where our feet tread

During sometime in our first month of dating, #bots nonchalantly asked who between the two of us would be the more domestic one. I remember getting ready to get out of my chair and head out the door as I responded, “If there is any notion that you are looking for a stay at home housewife you need to tell me now so we can end this relationship before either of us gets in too deep.” He chuckled at my gut reaction and clarified his intent in introducing the question about household responsibilities, what does an egalitarian partnership look like.

I grew up in a home that didn’t fit the gender norm script. Mom worked as our family’s main source of income and insurance and my dad had the more flexible schedule to do before/after school pickups, groceries, cooking, and yardwork. When dad was in seminary school, I remember times when my grandmother would come and stay with us for a few days or going over to a couple from the church who would watch me while my dad was taking evening classes.

I’m still not exactly sure how #bots and I found our rhythm and role. Early in dating and marriage we did almost all the household chores together – I would wash the rice, prep the veggies while #bots manned the stove; I’d wash the dishes while #bots wiped the table and counter; #bots would vacuum and Swiffer while I loaded the washer. When baby B came, it followed a similar pattern – one parent changed the diaper while the other scrubbed the aftermath from the blowout; one parent would give baby B a bath, the other would read her a bedtime story and tuck her into bed. After I left my job, our routines were recalibrated in taking on more household chores of grocery shopping, running errands, and being the main parent on call with doctor’s appointments. Equal Partners was a fantastic read and reminder that domestic duties are not fixated in stone and malleable to adjust with life’s unpredictable seasons, but coming to a shared consensus on values, expectations, and communications.

Back in 2021, #bots was given a once-in-a-tenure opportunity to lead and coordinate a scientific program at UC Santa Barbara. The 4-week program was slated for 2023 to coordinate a highly selective group of international experts at the intersection of machine learning and astronomy. Housing would be fully provided for participants, and to encourage families to attend childcare stipend and on-site daycare at UCSB was also provided. We knew how rare and privileged of an opportunity for #bots’ academic career and collectively for our whole family to go on this monthlong adventure to sunny California. Out of the 60 some participants, about 6 other families had children the same age as baby B, every one of them bilingual (French, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese). We protected our time and space to cherish and savor these moments.

When I began to disclose to friends and family about my leave people kept remarking on how brave I was. It certainly didn’t feel like any act of heroism or courage; if anything, the decision made me more tepid to meet new people to engage in the dreaded small talk of what do you do?

Earlier this year I started therapy. There wasn’t an explicit traumatic event, although maybe leaving a job could qualify. There wasn’t a mental health diagnosis or trouble in family paradise. Rather, it felt like an opportunity to unload with a trained professional in unlocking parts of my identity and discerning the person I wanted to become.

My therapist is a second-generation Taiwanese American mother and over the last few months she has also been my confidant, teacher, and guide. Through her I’ve learned a different part of psychotherapy, particularly to the language and understanding of Internal Family Systems. It’s provided a new framework and vocabulary to describe my internal dialogues, perceptions of the external environment, and interactions with society. Moreover, therapy has been an exercise to recognize and affirm dignity, within myself and extend that towards others.

What’s been unveiled thus far is that though I have little individual trauma, I’ve absorbed vicarious trauma and bore witness to the suffering of others. Though I have not been a victim of sexual violence, I have shed tears and shouldered friends who have. Though I have not rested any close family or friends due to gun violence, I have grieved and wept with my community where the bullets have left their marks. One of the scariest admittances is that these statements all carry a parenthetical (yet). Just because they have not yet happened does not mean one is guaranteed from it never occurring, and the statistical likelihood is non-negligible. Some days it is tempting to live a life of fear, anxiety, and constant vigilance. I sought how to recognize but also release, acknowledge without carrying the albatross so that I could actually rest in this Sabbath, to see and taste Earth’s Eden.

Simultaneous to therapy someone recommended Pleasure Activism, a collection of essays, conversations, and insights on connecting social justice as a pleasurable human experience. When I scanned the initial pages, I could feel my face flush as I skimmed the chapter titles Uses of the Erotic, Nipples are Magic, Ecstasy Saved my Life, and others. Yet, the introductory chapters redefining eroticism was, in a word, liberating. For much of life, sexual pleasures were confined to bedroom activities, and as an unmarried woman the instructions were clear: resist and desist. But in Audre Lorde’s essay, the erotic functions as a vessel for deeply aroused feelings such as how music can inspire feet to dance, how wind can force bodies to sway, how words can evoke eyes to release tears or the belly to roar in laughter.

