I am in a dream. I see my father and two of my brothers walking askew. One brother slightly in front angled away. The other brother behind and at another angle. My dad walking next to a white stone wall. And then my father’s feet give way and his legs slide out in front of him. His head bangs against the wall and then the ground. There’s blood. I look away. I’m not sure what triggered this dream. I have been thinking about my father’s legacy. How to describe him to my children. I want to find a balanced view but mostly I find contrasts, contrasts that don’t balance out. I was afraid of him, like many sons are of their father, like Aidan is of me sometimes. But the fear went a lot deeper than that. I tiptoed around him. Always. Even as a middle age man. I try to avoid conflict and smooth over tension is most work and life situations. He made me fiercely independent, to the point I didn’t ask him for anything. As soon as I could afford to move out of the house, with $300 to my name, I did. As an adult I never ask anyone, except those very close to me, for anything. My father was not the most positive person. He would find the negative point of view of many things others would celebrate. New car - loses have the value the moment you drive it off the lot. Four star hotel - just a room. A meal out - just “ok” for the price. Happy grandkids playing - misbehaving spoiled kids. There was a certain lack of joy. My father coached out local baseball teams but I never figured out why. It didn’t seem to bring him any joy or satisfaction, in retrospect it seemed like a duty. He showed up. This is something I do too. He could often be a jerk, to strangers and to family. ...

To my son Aidan, upon his graduation from 9th grade. July 10, 2018. Follow your heart. Follow your heart, it will not lead your astray. Follow your heart, for you have a good one. Follow your heart, it will always be true to you. Follow your heart, it will lead you to meaning and purpose. To follow your heart, you need to know your heart. This is a difficult task as there are many false prophets. It may take years before you are able to listen, to really listen, to your heart and follow its path. For some of us, including your dad, it is an ongoing journey. We may not get there, but you will, if you take the time and listen. Listen to your heart. ...

When we first lived in Beijing we would occasionally go as a family for a traditional American breakfast. A place called “Paul’s Steak and Eggs”. It was a place tucked behind the Friendship Store and felt comfortable, like a jet lagged Denny’s. I’d get a denver omelette and fret over the pile of hash browns that I’d eat. The kids, just Aidan and Lydia then, would get attention and we would feed on that too. The place was populated mostly by expats, none to rich and none to poor. Over the years the traditional American breakfast stopped being a regular family outing except for on Easter. We even kept the tradition going in the years after the nuclear family went nuclear. The other part of the Easter tradition we kept going was the easter egg hunt, where we’d hide candy in the bushes of the apartment common area and the kids would frantically race each other to collect the candy. This year on Easter, it was my week with the kids, and I thought Elisa as the main candy hunter and one nostalgic nine year old would want the hunt back at her mom’s apartment. But she surprised me, and wanted to do it at my place, so that’s what we did. But first was Easter breakfast. Paul’s Steak and Eggs is long gone so we went to a place in Sanlitun called The Rug , It is like the version of Denny’s that flew first class to Beijing. Thier brunch menu is vast, subtle, and well executed. It was a place that one would think would only appear to well to do expats instead it appealed to well to do locals with few foreigners to be found. It is a far cry from Paul’s. Yang joined, with hard boiled eggs she made for the kids to paint. In fact it was the first time she’s ever made hard boiled eggs and I had to send her the instructions. Sabrina was next to me and the kids scattered about. Did I also mention it was April Fool’s day? After breakfast came the gathering back at my complex. Kids upstairs while the adults hit the Candies. I assumed Lydia and Aidan would be too cool at 13 and 15 to run for candy. But no, never underestimate the power of a snickers in the grass to an Allio. The kids ran and excitedly collected their candy and the showed the spoils. It was a repeat of a scene we’ve played over the years. One that always hit my human bone. After dinner, I had the uncomfortable feeling. The need to move. So I went for a walk. Into the polluted Beijing night. ...

