hardship when you made that decision 23 years ago?"
Who knows what is going to happen on Friday. I am not even sure if I have an idealistic pan out of how I would want it to go because it hasn't crossed my mind.
But one thing is for sure...please don't ask me how...I have missed you.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A Day To Remember (or perhaps to forget)
There are four pages of a scribbled letter tucked inside my black and white marbled notebook. It was the beginnings of a future blog post for this blog - my annual letter to my birthmother - telling her the struggles and triumphs of my 23rd year of being alive.
For the past week and a half, I, for some reason, kept holding off actually sitting down and typing it out here, not because it was too personal or too gritty...honestly, if you had asked me why I wouldn't have been able to give you a straight answer. Maybe it was because I have been so consumed with the move from Dundalk. (Yes, I have finally LEFT Dumb-dalk for good...and will post pictures of the barren room once I find my camera in one of these boxes that are looming in my room.) Whatever the reason, it just never got done.
And maybe it was a sign that I was meant to read it to her in person...
I don't really know where to begin with the rest of this post. I was trying to think of some clever epithet that might transition into the whole point of the post - but at this point, my brain is too fried with an excess abundance of emotion and utter cluster-fuckery (I just made that word up.) to even be witty or even give a hoot whether I am witty or not.
December 23, 2008 @ around 1 AM will be forever seared in my brain. If and when I have children, and I reflect on this tale to fill bedtime story nights, I will probably still struggle to piece together just exactly what got seared into my brain: a cautionary tale or a Christmas miracle. It is too early yet to decide.
But whatever it will be - what it is right now, at the present, is the exact time that I was trying to get rid of a nasty migraine by sleeping it away... and my 2nd night sleeping on the mattress that is in what will eventually be my bedroom in my Aunt's house. It seems ordinary and simple enough, and started out as any other night ...except that 1 AM will also forever be seared into my brain as the time my mother came into my bedroom to wake me up with the news.
The news that my birthparents have been searching for me and want to meet me.
It is now 11:02 pm of the very same day and I think I must have written the above sentence or said variations of it to myself at least a hundred thousand times. And yet even with saying it a hundred thousand more, I do not think that the sentence's true meaning will ever fully sink itself into my brain and channel signals of acknowledgement to my being.
Even now, there is still detachment from that sentence - as if tomorrow that whole sequence: me sleeping, my mom rushing into my bedroom in her jacket, shaking me awake, her eyes lighting up, and me sleepily opening my eyes to watch her lips move to form the words of that very same sentence....that whole sequence will be nothing but a dream. An afterthought to another dream that I had had.
But a part of me knows that it wasn't. That it was real. But I am not ready to believe that part. All day long I have been trying to figure out how to sum up how I feel and I just can't...it is hard to explain how in one moment - everything has changed with nothing happening. How just words could change my entire world and turn it upside down with no action following.
I am, Blog, scared shitless. Today I have felt happy, annoyed, joyous, angry, resentful, sadness, fear and frustration in succession of each other and even at times, simultaneously.
I have so much to say and yet have no words to say it with.
I have so many questions and yet am not quite sure I want to know the answers.
I want...and yet wish it was easier just to walk away...at the exact same time.
And despite all these crazy feelings - the one thing I keep dwelling on is the revelation that they searched for me.
For the past week and a half, I, for some reason, kept holding off actually sitting down and typing it out here, not because it was too personal or too gritty...honestly, if you had asked me why I wouldn't have been able to give you a straight answer. Maybe it was because I have been so consumed with the move from Dundalk. (Yes, I have finally LEFT Dumb-dalk for good...and will post pictures of the barren room once I find my camera in one of these boxes that are looming in my room.) Whatever the reason, it just never got done.
And maybe it was a sign that I was meant to read it to her in person...
I don't really know where to begin with the rest of this post. I was trying to think of some clever epithet that might transition into the whole point of the post - but at this point, my brain is too fried with an excess abundance of emotion and utter cluster-fuckery (I just made that word up.) to even be witty or even give a hoot whether I am witty or not.
December 23, 2008 @ around 1 AM will be forever seared in my brain. If and when I have children, and I reflect on this tale to fill bedtime story nights, I will probably still struggle to piece together just exactly what got seared into my brain: a cautionary tale or a Christmas miracle. It is too early yet to decide.
But whatever it will be - what it is right now, at the present, is the exact time that I was trying to get rid of a nasty migraine by sleeping it away... and my 2nd night sleeping on the mattress that is in what will eventually be my bedroom in my Aunt's house. It seems ordinary and simple enough, and started out as any other night ...except that 1 AM will also forever be seared into my brain as the time my mother came into my bedroom to wake me up with the news.
The news that my birthparents have been searching for me and want to meet me.
It is now 11:02 pm of the very same day and I think I must have written the above sentence or said variations of it to myself at least a hundred thousand times. And yet even with saying it a hundred thousand more, I do not think that the sentence's true meaning will ever fully sink itself into my brain and channel signals of acknowledgement to my being.
Even now, there is still detachment from that sentence - as if tomorrow that whole sequence: me sleeping, my mom rushing into my bedroom in her jacket, shaking me awake, her eyes lighting up, and me sleepily opening my eyes to watch her lips move to form the words of that very same sentence....that whole sequence will be nothing but a dream. An afterthought to another dream that I had had.
But a part of me knows that it wasn't. That it was real. But I am not ready to believe that part. All day long I have been trying to figure out how to sum up how I feel and I just can't...it is hard to explain how in one moment - everything has changed with nothing happening. How just words could change my entire world and turn it upside down with no action following.
I am, Blog, scared shitless. Today I have felt happy, annoyed, joyous, angry, resentful, sadness, fear and frustration in succession of each other and even at times, simultaneously.
I have so much to say and yet have no words to say it with.
I have so many questions and yet am not quite sure I want to know the answers.
I want...and yet wish it was easier just to walk away...at the exact same time.
And despite all these crazy feelings - the one thing I keep dwelling on is the revelation that they searched for me.
Friday, March 21, 2008
My Coming to America
When I was around 10 or 11 years old, I used to feel really uncomfortable and uneasy when it came to my friends and the conversation of birthdays. I'm not sure if your peers at that age were anything like mine, but it became some one's novelty idea to state not only their date of birth but the exact time stamp as well. You would be in the middle of 5th grade English class, and it'd be Mary Sue's birthday and when asked if it was, indeed, her birthday, Mary Sue would reply: "Yes! But my Mom says I wasn't born until 1:45 pm exactly!"
At that age, the fact that I couldn't give you the exact time of my birth unsettled me in some way. I don't know if I can dig that far back into my past to precisely explain to you why I felt the way that I did, and I'm not even sure that if you could talk to the 10-year old me that I would be able to explain it any better. I just did.
I felt embarrassed, and overwhelmed with just how embarrassed I felt over some minute detail that in the grand scheme of things, held little to no consequence if not to just be some sentimental value to throw into the pages of a baby book. But God, no matter how lame you might have tried to twist it to be, I would have wanted nothing more than to tell you what time I was born.
When I think back at the significance of my feelings as a kid, I guess I could self-analyze and tell you that this obsession and immense feeling of hurt/embarrassment that came with not knowing the time of day I was brought into this world would probably stem from the deeper-rooted problem of just not knowing anything. It could be, but I can't exactly be sure. Perhaps you could just chalk it up to pure peer pressure and peer anxiety of wanting to fit in. I guess maybe essentially that's all my adoption issues were - this identity confusion and overwhelming sense of wanting to find a place to belong. Who knows. (I sure as hell don't, even after all these years.)
Today, though, today is my redemption. Today would eventually become the counter-attack for my self-esteem during the early years when I would battle with my adoption demons over what made me feel more "whole". And as I grew older, and into my now early twenties, I have been able to remember this day with a tainted bittersweetness. The kind of bittersweetness you feel when speaking of a loved one: can't live with it, can't live without it.
Today is my "Gotcha' Day". The day that I arrived off the plane from South Korea into BWI at around 11:45 pm at night. The flight was long and I was actually part of a group of seven or eight children that were being flown into the airport from Korea with my parents being one of the adoptive couples. I hear stories, and I see pictures - a picture of my tiny, frail premature body being carried off the plane by one of my mother's closest friends - another picture of an anonymous Korean woman standing at the edge of the airflight gate, looking on with tears in her eyes. I had later learned that this woman was one of the young Korean women who volunteer to be "baby escorts" or pseudo-mothers for at least the long journey over to America. This was my "birth", so to speak. This was my coming into my life as an Asian-American. As the person that I am now.
At the peak of my teen angst years, I looked at this day with disdain. In my eyes, I was brought here against my will, I had no say in the matter - and it especially hit me harder whenever my parents would say things like, "We didn't bring you here to screw up your life." or "We adopted you to save you. You wouldn't have survived at all in that orphanage."
Nowadays, it's just a day. A day to remember, of course, but just a day nonetheless. Without it, I probably wouldn't be here writing in this blog, in this chair, thinking about how my Spanish midterm is due by midnight tonight. With it, I have faced a lot of turmoil, identity confusion, frustration and hurt. But I wouldn't be me without all of those things.
So maybe, just maybe, I'll break out the vodka and orange juice tonight to celebrate. And more than likely, I might even throw on "Coming to America" to heighten the celebration festivities. =)
At that age, the fact that I couldn't give you the exact time of my birth unsettled me in some way. I don't know if I can dig that far back into my past to precisely explain to you why I felt the way that I did, and I'm not even sure that if you could talk to the 10-year old me that I would be able to explain it any better. I just did.