When we begin to live from within outward, the touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense.                                                     Audre Lorde

Had I attempted Pleasure Activism a decade before, I would have felt conflicted and contradicted to the teachings of Galatians 5 in living by the Spirit rather than of flesh. My theology at one time was more morally focused with the Bible and its scholars as my primary teachers. And while certainly appreciative for the principles, wisdom, and values, I was in a place where I wanted to hear and learn from other diverse sources: women of color, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities. At a time when scriptural teachings had been blended with white colonialism, patriarchy, and political power, I sought a safe space that could be kind and tender, one that could hold the doubts and nuance. I looked for teachers that had once been pushed down by these oppressive systems and could give their narrative perspectives on how to still live and pursue justice in a fallible world.

My thoughts and feelings on faith is a bit complicated, and I hold it a little looser these days. I’m trying to keep an open mind and hand, acknowledging that often our faith is informed by one’s personal culture and experience. I trust that the God I believe and worship is big enough to hold bold theories, His expanse large to explore this evolution, His steadfast love wide for me to search.

The key to constructive - & not destructive – erasure is to create an extension instead of an extract. It’s not erasure, but expansion, whereby we seek the underwriting, the undercurrent beneath the watered surface of the words. It is to keep the words from drowning. Hereby the pen looks to enhance, to evoke, explore, expose the bodies, the truth, the voices that have always existed but have been exiled from history & the imagination. In this case, we erase to find. Erasure, Call Us What We Carry

My Sabbatical Reading List:

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown

This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez

Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes

Don’t Cry for Me by Daniel Black

Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now by Jeff Yang

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman

This past spring, I quit my job.

On paper, it’s such a short sentence. Yet the truth is there’s always a longer narrative, a more complicated story than words can convey.

In isolation, it was the dream job I couldn’t imagine. I found meaningful work addressing health equity, finding likeminded partners wanting to make a positive change in society, and collaborating on a team that recognized my value and compensated generously. But work is rarely contained in a vacuous setting, and the surroundings and desires when I first started 7.5 years ago eventually changed. Once, work and vocation was central to my identity and worth, a joy found in professional calling. But then came #bots, and that space needed to be widened to hold two people’s ambitions. We moved along the Northeast Corridor for #bots to start his postdoc program and found an apartment within walking distance to the Amtrak station so I could still commute into the office. Our time was sacrificed, but we trusted that the season was temporary. Then a pandemic and Baby B came, and for 18 months our world condensed into a 900 sq. foot space filled with diapers, Disney+, and Dalgona coffee. For most of baby B’s first year, both #bots and I had the privilege of WFH and witnessed every firsts together. COVID taught us the treasure of treasured time, the present to be present, and being a human being. When the company demanded employees to return to office and resume an archaic pre-pandemic life, we knew it was time for my departure.

While the knowledge was comprehensible, the emotions and the finality of leaving felt akin to the 5 Stages of Grief: 1) Denial of the mental and emotional toll; 2) Anger at the company policy and the disregard from senior leaders; 3) Bargaining with management if there was any alternative or flexibility; 4) Depression and anxiety with sleepless nights, tossing and turning before; 5) Acceptance in turning in the resignation letter and stepping into an unknown future. There were no job nor prospects lined up, just a release of space returned.

I genuinely mourned the loss and tried to reframe the season as a sabbatical rather than unemployment. I’ve come to acknowledge how much of myself was embodied to my body of work along with societal expectations on how we assess people by their abilities, calculate value by their contributions, and perpetuate a system based on productivity. Capitalism’s rewards has been measured by its innovations, a nation’s GDP, and the prospects to be among Forbes 500; yet, for the nomad, alien, and orphan, their story is one of burnout, survival, and fear of being left behind. Toil has recently felt more real and realized, and this was my feeble attempt to escape its wrath.

you are a miracle walking i greet you with wonder in a world which seeks to own your joy and your imagination you have chosen to be free, every day, as a practice. i can never know the struggles you went through to get here, but i know you have swum upstream and at times it has been lonely

i want you to know i honor the choices you made in solitude and i honor the work you have done to belong i honor your commitment to that which is larger than yourself and your journey to love the particular container of life that is you

you are enough your work is enough you are needed your work is sacred you are here and i am grateful