I wake up Elisa at 6:40am and she starts to get out of bed. I turn back to the living room to say bye to Aidan and Lydia who are leaving for school together. I had been expecting they would be growing further apart but they seem to be getting closer this past year. Elisa dresses and doesn’t want to eat breakfast, which is normal. We go downstairs, I order a car via Didi, and we wait five minutes for it to arrive. I have a busy day in front of me and am in A go mode. Elisa is not. The car arrives and during the 10 minute drive she teases me about my bald spot, my belly, my intellect. I tease her back. When we get to her school two things cross my mind. The first, is a recurring one, the gratitude I have for these moments. Even though my weekly single dadum is five years in, I often reflect back on the moment I figured out I could swing it with my work schedule. And how that changed everything for me. And it’s a lot easier now than when I started since the kids are older. My second thought is, I recall my dad ever walking me to school. Not a complaint, just a realization. And then I’m walking to the subway thinking of my father. I’ve been wanting to write about him, and have tried to, but I keep losing the narrative, so I stop. I hope and expect that someday I will because I do want my kids to have a sense, a 360 degree sense, of where they came from. And just for my own personal story. I want to tell them that their grandfather had an edge. That like me, people didn’t see him relaxed often. That like me, he cared about things. That his life was a journey and the man he was when I was born wasn’t the man he was when he died. That he became more self aware or at least incorporated that awareness into his actions. I want them to know that we were all afraid of him and with reason. And I hope they are not afraid of me although I know sometimes Aidan is. I want them to know that my dad showed up. That he couched my baseball teams, came to my basketball games, got me a job in college. But I also want them to know he didn’t really seem to enjoy any of these things. That coaching baseball never seemed like fun to him, just a responsibility. I want to tell them that he worked 24 hours shifts as a fireman. That he would work day on, day off, day on, day off, day on, three days off. That we would track the days when he worked for we could breathe on those days. And we would dread when the three or four days off in a row came. I want them to know that my relationship with my father was complicated. He was my dad. He cared. It came out in ways. ...

I’m not sure when the dreams started or many of the details. But I remember the sense of fear and the inevitable sense of being destroyed. They would start out with me in the backyard of my parents house. I would be by myself, playing. But not at play. Tense. Something was coming. Then I move to the side of the house, behind the red wooden gate that I could not see past. Dread. Something was coming. I would then be in the house, the garage and then downstairs. Something was coming. I was alone in the house. I would go upstairs thinking it was safer. I would look out the kitchen window towards the street. I would be overwhelmed with fear; the presence of something coming. I would move to the tv room but the sense of something coming was so strong I would not stay and I would go into the middle of the house. But then I would not know if it was inside the house so I would go back towards the windows and hide. Often this is how the dream would end and I would wake up knowing that whatever was out there was going to one day get me. I was convinced of it even as the dream faded and I awoke to full consciousness. I went about life, denying that day was coming, until the next time the dream came. In other variations of the dream, I would venture out of the house and onto the street. There would be a car coming that I’d think was friendly and then realize was not. At times I felt it was lingering on the hill across from the house, in human form, waiting to come and get me. What was sure, was it would get me. Sometimes I’d be crouched on the stairs like we used to wait on Christmas morning but the biggest fear was the front of the house. The front rooms windows looking towards the street. It was coming. I feel this dream has been with me a long time but peaked after I moved to Beijing and after my third child, Elisa was born. It would recognize the dream signs early on and ride it out until I knew whatever it was, was going to get me. The dreams stopped a few years back. I didn’t really notice, like one doesn’t notice a sprained ankle healed. Occasionally it would dawn on me that I wasn’t having the dream and it would be a relief. Last month, I stayed at my parents house for the last time. They have both passed away now and it’s time to discard the things we no longer want and sell the house. The dream returned to me a couple of nights ago. But I wasn’t afraid. I walked around the backyard, the side of the house, and then inside. I was an observer, guiding my dream self to look around. The sense that something would come and get me was gone replaced with an unknowing. ...

