As I type this the US presidential election is underway and the 18th Chinese National Congress will soon be underway. If you don’t live in China, you may not be aware of the impact of the National Congress. I’ll just say it’s a big deal. This post is about the vote that took place at Lydia’s and Aidan’s school yesterday. The parents voted 9-7 to replace Lydia’s teacher. As I understand it, the vote would be given as a simple thumbs up/thumbs down to the school and the school would comply with the parent’s wishes. ...

If the Giants won a World Series and no one applauded, would they have really won. Maybe not in China. Game four of the World Series was largely played during my flight from Beijing to Xiamen. When we landed in Xiamen, like everyone else I ignored the instructions to keep my cell phone powered off. Unlike everyone else, my main purpose was to check the Giants score. 4/3, F10 it read. The Giants were World Series Champs. ...

_[I woke up at 3AM on Sunday morning and wrote this hoping I would have a chance to speak at my Mom’s services. It served as the basis for my remarks at her funeral on Tuesday. RIP mama Allio.] _ When I think about my mom, I think about love. The love she had for life. The love she had for her children and grandchildren, and the love she had for my father. And the love life had for her. The children had for her. Her husband had for her. ...

Just before sunrise on October 13, 2012, your Grandmother died. I had just left with Uncle Donnie to fetch some Peets coffee and when we returned we saw your Aunt Korky in the TV room on her cell phone. Don knew that met my mom had passed. We woke up your Grandfather at around 2:30am because your Grandmother’s breathing had gotten more difficult and shallow. After struggling a bit with consciousness your Grandfather steadied himself for this. He said, “Anne Marie” with an urging that bordered on pleading. He then hugged her. He then went to take a pee. He spent the next hour standing and then sitting by her beside. She continued to labor with her breathing but was hanging in there. You grandfather eventually went to TV room, turned on the Today Show and fell asleep. Me, being jet lagged, was fully awake and sat in the chair next to him alternating between TV watching and playing with my phone. ...

My mom is frail and dying from cancer. I am thinking about the boxes under the house. The two boxes that I left there when I moved to Beijing seven years ago. I am thinking about how I need to clean up those boxes and not leave them for anyone to take care of when my parents are gone. I make my way up under the house and open the boxes which are not really boxes but covered plastic crates. One box is full of Mimi’s journals and after a quick inspection I shut the lid. Not sure what to do with those. I open the other box and it is also mostly journals. I pull it into the basement and go through this second box. A few personal things from my past life, but mostly nothing. Gone, baby, gone. ...

I get home from work and Elisa and her boyfriend Zhehuang are playing in the living room. Elisa is as happy as can be. Elisa leads Zhehuang around our apartment by an exercise band pretending to drive a car. I ask her if she wants to go to the market with me and she happily accepts. Lydia and Aidan simply give me ice cream orders. As we wait for the elevator I tell Elisa that she needs to go to school tomorrow. I watch her reaction and it is fine, or so I think. Once we get to the first floor she says “tomorrow, I have” and she gestures to her throat and coughs. She’s stayed home from school the past few days because she’s had a bit of a cold. That and school was stressing her out. It was easy enough to tell. A week ago, after her first day at school and then her second and then her third I would see a happy/manic little girl in our house. Over stimulated. Spending a day with strangers who she has yet to form an attachment too. There was other signs of stress too, like when she told Yang to pay the teacher 10,000 RMB so she doesn’t need to go to school anymore. Not to mention getting the cold in the first place. ...

It is the morning after my return to Beijing. I slide the couch over to face the TV. Nice. I sit on the couch shirtless. Comfortable. I put my feet up and sip coffee. Content. Then I notice the goldfish swimming all alone in our little tank. Hungry. Did we have just one goldfish? I have no idea. How long can goldfish live without food? No idea. I get up and feed it. Did I feed it maybe too much which will cause it to die? Maybe. ...

Your Mom is the light. I knew that from the first moment I saw her walking past my office in her tennis shorts. Her short tennis shorts. She had no reason to date me really except for he soon to be ex boyfriend of whom I will be forever grateful. I had no reason to date her, except as I already mentioned, she is the the light. Before there were you kids there was just us. Living in a small house in Fremont, sleeping on a bed on the floor. In those days we still played tennis together among other things. There was never enough time together. ...

I release the parking brake, back up slightly, and then turn away from my parents’ house and down spruce ave. In the mirror I catch a glance of my mom talking over the fence and across the driveway with Doris. My dad remains in front of us and he is waving goodbye. I offer a weak smile because that is all I have left and focus on the road. One I could drive in my sleep. We get to the bend in the road and Yang starts to cry and she is not the type that cries easily as far as I know. Aidan in the back seat says “mom, are you crying?” to which there is no response. We just keep driving. Aidan repeats his question a couple of times and Yang tells him in Chinese, “no problem”. Aidan understands what’s going on and starts to cry a bit too. Elisa, ever learning from her big brother joins quietly. Lydia remains silent as is the car except for the numbing beat of sports talk radio. We stop for Mexican takeout. ...

I am standing at my niece’s Tori’s baptism in Houston Texas. Somewhere nearby is Aidan and Yang. Aidan is maybe a year old so this is 2003. No Lydia yet. No Elisa. No Beijing Allios. My mom is standing next to me. She whispers into my ear that I could take Aidan up for a little dip; to be baptized. I politely decline, not reveling myself, caught in between being respectful to my mom and being respectful to myself. Her faith is strong and mine goes unstated. So, with my Mom’s remaining days dwindling, I thought I would use this letter to state my faith after all. And the message I want you kids to understand. ...