Some people are mongers Of bread and fish and cheese Others are collectors with closets Of shoes, trinkets, and memories

Me? I am a weaver of words A custodian, a guardian To catch turn and poet phrase

An author is an artist Their draft and craft Is to etch and sketch Mystic and magic

I note the rhythm and beat Cadence of intonations Rinse lather and repeat Motion and modulations

Some words look nonsensical Like it has a secret to hide Its ink twinkles and winks Dares you to find the joke inside

Words can evoke and emote Gets you to dance and prance Frolic in fields and feel The grains of sand in your hands

Keep your head down Always smile, don’t frown Maybe they won’t let you drown Even then I knew One day they would come for us

Assimilate, don’t agitate Appeal to cooperate We too can live in the 50 states Even that didn’t matter One day they would come for us

Do not engage in this fight This war between black and white Don’t make yourself a sore sight Even so it was a matter of time One day they would come for us

In 1942 they came for us We almost forgot the document That in the guise of concernment With orders from the government Forced our families to internment

Last year they came for us We were blamed for the coronavirus Seeds sowed of discourse and distrust Words turned into violent ruckus Does this nation have a place for us

One day they came for me With shouted slurs and slanted eyes My hair, skin, looks all fetishized They dismissed my tears and cries To make me mute and paralyzed

Some girls were primed for motherhood starting in early childhood. Some girls learned how to ride a bike alongside how to rock American Girl dolls to sleep, and to whip magic in Easy-Bake ovens. Some girls began to dream and conceptualize wedding dresses and dressing newborns before going on their first date.  

And some girls weren’t. They preferred imagining foreign worlds and adventures than joining babysitters club. Domestic life was never quite their style. Or it was just something as a maybe / one day, put on the back-burner while pursuing individual endeavors.

This is a love letter to the girls that fall in the latter bucket – who aren’t sure if they want or are fearful of the thought of childbearing and rearing. This is a validation and recognition for those who consider the journey to motherhood with trepidation, anxiety, and uncertainty. 10 years ago, I thought I would be living and working in Africa and be the last of my friend group to marry or reproduce. Yet, as so much of life’s unpredictable nature, my work in social justice took on a different form with philanthropy, had a kismet encounter with #bots, and placed roots in Charm City.

Our first 3.5 years of marriage, the prospect of pregnancy, labor, and parenting would bring hysteria. I wanted to keep my DINKy lifestyle and wasn’t ready to have someone fully dependent on me. For some, the thought of children is completely unappealing and undesirable, and that’s fine. For others, including me, the idea of raising a family was there but it was hindered by fear of inadequacy and loss of control. #bots and I started to kid-sit families from our church as practice runs and also take the opportunity to hang out with parents we admired and respected to glean insights. We learned that all parents have some degree of being unprepared and there’s a very large grace range that you can’t really screw up your babies.

At the start of the year, #bots and I revisited the conversation of when to consider expanding our family of two and I was surprised that there were no tears accompanying the discussion. We took that as a soft signal to relinquish our control and come off contraception as a “we’ll see what happens.” Before we could second-guess our decision, we immediately conceived (literally, the day after). We held our news humbly, knowing several friends and family who were unable to conceive naturally, or had lost their babies in the womb. There are no good answers on why some have little difficulty while others must patiently endure as we mourn with those who have lost and cheer with those who have cause for celebration.

We discovered our news right as the state entered the COVID-19 lockdown, allowing both #bots and I to work from home for the entire duration of pregnancy and first few months of baby B. Pregnancy was largely unremarkable, with the worst morning sickness as dry heaving and maybe 2-3 days of minor vomiting. #bots took the bulk of grocery shopping and cooking, accommodating my aversions to soy sauce (bye Chinese stir-fry) replacing our new diet with tomatoes and fresh fruits (hello Italian, Mexican, and acai bowls).

Little did we realize that our arrival in Baltimore last year would also set up our community who we would lean so much on during this season of COVID-19 and preparing for parenthood. Our Sowebo CG had veteran nannies, teachers, and baby lovers who had any and every single intel on baby gear, breastfeeding tips, sleep schedules, and more. God provided in ways we did not know we needed and set in place the individuals that would be a blessing to us. And throughout our pregnancy, labor and delivery we have been showered with so much love - from our OB who saw me immediately despite the start of COVID lockdowns, the virtual baby showers, plethora of gift parcels, meal trains and doordash vouchers, legit medical insurance and FMLA policies, etc. 