It is week before Christmas when I return to Beijing from my father’s 90th birthday party and a subsequent business trip. I make it through customs and immigration and then walk through the arrivals areas looking to see if someone is there to pick me up. I do this even though I know those days have long ago passed. Down to the airport basement to take the express into town. A young woman greets me, her job is supposedly to help newbie foreigners. I brush past her, bo humbug. I find my way home. Sabrina has put up the christmas tree while I was gone and had done quite a stunning job with it. At first I thought it was a new tree. The kids arrive the next day and would stay through Christmas. I don’t know why, but I just wasn’t very excited about Christmas. Not anti Christmas, just not into it. Maybe because of the jet lag, which takes me a week to get over, or because of my dad’s poor health effect on me (he would pass the day after Christmas). I wasn’t even going through the motions of wrapping gifts and putting them under the tree. Worse yet, I was in a “mood”, both at home and at work. Two days before Christmas, it felt like a normal saturday and then I noticed Elisa, who is nine. She was sitting at the dinner table drawing and cutting. She was making presents and cards, keeping her work a secret. She then made her own wrapping and put them under the tree. That is what did it - I was in. I went to the store and bought wrapping paper proper - not always easy to find in Beijing - and wrapped the simple gifts I had bought in the US. Elisa really wanted to know what I had bought for Aidan and Lydia. We then went Christmas shopping, I provided the kids with some money to get some small things . Wrapping ensued that evening, with Sabrina helping Elisa. The next day I made the christmas meal shopping list and had to visit five stores before finding ricotta. We watched “die hard” as our Christmas Eve movie night. Morning came. We had dunkin donuts and then opened gifts, most of them, since Sabrina had to go to work (Christmas is a normal working day here). Kids were grateful and excited even though the gifts were really basic this year - basically I had no idea for what big ticket items to get. In the afternoon Yang, her mom, and a friend came over and we had an early Christmas dinner. I made my mom’s lasagna and devil eggs but the big hit was the chips and dip (sour cream plus onion soup mix). The kids left with Yang around 6pm and would spend the next few days at a ski resort. I cleaned the stray wrappings from under the tree and had a glass of wine or two. ...

Elisa is jumping rope on top of the yoga mat and trying to do a cross jump. She’s getting frustrated because she can’t do the cross and there is a school skill competition tomorrow. I watch her technique and besides thinking she is jumping too high, I have no idea. What do I know about cross jumps. She tries a few more times and the I hit on it - YouTube to the rescue. And sure enough there are plenty of YouTube instruction videos. We pick one. Tights are not good on everyone. The instruction is good, Elisa is rapt with attention, playing parts over and over again. She still can’t do it. She’s frustrated. I ask her to take a break. She asks me if I think she can do the cross jump tomorrow. Yes, I lie. ...

A story about child abuse at a well funded, well known kindergarden chain in China showed up in the western media. Over the course of a few days the story changed from abuse that could be widespread, to a specific school in Beijing, then to a specific teacher at that school, and finally that a couple of parents conspired and made the story up. I have no idea what the actual truth is. ...

I am playing basketball in the All Soul’s schoolyard. Metal nets, slightly elevated asphalt. I am shooting uphill because the rim is better and the downhill side often meant you were chasing the ball. Off to the side of the court I hear a deep recognizable voice say “Allio”. I know why he is there and I am filled with dread. A few days before some classmates and me were “exploring” in the church basement. We came to an unlocked room and looked inside. It had full candy bars and M&Ms. My entire life to that point I probably never had a full candy bar. I took one. The next day I went back and took another. I knew they were not free for the taking and someone told me they were meant to be sold at Bingo night. The was no ambivalence about whether it was wrong, I knew and I still took it. ...

I’m in the Starbucks of Yang’s apartment about to pick up Elisa for a morning performance of Disney on Ice. I text up to see if Yang and the kids want anything. Vanilla Frap for Aidan, Chocolate Frap for Lydia, decaf coffee for Yang, and pita bread for Elisa. I’m thinking this sure ain’t breakfast food when Sabrina says she wants the New York Cheesecake. We get upstairs, fortifications in hand. Talk with the older kids while Elisa gets ready and Yang puts on some pants. Sabrina books a car and we take off. ...