I felt embarrassed, and overwhelmed with just how embarrassed I felt over some minute detail that in the grand scheme of things, held little to no consequence if not to just be some sentimental value to throw into the pages of a baby book. But God, no matter how lame you might have tried to twist it to be, I would have wanted nothing more than to tell you what time I was born.
When I think back at the significance of my feelings as a kid, I guess I could self-analyze and tell you that this obsession and immense feeling of hurt/embarrassment that came with not knowing the time of day I was brought into this world would probably stem from the deeper-rooted problem of just not knowing anything. It could be, but I can't exactly be sure. Perhaps you could just chalk it up to pure peer pressure and peer anxiety of wanting to fit in. I guess maybe essentially that's all my adoption issues were - this identity confusion and overwhelming sense of wanting to find a place to belong. Who knows. (I sure as hell don't, even after all these years.)
Today, though, today is my redemption. Today would eventually become the counter-attack for my self-esteem during the early years when I would battle with my adoption demons over what made me feel more "whole". And as I grew older, and into my now early twenties, I have been able to remember this day with a tainted bittersweetness. The kind of bittersweetness you feel when speaking of a loved one: can't live with it, can't live without it.
Today is my "Gotcha' Day". The day that I arrived off the plane from South Korea into BWI at around 11:45 pm at night. The flight was long and I was actually part of a group of seven or eight children that were being flown into the airport from Korea with my parents being one of the adoptive couples. I hear stories, and I see pictures - a picture of my tiny, frail premature body being carried off the plane by one of my mother's closest friends - another picture of an anonymous Korean woman standing at the edge of the airflight gate, looking on with tears in her eyes. I had later learned that this woman was one of the young Korean women who volunteer to be "baby escorts" or pseudo-mothers for at least the long journey over to America. This was my "birth", so to speak. This was my coming into my life as an Asian-American. As the person that I am now.
At the peak of my teen angst years, I looked at this day with disdain. In my eyes, I was brought here against my will, I had no say in the matter - and it especially hit me harder whenever my parents would say things like, "We didn't bring you here to screw up your life." or "We adopted you to save you. You wouldn't have survived at all in that orphanage."
Nowadays, it's just a day. A day to remember, of course, but just a day nonetheless. Without it, I probably wouldn't be here writing in this blog, in this chair, thinking about how my Spanish midterm is due by midnight tonight. With it, I have faced a lot of turmoil, identity confusion, frustration and hurt. But I wouldn't be me without all of those things.
So maybe, just maybe, I'll break out the vodka and orange juice tonight to celebrate. And more than likely, I might even throw on "Coming to America" to heighten the celebration festivities. =)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Closest Thing
Today is Valentine's Day - or what I like to call - "Hallmark Holiday" Day. You know what I'm talking about, all the guilt of "not loving your lover enough" starts to sink in and you're programmed through subliminal commercials on TV and radio to feel that the only way to rectify your horrible relationship is by thrusting your checkbook into the hands of luring retail owners for large quantities of chocolates, red roses and whatever else is red, overly sweet and disgustingly adorable.
Sounds like fun to me, too. (Sarcasm Alert!)
But alas, I figured I would write about something recent that is the closest thing to the theme of Valentine's Day. (As I speak, I have about three posts sitting in my queue, begging to be finished. Soon, soon, soon my dear half-written darlings.)
On Sunday night, I spent the first half of the evening at Blue Ryder's, being sucked into the vortex that is PS3 all weekend long. Mostly because, when the need to rock is screaming your name, you basically have no choice but to answer the call. So I did what any other bitchin' ass rocker would do - I rocked the fuck out. (Thanks again, guys! ;-))
The only slight problem was that I had promised a date with my brother and sister the same day. I hadn't seen them in months, which is highly unusual, but the main reason for that is I no longer hang out the same way that they do. It has been really difficult for me juggling the feelings that I have had inside for the past two months. I really love my brother and my sister tremendously, but I really cannot stand to be in the club atmosphere for more than two hours at a time anymore. Yet the only time that my brother and sister go out is ...well, at night. Underneath flourescent lighting and laser beams. So I've been torn.
I had been putting the date off each hour, every hour that I felt engrossed in my moonlighting career as a rockstar. That is, until I realized it was almost 6 o' clock at night. And with a slight bittersweetness, I left Blue Ryder's house to head to the DC/VA area for dinner.
As much as halfway there I began to feel the heaviness of my eyelids, I was really quite thrilled. One, because it's a Sunday, and that is my brother and sister's rest day, meaning, they just rest up from their prior engagement (club-going) the night before. Two, because our plan was to go out to dinner and eat. You know, no flourescent lighting. No laser beams. No DnB music plummeling nails into my brain. Just me, my oppa, my unni, a table and food. YAY!
Once I got there, I climbed into the back of Oppa's car and we headed out to Momo Sushi & Cafe in Old Towne Alexandria. Okay, so originally we had plans to head somewhere else for sushi, but they were closed...and boy am I glad!
Mostly because I hadn't ever heard of Momo before, but Oppa insisted that it was by far, the best sushi he had ever tasted and I should really try it out.
I have to say, it was the most amazing sushi that I have ever had. EVER. The taste was so fresh, and so quenching that I couldn't get enough. I am not a particular fan of sashimi but this stuff was sooo good that I tried every type of sushi that we chose off the menu. And their volcano rolls were out of this world!
I really do think that great food correllates with great conversation and also goes along with great company. Momo is quite small, but apparently Oppa and Unni have eaten there a THOUSAND times, because the owner came up to us directly, and said she would give us a table as soon as one opened up while we sat at the sushi bar.
We ate miso soup, and a salad with this bombastic dressing, I have no idea what was in that but it was amazing, whatever it was. And then shrimp tempura before the sushi. All the while we just kept talking and eating, and eating and talking. I really miss being able to do that with them as often.
Unni kept saying all night long how it was great to finally see me as opposed to squinting through the darkness of a club to talk to my silouette.
I told her it was great to finally see them, too. And it was.
It is such a great feeling to be around people where the puzzle pieces finally just fit. Blue Ryder, Oppa, Unni, and everyone else in my life have totally caught me in a place where everything just fits so nicely. Even if my puzzle piece is misshapen sometimes.
Sounds like fun to me, too. (Sarcasm Alert!)
But alas, I figured I would write about something recent that is the closest thing to the theme of Valentine's Day. (As I speak, I have about three posts sitting in my queue, begging to be finished. Soon, soon, soon my dear half-written darlings.)
On Sunday night, I spent the first half of the evening at Blue Ryder's, being sucked into the vortex that is PS3 all weekend long. Mostly because, when the need to rock is screaming your name, you basically have no choice but to answer the call. So I did what any other bitchin' ass rocker would do - I rocked the fuck out. (Thanks again, guys! ;-))
The only slight problem was that I had promised a date with my brother and sister the same day. I hadn't seen them in months, which is highly unusual, but the main reason for that is I no longer hang out the same way that they do. It has been really difficult for me juggling the feelings that I have had inside for the past two months. I really love my brother and my sister tremendously, but I really cannot stand to be in the club atmosphere for more than two hours at a time anymore. Yet the only time that my brother and sister go out is ...well, at night. Underneath flourescent lighting and laser beams. So I've been torn.
I had been putting the date off each hour, every hour that I felt engrossed in my moonlighting career as a rockstar. That is, until I realized it was almost 6 o' clock at night. And with a slight bittersweetness, I left Blue Ryder's house to head to the DC/VA area for dinner.
As much as halfway there I began to feel the heaviness of my eyelids, I was really quite thrilled. One, because it's a Sunday, and that is my brother and sister's rest day, meaning, they just rest up from their prior engagement (club-going) the night before. Two, because our plan was to go out to dinner and eat. You know, no flourescent lighting. No laser beams. No DnB music plummeling nails into my brain. Just me, my oppa, my unni, a table and food. YAY!
Once I got there, I climbed into the back of Oppa's car and we headed out to Momo Sushi & Cafe in Old Towne Alexandria. Okay, so originally we had plans to head somewhere else for sushi, but they were closed...and boy am I glad!
Mostly because I hadn't ever heard of Momo before, but Oppa insisted that it was by far, the best sushi he had ever tasted and I should really try it out.
I have to say, it was the most amazing sushi that I have ever had. EVER. The taste was so fresh, and so quenching that I couldn't get enough. I am not a particular fan of sashimi but this stuff was sooo good that I tried every type of sushi that we chose off the menu. And their volcano rolls were out of this world!
I really do think that great food correllates with great conversation and also goes along with great company. Momo is quite small, but apparently Oppa and Unni have eaten there a THOUSAND times, because the owner came up to us directly, and said she would give us a table as soon as one opened up while we sat at the sushi bar.
We ate miso soup, and a salad with this bombastic dressing, I have no idea what was in that but it was amazing, whatever it was. And then shrimp tempura before the sushi. All the while we just kept talking and eating, and eating and talking. I really miss being able to do that with them as often.
Unni kept saying all night long how it was great to finally see me as opposed to squinting through the darkness of a club to talk to my silouette.
I told her it was great to finally see them, too. And it was.