In college, I remember hearing that parenting was the act of stewarding eternal souls. As with other earthly material goods, these are to be held responsibly but not possessively. We do our best to train and raise them towards righteousness while holding loosely of so many things that are out of our control. It lifts a weight and pressure of what is humanly possible and to be pacified that these are gifts entrusted to us to tend and to teach.

If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I can return safely to my father’s house, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house… Genesis 28:20-22

Baby B was named in dedication of this stewardship to be a vessel for God to dwell, a reflection of how we/she have been so loved, and a reminder that the promises that the Lord will watch her steps. She entered into our world on November 7 – an eventful day in an eventful year as we displaced a cruel regime with the hope of a new president and (first) female vice president. We know the world is far from a perfect utopia, but still we strive to lay a foundation for her flourishing as a child of immigrants, as an eschet chayil (woman of valor), and as one filled with compassion for humanity.

This time last year was a waiting game. #bots was nearing the end of a long PhD journey and the road ahead was still unclear. With a single message, our prayers were answered, our trajectories redirected to Baltimore. It was a city we had tossed around in pillow talks, with #bots having been born and raised for a period of time and a place of fond memories. I was still semi-nomadic, never particular about any one geographic place to form deep enough attachments to call home. 

Baltimore was intriguing for both of us - housing one of the largest astronomy community at the Space Telescope Science Institute and the city’s strong public health focus. It was a city whose narrative largely focused on its failings and issues - the uprisings from Freddie Gray, the corrupt governments, the violence, the redlining boundaries that still divide the city in terms of poverty and rich. Yet, the city had also given rise to some of the strongest leaders who came from the community - Elijah Cummings, Leana Wen, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Thurgood Marshall, etc.

It was a city that beckoned a dream, to live and breathe and commit to the transformation that was coming back to the neighborhoods, to re-write the narrative it had been given. Yet, there was a genuine fear - a wonder if it would be another Joburg, full of idealism but a reality that would come with more heartaches and sacrifices than we would be willing to bear. That if/when push came to an uncomfortable shove the impulse would be to flee. 

Prior to our move I was given this verse and vision-

Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’

‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”

Haggai 2:4-5, 9

For 6 years you’ve labored and toiled, In hopes that your dreams would not be foiled. You’ve poured so much sweat, tears and laments On this astrophysics thesis defense.

Your talk commanded my utmost attention Of galaxy clusters and star formations Slight changes in high and low redshifts Would give astronomy new facelifts.

Not even Biggie or RBG Could discuss your work on LBGs. Dark matter halo’s not a game Nor headdress to celestial dame

Graphs with rotation velocity, Compared against luminosity To help determine parameters Like me writing this pentameter.

You concluded with deep neural networks Machine learning, convnets and some guesswork New methods to predict metallicity Showcased to impress your expert committee.

A few months ago, we banded together with about a half-dozen other couples to begin a journey through racial reconciliation. Raw emotions, tough discussions, grief and lamentations have been the bedrock to usher in healing and unity.

For perhaps the first time, I was able to label and call out racism beyond a fissured relationship, an institutional problem, or systemic injustice. Racism, in its stripped version, is sin.

Racism begins as an internal concept of bias, a desire for preference, advantage, and blessings to be bestowed upon one person over another. Unchecked, it then turns into an attitude, verbals or nonverbal cues signaling those desires. Silent cues and acquiescence become direct antagonism through established policies, incarcerated systems, generational divides. Quoting James 1:15, desire has conceived, giving birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

As Asian-Americans it is tempting to say that the fight between the whites and blacks/brown is not ours. Collectively, we are the model minority, emblematic of hard work, moral principles, and quiet submission that has fared us well in society. Neutrality has been the common stance and response, neither igniting nor inciting. We burrow our heads and press on, choosing not to involve ourselves in someone else’s war.

But choosing neutrality is being complicit to the damning our brothers and sisters. Our self-preservation perpetuates their oppression. And in such (in)actions, we have also turned our heads and averted our gaze from the broken, the downtrodden, the castaways. We are no better than the ones who have cast the stones.

What if we chose not to see it as an irreconcilable divide? Let us recognize our unique ability to appeal to both - to acknowledge that we have more in common with our white counterparts in having a privileged lifestyle but to also sympathize with our negro kinsmen in their pilgrimage for a community to call their own, a foreign land to dwell and thrive, a desire to be seen and treated as equals. What if we were the ones to set the table, to invite all parties to sit and listen, to play the intermediary role of the peacemaker?

