Posted by thejinius under growing up
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My mother and I are watching The Devil Wears Prada. Even though I’ve seen the movie hundreds of times, I still cackle in that scene when Stanley Tucci looks at Anne Hathaway and says, “Are we doing some before and after piece that I don’t know about?”
But I stop cackling when I hear my mother’s snoring. She has a cold. I look over at her. The woman who once ran after me with a stick because I didn’t get a perfect report card was now immobile. And then I wonder: Is this what it will feel like when she passes away? Will she just look like she is sleeping and nursing a stuffy nose? And will I just stare? Or will I cry?
Not that I think about these things.
I was in Miami over the weekend to visit my family. There is something about visiting your family that revives your sixteen year old self. I even resort to eating the foods I ate as a teenager. In New York, I try to abstain from fast foods–the smell of a McDonald’s makes me nauseous. But when I’m in Miami, I eat chicken mcnuggets like they’re actually nuggets of gold. OMIGOD THESE NUGGETS ARE DELICIOUS. PASS ME THE HONEY BARBECUE SAUCE.
For the first time in about three years, the whole family is together–me, my younger brothers, and my parents. My mother celebrates the occasion by feeding us constantly. She tries to make me a bowl of bi bim bap and I chase away her hands. I can make it myself! No, you can’t she insists. Ama, I’m almost thirty, I think I know how to feed myself.
But after a few seconds I realize I can’t prepare this shit on my own and look longingly at my mother’s perfectly assembled dish. I hate when she’s right–which is all the time.
Growing up we were the stereotypical FOB family. We had the austere Asian dad who’d come home from work, change into a Hanes undershirt and read the Korean newspaper while also watching some sports game on tv. My mom would be cooking like ten different things in the kitchen and then yell at the kids to start practicing our music. My brothers and I would then practice the piano or violin and then stop after ten minutes to play Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. Then we’d gather at the table and complain that we wanted American food like our other friends and not this weird smelling stew. “This is healhy food!” my mother insisted. “We want mac and cheese!” My brothers and I would yell.
But then we grew up.
My middle brother turned manic depressive. My parents didn’t know what to do with him. Depression to them was an entirely foreign concept–a Western problem that afflicted people with too much time to think about their problems. My parents had no patience for depressed people. Something about growing up poor in a war torn country will do that to you.
Then my youngest brother, the baby of the family, started doing coke and street pharmaceuticals by the time he hit the ninth grade.
And during this whole time I was in New York. I guess I was the only normal one in a family full of crazy people. Except the problem with my family was that each person thought he or she was the only normal one and everyone else was crazy. So that made for some problems.
But we are all here now for one weekend.
My brothers and I are eating at the table while my mom is in the kitchen telling us some story in her broken English that can only be understood by her family members and people with very good interpretation skills. After she finishes her incomprehensible story my brother goes, “What the hell are you talking about?” And I say, “We don’t understand the words coming out of your mouth.” And then my brothers and I laugh hysterically. And then my mother laughs because we are laughing.
Then my brother tells this story about how this man tried to pick up my mom recently and my mom responded to the man’s advances by screaming, “What are you doing? I’m calling the police!!!”
Yeah, that’s what you get for trying to ask out a woman in my family.
It is nice to know that my mother still has her feistiness. It precludes the fact that she is getting old. Her gait is still hurried and brisk but her face looks tired and worn– a product of raising three truculent children by the time you’re in your mid thirties and living in a country where you don’t speak the language.
Remind me to never leave the U.S… or have children.
My father, however, looks more deflated. It is weird to see the man who used to strike fear in me as a child now look…old.
I think when you start seeing your parents look older, you react by still acting like a child. It is the only way you know how to act.
On my last day, I have some time to kill before my flight so I go to a bar with my dad and middle brother. We go to Fox’s which is this old school saloon on U.S. 1. We order wine. My dad has been on a health kick lately and eating entire cloves of garlic. It’s healthy food! He proclaims. He orders a bean soup and when it arrives, he announces, Now this is healthy food!
I guess when you hit your fifties you start caring about things like your health and your longevity.
My dad and I talk current events. My dad was always the reticent one but he’ll open up if you talk to him about sports or current events. I think that’s why when we were kids, my brothers were so much more closer to him than me. It wasn’t until I started reading the paper that we had things to talk about.
They drive me to the airport and insist on parking the car and taking me to the departure gate. I get my boarding pass and wait in the security line. I tell them to go home, the line is too long and they’ll be waiting forever. My dad just nods and waves me off.
As I get farther away from them, I see them in the corner of my eye. I turn around and wave. They wave back. Finally I reach the security point and place my items in the bins. I look behind me and they are still there. I wave at them. They wave back.
I go through the metal detector and pick up my things off the conveyor belt. I put my shoes on and pretend to fall over so I can make my dad laugh. I look behind me to wave one last time.
But I’m too late. They’re already gone.