It is such a great feeling to be around people where the puzzle pieces finally just fit. Blue Ryder, Oppa, Unni, and everyone else in my life have totally caught me in a place where everything just fits so nicely. Even if my puzzle piece is misshapen sometimes.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Thirteen Going On 13-Months
Today, I found out that no matter how many times I kept rubbing my eyes and blinking them open (oh, how those movies lie!) my sister hadn't remained the same kid she was just 12 years before. In fact, to my unpleasant surprise (yes, I kept thinking that if I kept blinking like a neurotic imbisile that it might just actually work) my sister hadn't even remained the same pre-teen that she was the day before. This is to you, my dear sister, on the most transforming day/part/chapter of your life that has catapulted you into a whole new journey of becoming a young woman : your thirteenth birthday.I can remember the first day that you arrived from China like the back of my hand. I even remember what I was wearing, how I had spent pain-staking hour by hour the night before, choosing the right outfit to welcome my new baby sister into our family. (Apparently, my outfit of choice was a Calvin Klein jean dress and a red bandana colored headband. What can I say, sis, I wasn't as fashion forward as we'd all like to admit 12 years ago.)
You looked so incredibly frightened and yet so incredibly strong all at the same time as I watched Dad walk off the plane. I had never seen so much sorrow, pain, darkness and fear trapped within the lines of a soft cherub face. Your skin was so pale, speckled with red dots of scabies that made your cheeks appear to have a permanent flush. It wasn't until we got you home, after hours of intense screaming on your part, (quite understandably out of fear from being in a foreign country, in a foreign house, around foreign people speaking a foreign tongue) while giving you your first real bath that we saw the scabies were all over your distended stomach and your little legs and arms.
But in that night, although you seemed so incredibly frail and scared, I could see in you an amazing strength and light deep in your eyes. I just felt it when I held you. You and I became true sisters that night. It might have been sparked by the fact that you would not let anyone else but me near you for the next three months, but eventually it transformed into this bonding relationship and learning experience that I thank you so much for. I thank you for choosing me to be your rock, your comfort and your closeness for those first months.
Even though I struggled to hold your 13-month old frame in my arms, being only 9 years older than you myself, I would rock you back and forth shifting the weight from my left side to the right side all the while keeping my arms wrapped tightly around your body. You refused to let me sit down in the rocking chair in your nursery as long as your eyes were wide awake, which was almost always until 3 am, when my arms had long since started tingling from numbness and my legs and knees ached with the weight. Every so often I would sneak closer to the crib bar, leaning my body against it ever so slightly, tilting my head to the side to see if your head was really beginning to droop against my shoulder. As soon as I'd feel the deadweight of your head lying against my shoulder in deep slumber, it would be right then that I'd try to find a clear window of freedom to lay you gently into your crib. This could prove to be one of two things: extremely successful or an incredibly horrible attempt gone crazywild wrong. It usually was the second one.
As time went on, you felt more comfortable allowing people into your "zone": the area that you played in, the area that you ate in, the person who held you while you drank your bottle, the person you let get close enough to you to give you a bath...as your stay with us grew longer and longer, you no longer felt the need to hold me as a security blanket in all your activities. Except when you became extremely sick and dehydrated. Mom had tried to feed you Pedialyte in your baby bottle, hoping to get some electrolytes into your system to calm your tears and your fevers, but you would have none of this. Much like you have grown to be now, you were incredibly stubborn, and very quiet about it as well. You would just push the bottle away from your lips, even if you looked as if you really wanted it - unless it was me holding the bottle, of course.
Soon, you learned that Mom could just as easily, if not more efficiently, calm your fears, feed you, change you, and be there as much as I was. It seemed that everything was gradually following a new routine, and that you were now beginning to form the bond with Mom that she had desperately wanted to have with you from the start.
Until the blanket of darkness that came with the night.
It was the first night that Mom and I had decided to let her put you to bed. I had coached her the entire day with all of the little quirks that you had taught me in helping me put you to bed. To hold one arm under your butt and rub your back in circular motions, and how every once in a while you loved to feel the tips of my fingers gently rub along your adorable little toes as they curled and I could feel your chest heave a deep and relaxing sigh. How you only liked one tape of lullabies called "Sleep Sound in Jesus". You would make me play it over and over again - immediately starting right after your bath when I would press my face into your sweet fresh smelling skin to make you giggle. Eventually, I would let the tape side run out and just continue singing the songs that you and I both knew by heart, lying you into your crib and rubbing my hand along your back and against your cheek.
This one was your favorite lullaby, I explained to Mom:
Sleep sound in Jesus, my baby, my dear
We're keeping watch, so there's nothing to fear
As I lay you down in your bed tonight
Sleep sound in Jesus till morning is light.
So that night, as I uncharacteristically climbed the stairs to my bedroom at an actual decent hour, instead of crawling into the comfort of my own bed with exhaustion, I stopped at the top of the stairs and closed my eyes. I waited as I heard Mom's voice cooing with you outside of the bathroom. I listened intently to make sure that she turned on your lullaby music just as you liked it. And then I went through our night ritual in my mind, hoping that Mom had paid attention to the instructions I had given her. Hoping that you wouldn't cry for her.
And you didn't. In fact, as she walked into her bedroom, and I hung over the railing asking her repeatedly how it went, she said that you fell asleep like a little angel. And as much as I felt a sigh of relief that Mom was finally beginning to bond with you finally, there was a part of me that felt a little sad, knowing that soon, you wouldn't need me at all. I feared we wouldn't be as close ever again. I tried to wipe out my fears as I climbed into my bed and fell asleep.
At around 3 am, I began to toss and turn across my bed when I suddenly felt my foot hit something at the foot of the bed. I knew that I hadn't put any of my babydolls or my pillows there, so I couldn't imagine what I had hit. I immediately sat up in bed and blinked hard in the darkness, forcing my eyes to focus and adjust. That was when I saw you. Sleeping in the fetal position, at the foot of my bed.
My heart pounded with a bit of sadness and joy all at the same time. I crawled out of the sheets and grabbed your small frame from around your belly and pulled you underneath my covers with me - and you nestled your face into my pillow and pulled me closer to you as you slept.
We certainly don't sleep in the same bed anymore. We don't even talk as much as I'd like us to, mostly because you have found that girls your own age and our brother who is closer in age to you than me are better conversationalists when it comes to the latest manga of Naruto or who scored what goal in last Saturday's soccer game.
I had always envisioned that I would be all of the big sister to you as I had always wanted when I was your age. But I realize as you have hit age thirteen that we are total polar opposites with only common interests here and there. You must look at me as the embarrassing older sister who sits for hours on YouTube.com watching old 80's music videos and singing along at the top of my lungs versus me wanting to be the cool big sister that you look up to, and feel comfortable coming to about anything.
I hope that no matter what happens between us, even though we don't talk every day, that when I say "I love you" I really mean it from the deepest and most bottom-est part of my heart. And that when I hug you and kiss your cheek, that I still feel that same strength and light that I felt 12 years ago when I held you in the middle of the night to save you from the nightmares. There is no doubt in my mind that you will grow to be the most amazing, intelligent and perservering young woman and individual. Welcome to the rest of your life, my dear little sister. There will be highs as bright as the sunrising in the horizon on a beautiful summer day of endless possibilities and there will be lows as dark and rainy as a night filled with endless clasping thunderstorms, and loneliness sometimes that will nibble away so achingly at every last bit of your heart till you think you can't take it anymore. But I will always be here for you. To help you up when you make your biggest mistakes, and encourage you even further when you accomplish all of your goals.
Happy Birthday, Nate-Gate! I love you!
-your Big Sis, The Brave
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The Resurrection of the Internet
So I learned last night while walking down the pathway to my place that the Internet has now been rerouted. This time there is a pass code though. Which is good, I agree, for safety reasons, etc. etc. (Because I really would hate to think people were trying to steal all the porn on my hard drive.)
I didn't, however, get the passcode just yet. I didn't get home until around 10 pm or later, having spent the night eating dinner at my parents' house and catching up with my siblings that I don't get to see much of anymore. It's weird how going back, you realize how fast your siblings are growing, and how their internal worlds are spinning just as fast as yours is.
My sister is on her way to being the next "musical prodigy" (aka J's little brother). I went home last night to find her tapping away at piano keys, all self-taught. Hammering out tunes such as "Over My Head" by the Fray, "It Ends Tonight" by All-American Rejects and "Apologize" by OneRepublic. It amazes me how fast she is growing, and I can't get over how much of a teenager she is starting to look(she turns 13 in February). Sorta freaks me out and stings a little. I guess because I have that big sister complex, wanting them to stay little forever. I am so proud of who she is becoming though, and love her deeply.
My little brother is also hitting a milestone age this year, the big 1-8. I don't have anything bad to say. He's become everything that anyone could've ever asked for and more. I love him to death, and he is an amazing spark in my life, and one of my closest confidants. We grew up together, only 5 years apart, but I still see him as my baby brother. I told him I'd take him wherever he wanted to go this year. Now that I have my car, we can wreck havoc across the city together in celebration of his birthday. He deserves a little fun with everything he's been through.
So now that the internet is back up, you all will get an overload of posts with pictures that have been long overdue. Something to take up my time in my free moments over the weekend (ha, ha, ha)
I didn't, however, get the passcode just yet. I didn't get home until around 10 pm or later, having spent the night eating dinner at my parents' house and catching up with my siblings that I don't get to see much of anymore. It's weird how going back, you realize how fast your siblings are growing, and how their internal worlds are spinning just as fast as yours is.
