You are my sunshine

Each Sunday from Grade 9 to 12, I would be the store co-manager at Kinsmen Lodge. As a reluctant volunteer initially, I grew to love my time at the senior home. Befriending seniors from the war, from different countries, and from unique backgrounds that I would never be exposed to as a relatively sheltered young teen growing up in the suburbs of Vancouver. While there wasn’t any specific moment that drives my fondness of that time, I think back to those Sundays often. Coming to know the regulars and their specific tastes in coffee and other knickknacks, I came to grow an assertiveness to say “no more sugar for you, Vy!” I also came to grow an understanding of a specific language, one that could not be heard or even expressed in words. For some seniors, they had lost their ability to communicate with their tongues or mouths and so they needed to be creative in how they used their wheelchairs, aids, or bodies to communicate their needs and desires. As a teenager growing up in an age of instant gratification and convenience, patience was even more of a virtue and in this case, these times of coming to understand the nuances of an individual’s gait or noises or the unique combinations of movements they could make in their space came to be more than fascinating but endearing. I began to realize a person was beyond their self-identification and self-perception but how they made decisions to show up in the world and how they lived on in memory via a specific interpretation of another’s mind. 

I think a lot about memory. I think about memory when I’m trying to be present. I wonder how this moment I want to keep with me will soon pass and how I want to capture it vividly so I won’t forget it. But in the process of doing so, I realize I’m trying so hard not to forget that I’m not processing the current situation as fully as I could. I’m in the Aloh health cafe with my sister and my dad. After a lot of unexpected family twists and turns, we made it to Honolulu—fulfilling a childhood dream of mine to one day visit Hawaii. A promise my Dad didn’t break when he said “yes, if you pass your level 10 RCM piano examinations.” Though I didn’t and stopped after passing my level 9 exams in Gr.9, I feel like I am not fully comprehending how special these mundane moments are. I’m in my body but also not believing that I’m really here. These morning breakfast runs and just talking to my sister and dad have been so rare since I was a little girl and my Dad started working two jobs. Like the past eight mornings we’ve been here, it’s been very windy but it’s always been sunny. Some light drizzles here and there but sunny. I think about how full I feel right now…you are my sunshine.

Sunset Beach, HI summer 2023

You are my sunshine. I hear the familiar voice of a daughter coming to visit her mother. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know, dear…How much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away. The mother, Emily, has long lost all her memory and in rare moments of lucidness that I was lucky to witness but at times, her daughter did not, was heartbreaking. The daughter’s Sunday ritual is to sing her mother’s favourite song to evoke the past and her mother’s memory of her. Emily would be so very happy in those moments…and at times, I see them both happy.

The sun is setting at Sunset Beach now and we’ve just had our fill of some pineapple and garlic shrimp at the North Shore trucks. Could I see myself living like this forever? Sun kissed, wind swept hair, and a changed person with a mellow go with the flow attitude? We don’t know if this will be “the sunset” but sure enough, the sun is setting quickly. The clouds are layers and layers of delicate fish scales across an expanse of the ocean. Two kids are playing in the sand and it’s actually so quiet. Nothing but the sound of the waves caressing the shore and our voices chatting about the future. The upcoming move to Philly. Our grandmother’s health. Dad’s childhood. My sister takes her phone out for this golden hour and we capture about ten selfies. We’re all starting to come undone and be more comfortable with one another as we would our friends. My Dad and I have come to be known as “bruh.” And I get to chat nonstop with my Dad on dating and life advice. Time that often didn’t exist growing up when he worked until late.

Her hands have always been frail and that must be why I never saw her at our cafe. Emily sips some of the vanilla brew with help from her daughter and I watch them from the narrow space of the next wall and my window. I get back to my calculus homework and put on a timer for when I need to leave for church.

He’s getting older. I know that fair well even despite that I get mistaken as my dad’s sister or wife in a variety of circumstances. His hair has remain unchanged. Deep black. His tan face vibrant with a big toothful smile. But he’s also the more tired of us three amidst all our excursions across the island. I think about how valuable these car rides and walks are. They’re so finite. I can see some clearly my future, days of difficulty ahead with the imminent start of the Ph.D. but I can’t see the other parts as clearly. The exact specifics of how time with my family will look like in a year, five years, a decade. My sister will be off to college and my parents, what will they do with an empty nest for the first time? I try to project myself as a third person into their story and wonder if they’ll be okay.

