My Parents

I can't believe I've been running this site for so long, and neglected to answer the biggest, most obvious question:

What do your parents think?

My parents are my biggest cheerleaders, which you'd know if you've read the comments log for some of my posts.

I guess their enthusiasm is perfectly understandable, expected even. They're my parents, right? It's their job. Perfectly understandable, except when you consider the fact that they DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL I'M DOING. AT ALL.

Let's put on our Chinese parent hats for a moment. Asking a Chinese parent to accept the fact that their offspring isn't going to enter the medical or legal professions is like handing them a butter knife and telling them to remove their kidney. You think I'm kidding, but ask my parents, aunts, and uncles about my grandparents. You'll see what I mean.

Fortunately for me, my parents were kind enough to overcome that cultural bias years ago, when I declared a creative writing major.

But now? Now I've really done it. Now when my parents look at their eldest son, they see a young man who is walking away from a high-paying job in a growth industry, in order to allow his bank account to run red so that he may pursue an endeavor with a high risk of failure.

Ask any parent to stomach this scenario, let alone a Chinese one. But despite what they fear when they look at me, they're still cheering. They're putting their seats in an upright position and adjusting their oxygen masks. But they're still cheering.

I'm asking them to support me wholeheartedly in something they don't really understand. That's a lot to ask of a parent. But my parents are old pros at giving.

Recently, someone told my mother, "You raised three very gentle sons. You should be very proud." And that person went on to say, "It has to do with how they were spoken to, and the environment in which they were raised."

And that comment gave me pause. Was that person really describing our household? I mean, my mother and I had some epic blowouts in our time. And between the three of us, my brothers and I have caused our parents plenty of grief. There was no shortage of raised voices and slammed doors when I was growing up.

And yet even now, when I think about the last time someone directed an abusive temper at me, the last time someone blew up at me at the slightest provocation, the last time someone used me as a punching bag over insecurities and hurts that had nothing to do with me, I remember responding simply. With gentleness. I didn't fight fire with fire, I didn't play their game. I never, ever talked to that person the way that person talked to me.

I learned that gentleness from my parents. Because that's how my parents conduct themselves. Like emotionally healthy adults. And I'm proud of them for it.

And the more I think about that comment, about the environment in which we were raised, the more I think it's true.

My brothers and I were raised in an environment of unconditional love. And unbelievably, it's taken me this long to notice. Because when you're surrounded by so much love, you don't even see it. It's like the air - you need it to live, but you assume it will always be there.

Because it always is.

As loudly and as often as my parents and I have disagreed, there was never a moment in which my parents ever gave me any message but this:

We will always be your parents and we will always love you.

That message was always assumed as an axiomatic truth between my parents and us kids. Not once have my parents ever threatened to kick us out of the house, or to cut us out of their lives, despite being given nearly every provocation. That message sounds like the most basic thing in the world - and perhaps it is.

But I challenge you to ask any child of divorce whether they could say the same thing of their parents without hesitation.

I've known children of divorce, and while I admire their strength and resilience, they carry lifetime wounds I am fortunate to have never born.

Parents - especially divorced parents - if I could say only one thing to you, it would be this: it doesn't matter how dramatic your gestures are, how large your gifts, how bold your words. If you can't provide your children with the certainty of this knowledge:

We will always be your parents and we will always love you.

Then you have let your children down.

I am happy to say, without hesitation, that my parents are a success. Doesn't mean they haven't made mistakes. Or that they haven't been wrong sometimes. And I do mean wrong. But when I look at my brothers and myself, I think to myself that we could have done so much worse.

When I was growing up, I ate lunch daily at the school cafeteria, and was served by a lunch lady named Maxine. Maxine was a middle-aged, overweight African American woman. And the only words I ever exchanged with her were "please" and "thank you". Nearly every day, she'd glare at me, I'd request a meal, she'd grudgingly serve it, and I'd thank her. (It was only years later that I realized she was teasing me with her gruffness.)

This went on for twelve years. For twelve years, Maxine watched me grow from a first grader to a high school senior. And then I graduated.

After my graduation ceremony, as my mother and I were leaving, Maxine walked up to us.

"Excuse me, ma'am," she said to my mother.

"Yes?"

"Is this your son?" Maxine pointed at me.

"Yes."

Maxine did something that I hardly ever saw her do: she smiled as wide as she could. And she said to my mom:

"You have a beautiful child."

I will never, ever forget the look on my mom's face when Maxine said that.

And like that, Maxine walked away. It was the last time I ever saw her.

So this one is to say thanks to my parents.