My sister is on her way to being the next "musical prodigy" (aka J's little brother). I went home last night to find her tapping away at piano keys, all self-taught. Hammering out tunes such as "Over My Head" by the Fray, "It Ends Tonight" by All-American Rejects and "Apologize" by OneRepublic. It amazes me how fast she is growing, and I can't get over how much of a teenager she is starting to look(she turns 13 in February). Sorta freaks me out and stings a little. I guess because I have that big sister complex, wanting them to stay little forever. I am so proud of who she is becoming though, and love her deeply.
My little brother is also hitting a milestone age this year, the big 1-8. I don't have anything bad to say. He's become everything that anyone could've ever asked for and more. I love him to death, and he is an amazing spark in my life, and one of my closest confidants. We grew up together, only 5 years apart, but I still see him as my baby brother. I told him I'd take him wherever he wanted to go this year. Now that I have my car, we can wreck havoc across the city together in celebration of his birthday. He deserves a little fun with everything he's been through.
So now that the internet is back up, you all will get an overload of posts with pictures that have been long overdue. Something to take up my time in my free moments over the weekend (ha, ha, ha)
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Undecided
I met up with a friend last night that I hadn't seen in a while. I had promised her a long time ago that I would have dinner with her, and see her new apartment but I just had never gotten around to it (partly due to the transportation issues).
So at around 6:40pm I headed out to meet her and a few of her friends at XS on N. Charles Street for dinner.
It was fun finally being able to get to where I wanted to go, and be able to leave the house when I wanted - except when it came time to find a parking spot. I ended up paying $10.00 (yes, 10 whole dollars) to park in a garage over on Cathedral Street and walk the two blocks up Preston to where it met Charles. I conjured up the reasoning that I needed the exercise anyways.
I walked into the familiar sights and sounds of XS. The bustle of the girls and guys dressed in black from head to toe, scrambling down the three flights of long stairs to get to the kitchen in time for the food not to be cold for the patrons. (That part always amazed me.)
I found a seat on the second floor and waited for the others to arrive.
Once they did, I found out that my friend's best friend/roommate was celebrating her early birthday. We ordered, and had pleasant conversation and then decided that we would go back to my friend's apartment where she had baked a cake for the occasion in an attempt to emulate "Ace of Cakes". It was actually an awesome attempt and I am going to have to steal some photos from her later on.
As we dove into the four tiered cake and gathered around her dining room table, the conversation suddenly took a turn towards attending to finding birthparents.
I don't know how we got on it - I think it started out as an arbitrary topic and ended up with the birthday girl telling a story about how she never wanted to ever find her birthfather - that she knew who he was, but that he never gave a damn about her so why should she try to find him? She ended with, "Nothing ever comes good of that - I am totally against the whole search thing, nothing ever comes good so it's not even worth bothering to try."
And it got me thinking - am I, too, against the whole search thing? Is that the subconscious thought in my head that has really stopped me from taking all of the many chances that I have had to go back to Korea and find my birthparents?
I just got another offer last week from a program that helps adoptees take their first journey back home. I could easily take that trip and then head over to the G.O.A'L. office and ask Dae-won to help me find them. Put in the search application.
And even though I kept the email in my inbox, I know that I probably won't take the offer. In fact, I know for a fact that I won't take the offer. And it's starting to bug me as to what my real reasoning behind it is. I keep telling myself that I would never be able to get the time off from work to go on that two week trip like that. I tell myself that I wouldn't want to go alone if I did take that trip - so if I had to go alone, I would skip out.
But jobs come a dime a dozen (if you're not too picky), and I only have one pair of birthparents. Two people that aren't going to be immortal forever and ever. So why am I not rushing?
The answer? I don't know. I think that it is something there that digs a lot deeper into the surface that I am not yet ready to uncover just yet. I thought I had this all figured out - and that I would go back and find them - and we'd live partially a f&cked-up life of twists and turns between my adoptive parents and my birthparents. And I was okay with that. But in recent times, I have found that my answer to that age old question of: "Have you ever thought about looking for your birthparents?" has gone from a "oh yeah, totally. I really want to." to a "Uhhh, I'm not sure, I am kinda taking it easy right now."
It's like asking a person whether they've decided to take the Low Carbs diet or not. And it's killing me that I am still so undecided.
So at around 6:40pm I headed out to meet her and a few of her friends at XS on N. Charles Street for dinner.
It was fun finally being able to get to where I wanted to go, and be able to leave the house when I wanted - except when it came time to find a parking spot. I ended up paying $10.00 (yes, 10 whole dollars) to park in a garage over on Cathedral Street and walk the two blocks up Preston to where it met Charles. I conjured up the reasoning that I needed the exercise anyways.
I walked into the familiar sights and sounds of XS. The bustle of the girls and guys dressed in black from head to toe, scrambling down the three flights of long stairs to get to the kitchen in time for the food not to be cold for the patrons. (That part always amazed me.)
I found a seat on the second floor and waited for the others to arrive.
Once they did, I found out that my friend's best friend/roommate was celebrating her early birthday. We ordered, and had pleasant conversation and then decided that we would go back to my friend's apartment where she had baked a cake for the occasion in an attempt to emulate "Ace of Cakes". It was actually an awesome attempt and I am going to have to steal some photos from her later on.
As we dove into the four tiered cake and gathered around her dining room table, the conversation suddenly took a turn towards attending to finding birthparents.
I don't know how we got on it - I think it started out as an arbitrary topic and ended up with the birthday girl telling a story about how she never wanted to ever find her birthfather - that she knew who he was, but that he never gave a damn about her so why should she try to find him? She ended with, "Nothing ever comes good of that - I am totally against the whole search thing, nothing ever comes good so it's not even worth bothering to try."
And it got me thinking - am I, too, against the whole search thing? Is that the subconscious thought in my head that has really stopped me from taking all of the many chances that I have had to go back to Korea and find my birthparents?
I just got another offer last week from a program that helps adoptees take their first journey back home. I could easily take that trip and then head over to the G.O.A'L. office and ask Dae-won to help me find them. Put in the search application.
And even though I kept the email in my inbox, I know that I probably won't take the offer. In fact, I know for a fact that I won't take the offer. And it's starting to bug me as to what my real reasoning behind it is. I keep telling myself that I would never be able to get the time off from work to go on that two week trip like that. I tell myself that I wouldn't want to go alone if I did take that trip - so if I had to go alone, I would skip out.
But jobs come a dime a dozen (if you're not too picky), and I only have one pair of birthparents. Two people that aren't going to be immortal forever and ever. So why am I not rushing?
The answer? I don't know. I think that it is something there that digs a lot deeper into the surface that I am not yet ready to uncover just yet. I thought I had this all figured out - and that I would go back and find them - and we'd live partially a f&cked-up life of twists and turns between my adoptive parents and my birthparents. And I was okay with that. But in recent times, I have found that my answer to that age old question of: "Have you ever thought about looking for your birthparents?" has gone from a "oh yeah, totally. I really want to." to a "Uhhh, I'm not sure, I am kinda taking it easy right now."
It's like asking a person whether they've decided to take the Low Carbs diet or not. And it's killing me that I am still so undecided.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
The Most Beautiful View In The World
This has been my view of the world for the past week and a half. And what a gorgeous sight it is -- the dashboard of my 2008 Toyota Corolla.For this Thanksgiving, I have been most thankful more than anything for the most amazing people that I have been blessed to have in my life. Friends who love me, care for me, and make sure that I am taken care of....Friends who made this possible this year:
So thank You for friends (family):
for cars, for left foot accelerators, for poetry, for blogs, for freedom, for crummy jobs that help pay the rent and put food on the table, and for sunsets:
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Oops! :-)
-=EDIT=- to the weekend update post...
Goosey brought to my attention that I never addressed the fact of where my father was all those hours --
He was in another hospital room sleeping the entire time!!
His nurse who had released him at around 4 AM had suggested that it might be too early for him to call his wife for a ride home, so therefore she offered him an empty hospital bed to sleep in.
What she failed to remember to do though, was the write it down on his chart that she had promised to wake him up around 7 AM so that when her shift ENDED at 7 AM that the next nurse that took over would know that some dude was sleeping in the empty hospital room in the ER.
My Dad didn't realize that there was all this commotion going on around him until at around 8 AM, a nurse bringing another patient into the room woke him up. She quickly pulled the door closed again and behind the door, my father could overhear her saying to the other nurse, "I had no idea anyone was in there."
At that, my Dad decided to glance at the clock on the wall and realized that he had never been woken up and that he had overslept. So he grabbed his clothes and jacket, and headed for the bathroom out in the hall.
As he stepped out of the bathroom, three police officers approached him.
"You wouldn't happen to me [insert Dad's name here], would you Sir?" asked the police officer.
At this, my Dad said he turned white and kinda gulped when he replied "Yes".
"Well, you have a LOT of people looking for you," replied the police officer ushering him towards the patrol car outside.
Goosey brought to my attention that I never addressed the fact of where my father was all those hours --
He was in another hospital room sleeping the entire time!!
His nurse who had released him at around 4 AM had suggested that it might be too early for him to call his wife for a ride home, so therefore she offered him an empty hospital bed to sleep in.