I am trying to reconfigure and recalibrate my understanding and the plight of my black brothers and sisters. But I can only rectify these stereotypes and misjudgments through exposures and ongoing relationships at the table of God’s household. Here, I lay bare in shame, guilt, and sorrow of how I have ignored, wounded, and betrayed humanity. In exchange, I receive patience, mercy, and healing as I listen to the stories of historical abuse and current injustices that are still incurred. 

If you don’t know where to start, here are some resources that have been invaluable. Most of these will be focused on African Americans but we know that racial justice is far more encompassing than black and white. This is where we currently are and have started with the hope and anticipation that we will stretch and apply the same humility, respect and learning of other racial ethnicities.

For the podcast junkies:

Truth’s Table (rec: Strange Fruit)

Pass the Mic (rec: Bonus: Faith, Justice, and the Civil Rights Movement through the Life of Fannie Lou Hamer; Kill the Culture Wars)

Code Switch

For the avid readers:

Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow

Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me

Feisty Thoughts blogpost Why I Stopped Talking about Racial Reconciliation and Started Talking about White Supremacy

Reformed African American Network’s Charlottesville Declaration

For the movie/documentary watcher:

13th (Netflix)

I Am Not Your Negro (Amazon Prime)

I am incredibly fortunate to be working at the intersection of social justice and global health at the Foundation. Every day, I work with grantee organizations and collaborate with them to fight health inequities and disparities and to improve health outcomes for the most vulnerable and disproportionate populations in the United States. Our patients are of ethnic and racial minorities, live below poverty levels, low food and housing security, with multiple comorbid diseases. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid, many of our patients were able to receive health insurance and were provided appropriate care and treatment. Patients were able to be screened for cancer, taught how to manage chronic diseases, and could have annual check-ins with their physicians without worrying about the cost. In the 5 months we have had patients report their fears and anxieties about losing their insurance, that ICE vans are parked outside community health centers targeting immigrants, that all the progress made on health equity will be unfurled. 24 million patients losing their insurance is not just a scary number to us - these are composites of individuals coming through the clinics and organizations that we are representing and advocating on behalf of every day.

I have a coworker who came to the United States a little over a decade ago. She left behind her family and familiarity in Vietnam so that she could have an education and a better future in the US. She graduated from pharmacy school, finished a residency, and is now a full time employee at a pharmaceutical industry. She’s been praised many times by her colleagues on her work and has a blog for her Vietnamese audience about pharmacy topics, education, issues, etc. She’s helped advocate for pharmacy students outside of the Northeast/West Coast in providing them rotation opportunities and experiences in the pharma industry. Although she has lived, worked, and paid taxes in the US for over 10 years, still she worries if her H-1B visa will be processed and if she will be able to stay another year. All the recent executive orders and changes on immigration has not helped allay her fears. 

I used to call the Burrow a social experiment. Comprised of 4 different racially profiled girls (an Asian, African American, half Puerto Rican and a White southern belle) we shared a lot about our experiences and perspectives. One kitchen conversation in particular discussed the different reactions in encountering the police. J, my tall, optimistic, can-do-it-all black roommate had entered the room, was talking about her day, and offhandedly mentioned that she had just received her second ticket in less than a month for speeding. “Does this happen often?” I asked. “Oh yeah, it happens all the time.” she said without batting an eye. A few months later, N, my southern belle roommate, comes into the house ranting about a cop that was tailing her on her way to work before he turned on his lights and pulled her over. After a heated altercation that started with, “Ma’am, license and registration, please.” and “Tell me what I did wrong first.” and “I have the right to know what I did wrong before giving you my license and registration.” Citation count? Zero. We talked a fair bit at the Burrow about racial justice, particularly as Black Lives Matter was in formation. We had prayer vigils for families of the fallen victims of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile; we held open forum discussions for black men, parents of black children, and cops to share their stories and desires for unity. I’ve had discussions with our head of corporate security about her perspective of the social climate and heard her pleas of sympathy to local authority. “We are trained to consider the highest levels of risk and to minimize any and every threat. We aim to protect the ones we love.” Clearly there are still gaps that need to be addressed, but it will not come by denigrating and polarizing one side over the other; we each must do our own part of building a bridge of understanding and knowing one another.