—

I’m about to start classes for my math camp prep of the prelim PhD inauguration and it’s been a day since my dad and my sister have left for Vancouver. When I said goodbye at the airport I knew I couldn’t stay long. This time I didn’t know why it’s hit so different. With my mom taking care of my grandmother this spring/ summer, I’ve gotten to spend much more time with my sister and dad. And there was some resentment at times in terms of how much household work after a 9-5 job I had to do that would sometimes be exhausting. I got home at 5:46pm and the tears just started streaming down my face. I don’t know why that as I get older, I feel it’s so much harder to say goodbye. I thought I would be better at this but I’m not. I worry for my sister as she begins to become a young adult, I worry for my parent’s health, and I worry about countless other things before I take a breath. And just. Stop. Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. After a good solid 10 minutes of crying for not being able to be with my family, for me being me and having these dreams that I wanted to pursue and the opportunity cost of doing them… I look out the window and focus on the clouds turning into ash. Each moment is precious and I did live it fully as much as I could. But nothing lasts forever I remind myself. I continue to remind myself that I need to tell the people I love and I’m grateful for, the words in my heart.

I’m back and it’s a quiet day. There’s barely any customers other than my regulars Henry and Vy. I’ve gotten to really adore Henry and Vy. Henry with his specific tastes of vanilla hazelnut Keurig coffee pods and with 2 creams and 2 sugars. His gentle demeanor is incredibly calming as he sips his coffee and sits at the same table, same place, and same time every Sunday. It’s 10:55am and I sense that he is going to maneuver his wheelchair into the garden where he’ll get a whiff of his cigarette. And Vy, at this point may just be lounging in her room. Calculus is so damn repetitive. Integrals and derivatives are killing me. I’ve got fifteen minutes before I need to catch my bus home and then volunteer at church. I’m stuck on my to do lists, I need them all the time. This or that. This or that.

—

When I was younger, I craved to get out and explore the world. Make it my oyster. The first taste of such costs in doing so came in the summer of 2014 when I lost my grandfather to cancer. I kept telling him, next year, I’ll go visit you and Nana. Next year. And the years kept piling up. One summer I was doing the STEM camp of my dreams. Another, I was prepping for exams. And another, interning for my dream doctor. Sometimes I got caught up in the self-hate for having to be someone with dreams. For having ambition, a quality I so very much admired in others but at times, felt so conflicted to have for myself. Is this what love is supposed to feel like? Is there anything I wouldn’t do for my sister or family now? And I feel shaken of how much I’ve remained the same (read: my childhood dream of being a nobel prize winning laureate finding cure to cancer) yet also changed. I’m scared how love evolves and grows. How it’s turned me into someone capable of calling my dreams into question. How in the moments of missing my family, I started to wonder if the opportunity cost of the next five years of living away from them would be worth it. But I shake it off quickly and think about how I am committed and how I’m in this. It’s a moment I’ve been dreaming of and working toward for a while.

How will I be ready to do that for myself by committing to another person and one day, starting a family of my own? How can I keep my heart safe when it feels like it’s literally being pulled outside of your body unprotected? And I think about something I read recently how I may have been protecting myself a bit too much. Protecting my heart by trying not to let myself truly feel the depths of all my emotions especially when it comes to love because I’m afraid of ultimate pain and rejection. But the book said in guarding one’s heart so well, it causes it to harden as well to be impenetrable. And while I know you can’t love without pain, you can’t live without pain… just having that metaphor of a hardened heart was pivotal. Because it’s true, life has hardened me in certain ways but it has also kept my heart soft. Just tender enough to be willing to try, to feel, and to dare once again. This PhD journey is about to start and it’s already painful. It’s been painful when I knew what it meant to commit to a dream like this five years ago. The costs will be high. And it scares me everyday how memory fades. It scares me also how time flies and it never comes back. Moments you spend with family are sacred and they don’t come by often. How do I continue to find the right balance in pursuing my dreams of who I want to be and pursuing time with those I love? I don’t want to make the same mistake I did with my grandfather. Most days, I try not to. Living abroad in new york, I video called with my family almost every day or every other day. And I made sure to always end conversations on a positive note telling people I cared about that I appreciate and love them. I cannot take a moment for granted. But somehow in the midst of this summer’s craziness and exhaustion, I felt a mixture of emotions crop up. I felt gratitude and grief. I felt appreciation and apprehension. I felt resentment and relief. I felt so many things as a step up mom that can never take on the massive responsibility as my mother has done and continues to do for us. I feel right now so many emotions. But also peace. I am loved. I am to love. And I will be okay in this wild journey because I’ve got my family. I ran away five years ago to chase the world but now five years later, I know I am running towards my dreams with them xx