What she failed to remember to do though, was the write it down on his chart that she had promised to wake him up around 7 AM so that when her shift ENDED at 7 AM that the next nurse that took over would know that some dude was sleeping in the empty hospital room in the ER.
My Dad didn't realize that there was all this commotion going on around him until at around 8 AM, a nurse bringing another patient into the room woke him up. She quickly pulled the door closed again and behind the door, my father could overhear her saying to the other nurse, "I had no idea anyone was in there."
At that, my Dad decided to glance at the clock on the wall and realized that he had never been woken up and that he had overslept. So he grabbed his clothes and jacket, and headed for the bathroom out in the hall.
As he stepped out of the bathroom, three police officers approached him.
"You wouldn't happen to me [insert Dad's name here], would you Sir?" asked the police officer.
At this, my Dad said he turned white and kinda gulped when he replied "Yes".
"Well, you have a LOT of people looking for you," replied the police officer ushering him towards the patrol car outside.
Monday, November 5, 2007
It's tragedy that brings back reality
It was Friday night and I had just finally gotten my phone back. Six voice mails, a couple of unseen texts...nice to know that even without my phone I am still loved.
I grabbed a taxi home again since my Dad wasn't going to be home until close to midnight. I got another fantastic taxi driver whom I've decided to wait until a later blog post to write about. (Because I have been keeping a journal of all the taxi drivers that I have met over the past few years of using their transportation services. And since my use of them is coming to an end shortly, I decided to blog about my experiences, each and every one of them, in order to make my Ode to the Taxi Driver: My Long Lost Salvation)
Once I got home, my roommate was already up and in the kitchen with one of her friends making a "penis cake", that is, a cake shaped like a penis. Along with chocolate "penis pops", that is, chocolate molded in the shapes of penises on sticks. You know, to suck. (Okay, okay, enough of the sexual innuendo.) She was preparing these little "fun treats" for the bachelorette party the next night for one of her friends who is to get married in the next couple of weeks.
Gen-gen gave me a holla on my phone and said that he and Alex were set for a night out on the town. One, because her parents were out of town and two, because Gen-gen got his parents to watch the dog for a weekend. So he could party, of course. It was not my intention to really PAR-TAY, but I would be stupid if I didn't admit that every single time Gen-gen and I go out, insanity ensues. Craziness.
Well, Gen-gen headed over to my place. I excused the mess, because just like Goosey, I am not particularly a slob or messy persay, it's just that I tend to lay things here and there throughout the week because I am too exhausted to put them away in their place. So I wait until Friday night to put everything away to let the week start out nice and clean. Except that when Gen-gen came over, I hadn't gotten a chance to motivate myself yet.
He fell onto my bed and then lay there as I walked around trying to get ready. He asked me how my week went - which led to another conversation, that led to a delightfully wonderful conversation and revelation (which will end up being the next post).
We head out to Mosaic with Alex and two of her friends. This Filipina girl whose name I didn't catch and her boyfriend, I (To keep anonymity). Let me talk about I for a second - this man had to be double the age of the Filipina girl (who looked like she couldn't be any older than 24 or 25). Not only was I older than the hills in age, but he was older than the hills in dress, mannerisms and...well, absolutely everything. There's a difference between a person's age and then a person acting and dressing, and being consumed by that number. I was one of these people, evidently.
He is Russian (of course, right? Gen-gen and Alex are.) and he has this very creepy look about him. The kind of perv, I would take girls into dark alleys that are half my age look. The "I am Soviet, hear me roar!" kind of look. Not only that, but he began dancing, if that's what you would want to call it. I don't even think all the dictionary knowledge in the word could help me describe to you how terribly horrible this man was at dancing. Think about the stiffest dance you could possibly think of - add in a little bit of attempt to roll your hips - except instead of rolling them in a sexy way, you're literally plummetting them into the side of your dance partner awkwardly. All the while your right arm is pressed in the air bent at the elbow while your right leg is up and you're trying to do some half-Funky chicken dance. Except that "The Chicken Dance" isn't playing: "This Is Why I'm Hot" by Mims is. Yes, it was that bad, people.
Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system...
After the club, Alex and Gen-gen and I headed back to his place. I noticed a missed call around 11:30 from my mom. She never calls that late. She's never up that late. So I called my VM and listened to the message.
My Dad had come home from work at Nordstrom's with a horrible pain in his side, puking all over the place and just feeling incredibly lousy. He had decided to head to the ER at St. Joe's and my aunt had agreed to take him. They had found a kidney stone about 3 milimeters inside of his kidney. She wanted to let me know that we weren't going to be going to my nephew's birthday party the next day.
Since it was so late, Gen-gen let me crash in his guest room. I had passed out on his couch a few hours before and woke up around 4:30 AM, and walked up to the guest room and collapsed out on the bed.
Around 7:00 AM my phone goes off. I wake up and with sleepy eyes gloss over the screen of my cell while hanging out of the bed. I can barely make out the numbers but they look like my parents' house number. I picked up the phone.
"Hello?" I attempted to force myself awake but sitting all the way up and rubbing my free hand against my eyes.
"Em, your father is missing," came the clear, yet shaking voice of my Mom.
"What the f$%k?" was the first thing that came out of my mouth. I was wide awake now. "What are you talking about, Mom?"
"Your father is gone, he's missing. I called over at the hospital just two minutes ago and the nurses station said he was discharged at 4:20 AM this morning. But he never came home," came my mother's voice from the other side of the line. It came over with an eerie calmness, the kind that let you know that she hadn't let the news sink in yet - but that she was overwhelmed enough to know she needed someone to talk to.
"Well, wait - he never called you or anything? He couldn't have left the hospital by himself," my mind was racing to try to find some logical explanation as I tried to stay calm for my mother's sake.
"No...he never called. He never said anything. In fact, I had talked to him right before I left you that voice message last night and he said he was going to have to stay overnight there to try to get the kidney stone out. That was the last I heard of him. I don't know what else to do," she said.
"Have you called C?" C is my oldest brother whose a cop in Harford County.
"No but I am going to, he'll know what to do about these things." My Mom is the kind of person who thinks that a person's occupation makes them the Einstein-know-it-all of anything and everything related to that occupation. Since my brother is a cop, my mother felt that there had to have been some special "way" of talking to police officers for missing persons, so she enlisted my brother's "expertise".
Two minutes later, I get another call.
"C is out calling the police, looking for your father," she said.
"That's great. They'll find him, I know they will Mom."
"...I think he might have committed suicide."
I didn't know what to say. I don't even know whether I was quite awake enough right before she said it - but I certainly fully awake after it was said. I had been so calm, so collected just several miliseconds before and now, in an instant, I felt the lump of fear clump itself into the back of my throat, forcing me to forget to breathe and let all the effort of breathing go into creating hot stingy tears that wasted no time occupying my eyes.
"I really think that's what he did," she said, "He's been just so happy recently. Even your sister has noticed."
I couldn't tell you what I thought of that comment because I was too caught on what she had said prior to that. Suicide? My Dad had been extremely happy recently - but I figured it was due to what he kept saying - that he had finally found a decent medication that helped to keep a constant and steady control on his once fluctuating moods. He didn't feel so up and so down anymore. He felt like he had a better control over his daily situations that would have normally caught him in a frenzy in the past. I had been so happy for him - why couldn't she be? Why did that have to be a "sign" that he would take his life?
And suddenly, like a flashback from a movie, I was taken back to middle school, and even just two years ago. Saw the vision of my father collapsing onto his knees in the bedroom, my mother standing over him with a menacing glare, his body so limp, so lifeless...and then the look on his face - so incredibly draining just to look at the expression on his face. I remember feeling my heart sink into the pit of my stomach to the point that I felt the thump as it hit the inner foremost wall of my stomach cavity. And yet even with my belly full, I felt so empty and helpless at the sight of my father so weak like that. Weak beyond anything anyone should ever feel at anytime. I could hear his voice just as I did two years ago, "I can't do this anymore...I can't do this anymore. I just don't want to live anymore..."
I choked back the tears and caught myself from sinking deeper into the past.
"No, Mom. He was fine, he is fine. He was so happy the last time I saw him. We'll find him. I am coming home now. Just relax. Do not scare the kids," I said, pulling the covers off and stepping into the chill of the guest room.
That man who was the man I saw two years ago was not the same man I saw a few days ago singing along to Carrie Underwood on the radio, I kept thinking.
Despite my best efforts, once I hung up the phone with my Mom I felt the tears start to flow and just let them flow. If there is anything that I have learned in the past few months it is to let the emotions I have out when I have them - holding them in is only going to prolong and worsen the pain later on.
I text J, a little freaked out still. J agreed with me - that my Dad would be found, that he wouldn't do something like that, and that my Mom was probably just overreacting as always. For Dad's sake, I hoped to God she was just being overdramatic like always.
I woke up Gen-gen and he took me over to my parents' house, all the way supporting me as I kept talking out loud to myself about my parents, about how much they have always been flitty in the past but no matter what, even if it was against my better judgement, I was always there for them. I have always been there when they needed me...even if it wasn't reciprocated.
We drove up to my parents' house and Gen-gen offered to come in with me but I told him that he didn't have to worry about it - and could just go home and get some rest for the both of us. As we were pulling into the neighborhood, we past a police car exiting as we were entering.