One of my oldest and dearest friends just recently became engaged. But his option to marry was only made recently through a 5-4 Supreme Court decision. In fourth grade during recess, he pulled me aside and said, “I have a secret. I think I have a crush on B.” My response? “Yeah, so does like every other girl in our class. Are we still playing tag or what?” That was my introduction to homosexuality. There was no fight or tension if this was biblical or nature versus nurture debates. It was merely a matter-of-fact statement, and that was it. The tensions rose much later, when his homosexuality made him the prime target of cyberbullying and mistreatment in middle school and high school. Living in the deep South allowed strong opposition to gay rights be prominently pronounced from the schoolyard to the Sunday pulpit. Christians were taught to “hate the sin but love the sinner” yet were given license to treat homosexuals as lesser individuals. We were taught to say that we loved our LGBTQ friends, but in the same sentence say we could not condone their way of life. If someone in our Christian circle had any doubts or questions about this sort of treatment, it felt like they were rebuked, spoken that they “had a poor understanding of God’s truth,” and ostracized.  During one of our college breaks and visits back home, this friend and I met up for gelato. We somehow got on the topic of theology (he had written an essay on Milton’s Paradise Lost; I was getting involved with AACM) and he asked me, “I never knew how to bring this up before...I know you care a lot about your faith but...what do you think of me being gay?” I stuttered and spattered. In the end, I came up with “My faith does not detract my love for you.” To this day, I still abide by that - that sometimes I don’t know if homosexuality wrong because that’s what’s been taught by the church or inscribed by the Bible. That I consider the Bible once permitting slavery which has since been abolished and who’s to say that it won’t be a similar picture a few generations down the line? But while I’m internally working out my own thoughts and tensions I will not allow it to be a hindrance to my relationship - that I will choose to celebrate his union without reservations and in genuine happiness.

Dear #bots,

I know you’re not one to celebrate birthdays, especially this year given the recent events that have transpired. But allow me to indulge you in this one simple gesture and letter.

When we first began discussing the possibility of our union, I cared very little about diamond rings, white ballgowns, three-tiered cakes, and whatever lavish extravaganzas wedding festivities. What I was eager for was to begin a marriage and a life forever linked with you. Waking up in the mornings next to you after stealing all the blankets and accidentally jabbing you in the middle of the night. Brewing coffee and eating yogurt and granola before bidding you farewell as I went to work. Unwinding and rehashing my day as I chopped the vegetables and you made sure the meat didn’t become overcooked. It was these simplistic daily rituals I anticipated most, and our first month was filled with an unremarkable yet cherished love.

Less than a month after our marriage began, I kissed you goodbye as you boarded a plane dispatched to South Africa. The separation was further exacerbated by shoddy internet and a 7-hour time zone difference, and the communication skills we once prided ourselves in became a daily battleground. You had to learn how to live in a world with few certainties and familiarity; I had to learn to make our home open and hospitable despite your absence.

We intended to celebrate our honeymoon in Cape Town, but 3 weeks before our planned trip, your father went into home hospice care, uncertain of how much longer he would be alive. He had been battling cancer for over a year, and with each passing week was deteriorating more and more. Together, we made the decision for you to end your work prematurely and have you return stateside. But as lovely as a honeymoon might sound, it was your homecoming that I treasured more – to once again create and build a home and life together.

You came home 36 hours before the presidential election results were announced – one whose aftermath still brings a terrifying and an unknown future. I woke you up at 3am inconsolable and sobbing uncontrollably on how some of our nation has chosen fear over love, self-protection over sacrifice, tribalism over hospitality. We’ve had many discussions since of what it means to love those who have opposing views, differing priorities, and how to listen with humility and grace. Though the outer world may be tumultuous, within our home we will choose to be a place of Shalom, of peace and reconciliation.

Your father would spend the remainder of the holidays with his family and loved ones – Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s (both American and Chinese) before passing away. And as cruel of a disease cancer was, it would give you time for “lasts” – last family vacation on a cruise; last musical at the Lion King; last supper eaten together; last hugs and kisses; lasts “I love you’s” exchanged. Though his shell may be gone, his soul shall remain in every imparting lesson he’s given to you and the makings of who you are today.

We have, in the last 6 months, have gone through many turbulent waters. Yet throughout, you have shown me how to go through life’s currents in steadiness, focusing not just on milestone events but the unassuming daily motions. I could not have asked for a more patient and strong partner to share both life’s joys and burdens with, one who continually reflects Christ’s love to me and everyone else.

Happy birthday #bots.