Once I got to the front door, my brother called me to tell me they had found him. He was already at the house down in the basement, and my Mom was sitting in the kitchen.
I suddenly let out a deep breath. It felt like I had been holding my breath that entire time and just at that moment had finally let it all out.
Standing in that kitchen, I stood there looking from my Mom, to my older brother, and then all around at my little brothers and my younger sister and realized then that sometimes it's tragedy that brings us back to reality.
As the police escort arrived to at the front door, I didn't hesitate in giving my Dad the biggest never-ending hug I had ever given him, never wanting to let go.
I grabbed a taxi home again since my Dad wasn't going to be home until close to midnight. I got another fantastic taxi driver whom I've decided to wait until a later blog post to write about. (Because I have been keeping a journal of all the taxi drivers that I have met over the past few years of using their transportation services. And since my use of them is coming to an end shortly, I decided to blog about my experiences, each and every one of them, in order to make my Ode to the Taxi Driver: My Long Lost Salvation)
Once I got home, my roommate was already up and in the kitchen with one of her friends making a "penis cake", that is, a cake shaped like a penis. Along with chocolate "penis pops", that is, chocolate molded in the shapes of penises on sticks. You know, to suck. (Okay, okay, enough of the sexual innuendo.) She was preparing these little "fun treats" for the bachelorette party the next night for one of her friends who is to get married in the next couple of weeks.
Gen-gen gave me a holla on my phone and said that he and Alex were set for a night out on the town. One, because her parents were out of town and two, because Gen-gen got his parents to watch the dog for a weekend. So he could party, of course. It was not my intention to really PAR-TAY, but I would be stupid if I didn't admit that every single time Gen-gen and I go out, insanity ensues. Craziness.
Well, Gen-gen headed over to my place. I excused the mess, because just like Goosey, I am not particularly a slob or messy persay, it's just that I tend to lay things here and there throughout the week because I am too exhausted to put them away in their place. So I wait until Friday night to put everything away to let the week start out nice and clean. Except that when Gen-gen came over, I hadn't gotten a chance to motivate myself yet.
He fell onto my bed and then lay there as I walked around trying to get ready. He asked me how my week went - which led to another conversation, that led to a delightfully wonderful conversation and revelation (which will end up being the next post).
We head out to Mosaic with Alex and two of her friends. This Filipina girl whose name I didn't catch and her boyfriend, I (To keep anonymity). Let me talk about I for a second - this man had to be double the age of the Filipina girl (who looked like she couldn't be any older than 24 or 25). Not only was I older than the hills in age, but he was older than the hills in dress, mannerisms and...well, absolutely everything. There's a difference between a person's age and then a person acting and dressing, and being consumed by that number. I was one of these people, evidently.
He is Russian (of course, right? Gen-gen and Alex are.) and he has this very creepy look about him. The kind of perv, I would take girls into dark alleys that are half my age look. The "I am Soviet, hear me roar!" kind of look. Not only that, but he began dancing, if that's what you would want to call it. I don't even think all the dictionary knowledge in the word could help me describe to you how terribly horrible this man was at dancing. Think about the stiffest dance you could possibly think of - add in a little bit of attempt to roll your hips - except instead of rolling them in a sexy way, you're literally plummetting them into the side of your dance partner awkwardly. All the while your right arm is pressed in the air bent at the elbow while your right leg is up and you're trying to do some half-Funky chicken dance. Except that "The Chicken Dance" isn't playing: "This Is Why I'm Hot" by Mims is. Yes, it was that bad, people.
Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system...
After the club, Alex and Gen-gen and I headed back to his place. I noticed a missed call around 11:30 from my mom. She never calls that late. She's never up that late. So I called my VM and listened to the message.
My Dad had come home from work at Nordstrom's with a horrible pain in his side, puking all over the place and just feeling incredibly lousy. He had decided to head to the ER at St. Joe's and my aunt had agreed to take him. They had found a kidney stone about 3 milimeters inside of his kidney. She wanted to let me know that we weren't going to be going to my nephew's birthday party the next day.
Since it was so late, Gen-gen let me crash in his guest room. I had passed out on his couch a few hours before and woke up around 4:30 AM, and walked up to the guest room and collapsed out on the bed.
Around 7:00 AM my phone goes off. I wake up and with sleepy eyes gloss over the screen of my cell while hanging out of the bed. I can barely make out the numbers but they look like my parents' house number. I picked up the phone.
"Hello?" I attempted to force myself awake but sitting all the way up and rubbing my free hand against my eyes.
"Em, your father is missing," came the clear, yet shaking voice of my Mom.
"What the f$%k?" was the first thing that came out of my mouth. I was wide awake now. "What are you talking about, Mom?"
"Your father is gone, he's missing. I called over at the hospital just two minutes ago and the nurses station said he was discharged at 4:20 AM this morning. But he never came home," came my mother's voice from the other side of the line. It came over with an eerie calmness, the kind that let you know that she hadn't let the news sink in yet - but that she was overwhelmed enough to know she needed someone to talk to.
"Well, wait - he never called you or anything? He couldn't have left the hospital by himself," my mind was racing to try to find some logical explanation as I tried to stay calm for my mother's sake.
"No...he never called. He never said anything. In fact, I had talked to him right before I left you that voice message last night and he said he was going to have to stay overnight there to try to get the kidney stone out. That was the last I heard of him. I don't know what else to do," she said.
"Have you called C?" C is my oldest brother whose a cop in Harford County.
"No but I am going to, he'll know what to do about these things." My Mom is the kind of person who thinks that a person's occupation makes them the Einstein-know-it-all of anything and everything related to that occupation. Since my brother is a cop, my mother felt that there had to have been some special "way" of talking to police officers for missing persons, so she enlisted my brother's "expertise".
Two minutes later, I get another call.
"C is out calling the police, looking for your father," she said.
"That's great. They'll find him, I know they will Mom."
"...I think he might have committed suicide."
I didn't know what to say. I don't even know whether I was quite awake enough right before she said it - but I certainly fully awake after it was said. I had been so calm, so collected just several miliseconds before and now, in an instant, I felt the lump of fear clump itself into the back of my throat, forcing me to forget to breathe and let all the effort of breathing go into creating hot stingy tears that wasted no time occupying my eyes.
"I really think that's what he did," she said, "He's been just so happy recently. Even your sister has noticed."
I couldn't tell you what I thought of that comment because I was too caught on what she had said prior to that. Suicide? My Dad had been extremely happy recently - but I figured it was due to what he kept saying - that he had finally found a decent medication that helped to keep a constant and steady control on his once fluctuating moods. He didn't feel so up and so down anymore. He felt like he had a better control over his daily situations that would have normally caught him in a frenzy in the past. I had been so happy for him - why couldn't she be? Why did that have to be a "sign" that he would take his life?
And suddenly, like a flashback from a movie, I was taken back to middle school, and even just two years ago. Saw the vision of my father collapsing onto his knees in the bedroom, my mother standing over him with a menacing glare, his body so limp, so lifeless...and then the look on his face - so incredibly draining just to look at the expression on his face. I remember feeling my heart sink into the pit of my stomach to the point that I felt the thump as it hit the inner foremost wall of my stomach cavity. And yet even with my belly full, I felt so empty and helpless at the sight of my father so weak like that. Weak beyond anything anyone should ever feel at anytime. I could hear his voice just as I did two years ago, "I can't do this anymore...I can't do this anymore. I just don't want to live anymore..."
I choked back the tears and caught myself from sinking deeper into the past.
"No, Mom. He was fine, he is fine. He was so happy the last time I saw him. We'll find him. I am coming home now. Just relax. Do not scare the kids," I said, pulling the covers off and stepping into the chill of the guest room.
That man who was the man I saw two years ago was not the same man I saw a few days ago singing along to Carrie Underwood on the radio, I kept thinking.
Despite my best efforts, once I hung up the phone with my Mom I felt the tears start to flow and just let them flow. If there is anything that I have learned in the past few months it is to let the emotions I have out when I have them - holding them in is only going to prolong and worsen the pain later on.
I text J, a little freaked out still. J agreed with me - that my Dad would be found, that he wouldn't do something like that, and that my Mom was probably just overreacting as always. For Dad's sake, I hoped to God she was just being overdramatic like always.
I woke up Gen-gen and he took me over to my parents' house, all the way supporting me as I kept talking out loud to myself about my parents, about how much they have always been flitty in the past but no matter what, even if it was against my better judgement, I was always there for them. I have always been there when they needed me...even if it wasn't reciprocated.
We drove up to my parents' house and Gen-gen offered to come in with me but I told him that he didn't have to worry about it - and could just go home and get some rest for the both of us. As we were pulling into the neighborhood, we past a police car exiting as we were entering.
Once I got to the front door, my brother called me to tell me they had found him. He was already at the house down in the basement, and my Mom was sitting in the kitchen.
I suddenly let out a deep breath. It felt like I had been holding my breath that entire time and just at that moment had finally let it all out.
Standing in that kitchen, I stood there looking from my Mom, to my older brother, and then all around at my little brothers and my younger sister and realized then that sometimes it's tragedy that brings us back to reality.
As the police escort arrived to at the front door, I didn't hesitate in giving my Dad the biggest never-ending hug I had ever given him, never wanting to let go.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Something Happy to Replace the Rant
Okay, so I just realized that I rant a lot on this blog. Not all bad things happen.
Let's start with the fact that in the middle of the week, Paul oppa called me to just say hello. I asked him how his back was (the last time I had seen him was two weekends prior where he had coughed too hard and created blood clots in the side of his back. Hmph! I told him that he should stop smoking!). He said that his back was much better since he had gone to see the acupuncturist. He swears by those Asian doctors and always is telling me how Western medicine is crazy, and he doesn't trust it as much as he trusts Asian doctors. In a way, I cannot help to giggle whenever he mentions this because he reminds me of how ahjushi he is getting, despite his pleas that he is "super-Americanized".
He could tell something was wrong, and asked if I was feeling alright. He said my voice sounded sad. I told him what has been happening at work, and that I just came from vacation and felt sad that it was over. He asked me if I had called my sister, Yuri to see what she was doing this weekend, especially since Kuya 'Nard (now her boyfriend, hehehe) was away on business and D, L, & S were out in Miami. I told him that I hadn't talked to her since the last weekend when Nard, Yuri-unni and Paul oppa and his girlfriend (my future sister-in-law, Esther-unni) went to Ibiza and FIVE.
Five was craziness. I ran into so many people that I knew and Ibiza - AH!! All those lights! It was a blast.
Well anyway, Paul oppa said he would have to make some phone calls and he would call me back later that evening. Sure enough, while I was in class, Paul oppa called me and then text me and asked me if I would like to come and visit him and my sister this weekend and just hang out.
I said, of course I would.
Thursday night came and Gen gave me a call to tell me about Christian's dad. I was so sad to hear the news and I immediately called Christian to give my condolences. Gen and I talked for a little bit about his new puppy, DJ Elvis, and where everyone was.
The next night, I went to go check out this new apt with my crazy Aunt and my mom, but the rent was higher than what I am paying now, and it would need a lot of work so I passed.
I had this urge to go out and eat dinner, just to hang out with someone, and relax since it was a Friday night and I was still stressed over work. So I called Gen and we went out to Austin's Grill to have dinner and he brought DJ Elvis.
That beagle is soooo cute!!! I couldn't stop holding him, and kissing him. The dog is so cuddly and docile too. The kind that will just let you cradle him like a baby, and won't try to wriggle away. Gen said he likes Elvis because he's a chick-magnet. Heh, heh.
We ran into our friends Jesse, Alexis and Guy there. It was nice to see people I hadn't seen in a while. Although Gen and I noticed that must have been our sixth time in two months going and eating at Austin's Grill. We eat there all the time it seems like.
Afterwards, Gen drove me home, and the next morning I was on the train to Union Station. Because I am cheap, I caught the 7 AM train for $14.00 and landed in DC around 8. I decided to let Paul oppa sleep so I didn't call him until 10 AM and lied and told him I had just arrived just so he wouldn't worry about me.
He picked me up and we went to go get breakfast. A Korean seafood stew with rice, and broiled kimchi covered mackeral. Yum.
Then we went to go get some Starbucks and ran into Yuri unni there, who surprise, surprise - was talking on the phone with Nard.
We headed over to Su unni's house to keep her company and then she bailed on us and ran out to go on some errands. When she came back she had three pairs of Dolce & Gabana jeans...she said she paid $300 bucks for each...omgosh! They were the most adorable jeans I had ever seen. While she was gone, Paul oppa and I raided her kitchen, and started watching Korean TV. He was explaining to me some of the words I didn't understand, and then we got online and started messing around with YouTube. We are both so addicted to YouTube, it's not even funny.
We finally left Su unni's house once she got home to go grab some dinner. Again, Korean seafood stew with rice and broiled mackeral.
Then we headed over to Yuri unni's house. I love visiting my sister. We always have a ton of fun together, and since I have met her, and she's been hanging out with Nard more -her English or her confidence in her English has gotten so much better. We are able to have full conversations mixing Korean and English. We always watch Korean dramas or the Food network. Then we have fun getting ready to go to the club together. It's so awesome because she has become the older sister that I always wanted. Sharing clothes, shoes, make up tips. Sounds silly, but I never truly had a family like that.
Once we got to Ibiza, I don't know what is was but Gabriel & Dresden rocked. I danced my heart out. It felt so good to just let it all go, and I just let my feet fly. Towards the end of the night, I had so many people come up and compliment me on my dance skills - I was shocked! I guess because I have always been self conscious of what I look like when I dance because of my limp on my right foot - and I know that my dance moves don't look like I would want them to. But it felt good to be complimented so many times.
Alright, that's enough of that. Time for my ass to go to bed. Just needed to end on a happy note.
Let's start with the fact that in the middle of the week, Paul oppa called me to just say hello. I asked him how his back was (the last time I had seen him was two weekends prior where he had coughed too hard and created blood clots in the side of his back. Hmph! I told him that he should stop smoking!). He said that his back was much better since he had gone to see the acupuncturist. He swears by those Asian doctors and always is telling me how Western medicine is crazy, and he doesn't trust it as much as he trusts Asian doctors. In a way, I cannot help to giggle whenever he mentions this because he reminds me of how ahjushi he is getting, despite his pleas that he is "super-Americanized".
He could tell something was wrong, and asked if I was feeling alright. He said my voice sounded sad. I told him what has been happening at work, and that I just came from vacation and felt sad that it was over. He asked me if I had called my sister, Yuri to see what she was doing this weekend, especially since Kuya 'Nard (now her boyfriend, hehehe) was away on business and D, L, & S were out in Miami. I told him that I hadn't talked to her since the last weekend when Nard, Yuri-unni and Paul oppa and his girlfriend (my future sister-in-law, Esther-unni) went to Ibiza and FIVE.
Five was craziness. I ran into so many people that I knew and Ibiza - AH!! All those lights! It was a blast.
Well anyway, Paul oppa said he would have to make some phone calls and he would call me back later that evening. Sure enough, while I was in class, Paul oppa called me and then text me and asked me if I would like to come and visit him and my sister this weekend and just hang out.
I said, of course I would.
Thursday night came and Gen gave me a call to tell me about Christian's dad. I was so sad to hear the news and I immediately called Christian to give my condolences. Gen and I talked for a little bit about his new puppy, DJ Elvis, and where everyone was.
The next night, I went to go check out this new apt with my crazy Aunt and my mom, but the rent was higher than what I am paying now, and it would need a lot of work so I passed.
I had this urge to go out and eat dinner, just to hang out with someone, and relax since it was a Friday night and I was still stressed over work. So I called Gen and we went out to Austin's Grill to have dinner and he brought DJ Elvis.
That beagle is soooo cute!!! I couldn't stop holding him, and kissing him. The dog is so cuddly and docile too. The kind that will just let you cradle him like a baby, and won't try to wriggle away. Gen said he likes Elvis because he's a chick-magnet. Heh, heh.
We ran into our friends Jesse, Alexis and Guy there. It was nice to see people I hadn't seen in a while. Although Gen and I noticed that must have been our sixth time in two months going and eating at Austin's Grill. We eat there all the time it seems like.
Afterwards, Gen drove me home, and the next morning I was on the train to Union Station. Because I am cheap, I caught the 7 AM train for $14.00 and landed in DC around 8. I decided to let Paul oppa sleep so I didn't call him until 10 AM and lied and told him I had just arrived just so he wouldn't worry about me.
He picked me up and we went to go get breakfast. A Korean seafood stew with rice, and broiled kimchi covered mackeral. Yum.
Then we went to go get some Starbucks and ran into Yuri unni there, who surprise, surprise - was talking on the phone with Nard.
We headed over to Su unni's house to keep her company and then she bailed on us and ran out to go on some errands. When she came back she had three pairs of Dolce & Gabana jeans...she said she paid $300 bucks for each...omgosh! They were the most adorable jeans I had ever seen. While she was gone, Paul oppa and I raided her kitchen, and started watching Korean TV. He was explaining to me some of the words I didn't understand, and then we got online and started messing around with YouTube. We are both so addicted to YouTube, it's not even funny.
We finally left Su unni's house once she got home to go grab some dinner. Again, Korean seafood stew with rice and broiled mackeral.
Then we headed over to Yuri unni's house. I love visiting my sister. We always have a ton of fun together, and since I have met her, and she's been hanging out with Nard more -her English or her confidence in her English has gotten so much better. We are able to have full conversations mixing Korean and English. We always watch Korean dramas or the Food network. Then we have fun getting ready to go to the club together. It's so awesome because she has become the older sister that I always wanted. Sharing clothes, shoes, make up tips. Sounds silly, but I never truly had a family like that.
Once we got to Ibiza, I don't know what is was but Gabriel & Dresden rocked. I danced my heart out. It felt so good to just let it all go, and I just let my feet fly. Towards the end of the night, I had so many people come up and compliment me on my dance skills - I was shocked! I guess because I have always been self conscious of what I look like when I dance because of my limp on my right foot - and I know that my dance moves don't look like I would want them to. But it felt good to be complimented so many times.
Alright, that's enough of that. Time for my ass to go to bed. Just needed to end on a happy note.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Red Parachute
Ads and I used to have this red parachute when we were little. We would play for hours: crawling underneath it as the other would make waves to pretend we were swimming through crimson red ocean waves, laying across our Little Tykes chairs to create a dirt tunnel where we were mining for gold, wrapping each other tight to become ancient Egyptian mummies surrounded by treasures. But my favorite memory of the red parachute was when we would use it as a magic bedsheet.
Certain nights when either the thunder would be roaring outside our bedroom windows or an extra frightening nightmare had awaken my little brother from his slumber, I would crawl into my brother's bed beside him and place the red parachute over his big comforter.
Together his bed would become a jeep, riding through the bumpy dirt roads of Africa on a wild safari or a spaceship taking us up into orbit around the moon. There would be dark cold nights where the room was pitch black, the moon's glow hidden behind dark clouds.
These were the nights where we would grip our red parachute's edges together, and curl underneath the layers of sheets, knowing that no matter what - be it tiger, comets, or hungry wolves in the forest - attacking us the red parachute would protect us both.
Now, 15 years later, I wish I had that magic red parachute back. I wish that I could wrap my baby brother in the red parachute to ward away the disease that is infesting his blood stream. I have this sudden urge to run home to my parent's house, and climb into my brother's bed next to him and wrap my arms around him. I would give anything to take away his pain. I would give anything to be able to give him my white blood cells. To give him my good health.
I would give anything to become his red parachute.
Certain nights when either the thunder would be roaring outside our bedroom windows or an extra frightening nightmare had awaken my little brother from his slumber, I would crawl into my brother's bed beside him and place the red parachute over his big comforter.
Together his bed would become a jeep, riding through the bumpy dirt roads of Africa on a wild safari or a spaceship taking us up into orbit around the moon. There would be dark cold nights where the room was pitch black, the moon's glow hidden behind dark clouds.
These were the nights where we would grip our red parachute's edges together, and curl underneath the layers of sheets, knowing that no matter what - be it tiger, comets, or hungry wolves in the forest - attacking us the red parachute would protect us both.
Now, 15 years later, I wish I had that magic red parachute back. I wish that I could wrap my baby brother in the red parachute to ward away the disease that is infesting his blood stream. I have this sudden urge to run home to my parent's house, and climb into my brother's bed next to him and wrap my arms around him. I would give anything to take away his pain. I would give anything to be able to give him my white blood cells. To give him my good health.
I would give anything to become his red parachute.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Trips Down Memory Lane...
My little brother turned 17 this past Sunday. Being the sentimental junkie that I am, it got me reminiscing about our childhood together and I got this urge to dig through what little "nostalgia" belongings I had salvaged in the move to Dundalk.
I found all sorts of random pictures - they were always just pictures of just me and Ads. For a while there, it was just me and him - our older brother being ten years my senior and fifteen years his - we hardly ever saw him but for brief moments at the end of the day or on weekends.
Ads and I are kindred spirits. From the very day that I saw his picture in the package that my parents brought home from the adoption agency, I knew that that was to be my new baby brother. I just had a feeling.
That feeling transpired all throughout the waiting process. And then finally, on that fateful night at BWI, my baby brother arrived.
There had been a lot of commotion about Ads' arrival. (A precursor for the amount of attention that my brother would eventually draw to himself and all the underlining political issues that he stood for at a very young age.) I was six at the time of his arrival, and although I don't remember the exact details, I remember that the flight for my brother was being delayed for government reasons - some sort of mix-up or delay in processing his adoption paperwork. And although normally it would be a minor technicality that the flight would be delayed - this time it was much more urgent. Ads had been diagnosed by the medical doctors with acute hydrocelphalus. Somehow or other it had missed the attentions of the Korean doctors at the orphanage, they had said. Anyone who knows the story of an adoptee knows better. Regardless of how it went undetected, it did, and the water pressure on my baby brother's brain had worsened. No matter what - his flight could not get delayed tonight, otherwise he might not live.
It was suggested that my parents call some superintendant or delegate in our district. And so they did.
At the age of 13 months - my little brother got his first stint on television. He was the top story in the 6 o' clock local news report on WJZ 13.
The delegate that my parents had called was inspired by my little brother - and soon pulled the necessary strings to insure his arrival into BWI. The wait was excrutiating for everyone, and for me, at age six, it was more nerve-racking than anything. I was wearing my very best purple dress with the frilly lace (Thanks to the 80's dressmakers of children's clothes) and my black patent shoes.
Person after person passed through the door of the airport gate - but none of them were Adam. The anticipation was overwhelming, and became increasingly so as the cameras kept rolling and the bright light from the video camera and production crew was making everyone sweat.
After at least 100 or so people walked through, all of a sudden there were none. I remember hearing the cameraman whisper behind his lens, "Maybe the kid never came after all."
Even at my young age, I felt my heart stop and I just held my breath. Everyone squinted their eyes, peering down the long gate way to see if there was a view of any other life form coming off that plane. There had to be. There just had to be.
And then finally, there appeared to be the movement of two wheels maneuvering along the metal gateway, and then two feet, legs...and the image of a tiny boy in a stroller, clinging onto his teething rattle and staring with wide-open eyes.
Adam was finally home.
Of course there were tears, and an embrace of his foster mother who had taken the journey with him, and then of him. Oh yes, hugs and kisses all over the place on this precious little kid.
But it was short lived. At the first sight of his head, my mother gasped, and started to cry out of fear. My brother's forehead was so enlarged from fluid that he was on the brink of explosion.
No sooner than we had greeted the new edition to our family did we have to rush him off to Johns Hopkins to have Dr. Carson place a shunt in his brain.
My little brother's first ten hours into the U.S., he was introduced to his new family, placed under heavy sedition and anesthetics and operated on for four hours. Welcome to the U.S.A.
But it was all for well and good. I have to say that if there is anyone I admire more out of my family, or anyone that I feel tremendously close to - it would be Ads. We are, after all, kindred spirits. No matter how many twists and turns I have made in my life, or mistakes I have fallen from - I know that my brother loves me. And I would give my life for him, in an instant.
So happy birthday, lil Bro! I love you so much. You have been a never-ending source of strength for me over the years whether you knew it or not.
I found all sorts of random pictures - they were always just pictures of just me and Ads. For a while there, it was just me and him - our older brother being ten years my senior and fifteen years his - we hardly ever saw him but for brief moments at the end of the day or on weekends.
Ads and I are kindred spirits. From the very day that I saw his picture in the package that my parents brought home from the adoption agency, I knew that that was to be my new baby brother. I just had a feeling.
That feeling transpired all throughout the waiting process. And then finally, on that fateful night at BWI, my baby brother arrived.
There had been a lot of commotion about Ads' arrival. (A precursor for the amount of attention that my brother would eventually draw to himself and all the underlining political issues that he stood for at a very young age.) I was six at the time of his arrival, and although I don't remember the exact details, I remember that the flight for my brother was being delayed for government reasons - some sort of mix-up or delay in processing his adoption paperwork. And although normally it would be a minor technicality that the flight would be delayed - this time it was much more urgent. Ads had been diagnosed by the medical doctors with acute hydrocelphalus. Somehow or other it had missed the attentions of the Korean doctors at the orphanage, they had said. Anyone who knows the story of an adoptee knows better. Regardless of how it went undetected, it did, and the water pressure on my baby brother's brain had worsened. No matter what - his flight could not get delayed tonight, otherwise he might not live.
It was suggested that my parents call some superintendant or delegate in our district. And so they did.
At the age of 13 months - my little brother got his first stint on television. He was the top story in the 6 o' clock local news report on WJZ 13.
The delegate that my parents had called was inspired by my little brother - and soon pulled the necessary strings to insure his arrival into BWI. The wait was excrutiating for everyone, and for me, at age six, it was more nerve-racking than anything. I was wearing my very best purple dress with the frilly lace (Thanks to the 80's dressmakers of children's clothes) and my black patent shoes.
Person after person passed through the door of the airport gate - but none of them were Adam. The anticipation was overwhelming, and became increasingly so as the cameras kept rolling and the bright light from the video camera and production crew was making everyone sweat.
After at least 100 or so people walked through, all of a sudden there were none. I remember hearing the cameraman whisper behind his lens, "Maybe the kid never came after all."
Even at my young age, I felt my heart stop and I just held my breath. Everyone squinted their eyes, peering down the long gate way to see if there was a view of any other life form coming off that plane. There had to be. There just had to be.
And then finally, there appeared to be the movement of two wheels maneuvering along the metal gateway, and then two feet, legs...and the image of a tiny boy in a stroller, clinging onto his teething rattle and staring with wide-open eyes.
Adam was finally home.
Of course there were tears, and an embrace of his foster mother who had taken the journey with him, and then of him. Oh yes, hugs and kisses all over the place on this precious little kid.
But it was short lived. At the first sight of his head, my mother gasped, and started to cry out of fear. My brother's forehead was so enlarged from fluid that he was on the brink of explosion.
No sooner than we had greeted the new edition to our family did we have to rush him off to Johns Hopkins to have Dr. Carson place a shunt in his brain.
My little brother's first ten hours into the U.S., he was introduced to his new family, placed under heavy sedition and anesthetics and operated on for four hours. Welcome to the U.S.A.
But it was all for well and good. I have to say that if there is anyone I admire more out of my family, or anyone that I feel tremendously close to - it would be Ads. We are, after all, kindred spirits. No matter how many twists and turns I have made in my life, or mistakes I have fallen from - I know that my brother loves me. And I would give my life for him, in an instant.
So happy birthday, lil Bro! I love you so much. You have been a never-ending source of strength for me over the years whether you knew it or not.
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