I wish I could believe in the wisdom of trees and the turning of their colors. But just this once I’d like to stop time. Stop the coming of fall, stop the coming of winter, stop this turning, slow it all down.
Flying on a small jet, toward my parents’ hometown, I was surprised by the iridescence of the cornfields — green, gold, maize, even red. Gone so long, you can forget what you once knew.
After all these years, I accept the quiet. Too often, we try to fill the silences. But sometimes we need to know that love is enough.
October
I am traveling back and forth between Dallas and Champaign-Urbana, Ill., to help my aging parents. My dad has a serious illness, so I am visiting my family for a few days every month. Before he became ill, I had not seen my parents’ home in years.
This morning, I am driving Dad to an appointment. He is quiet, thinking hard about something. And I realize that this is something that I do that frustrates people — not saying anything for long periods as I mull things over.
I am transported back to the fifth grade. I have qualified for the state spelling bee, and Dad has taken me and the rest of my family to the big city for the competition.
Dad and I get up early, and it’s just him and me getting breakfast, and we go for a drive before the spelling bee starts. “You only talk when you have something to say,” he remarks. “That’s OK, you’re just like me.”
One morning, Dad asks me to take his Mercedes out to get washed and to fill it with gas.
“Make sure the windows are closed when you go through the car wash,” he says. My father is a pioneering engineer, but I am technically inept, and I can’t figure out how to adjust the seat for my height. Dad is nearly a foot shorter than me. So I have to drive the Mercedes with my body scrunched down, the steering wheel closer to my chest than I would like.
Before I head to the car wash, Dad shows me a red button on the key set. “Don’t press the panic button,” he says.
You can consult Rumi and Neruda for poetic descriptions of love. But for me, love is more mundane.
Love is standing in the supermarket aisle, studying each flavor of Clif Bar, trying to find those that your dad might like.
Love is walking in the cold rain to the police station, to thank a police officer for being kind to your mom after a fender-bender.
Love is crying in a hospital room, wanting to solve what can’t be solved.
November
Tonight I am listening to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D. Dad has given me some CDs for my laptop. They are my only entertainment, since the apartment my siblings and I have rented has no TV or Internet. Dad taught me to love classical music, to be open and patient. I remember how our house was filled with Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Brahms on Sundays as he worked through his stack of LPs.
This afternoon, my father told me that he wants to see one more opera with me when he feels better. He wants to come to Dallas and sit with me in the Winspear Opera House. I paused, then said, “It’s a beautiful place.” And I smiled, and there was a lump in my throat, and I wanted all of it to be true.
I have never been closer to my parents and my siblings than I am now. And it’s too bad — pitiful, actually — that it took my parents’ declining health to get me to this emotional place.
And so there is one thing I want to tell you. Make peace with your family, whatever that looks like, if it’s at all possible. Make amends, forgive others and forgive yourself. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Reach out now.
December
A few days before Christmas, my sisters and brother and I throw a pizza party. We crowd into the small apartment — Caroline, Marjorie, Greg, me, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my nephews and nieces. Our parents are resting at their house.
It has been 13 years since we all got together for Christmas. I don’t know why it took this long. There was no catastrophe, but somewhere along the way, we drifted apart. Our parents were traveling all over the world, and there was no reason for us to come home.
I make a salad, pour the wine and play a CD on my laptop. My sister’s husband has burned an old Christmas album we used to play all the time when we were kids. Greg and Mara and their 2-year-old go out for a walk and bring back the pizza.
Greg jokes that he and I will now play the role of the drunken uncles. I squeeze his shoulder and we watch our 22-year-old niece and the teenagers tease one another and dote on the baby.
Something occurs to me. I launch Spotify on my laptop and find an old REO Speedwagon song. This was the song that was huge when my siblings and I were teenagers. I crank it up, and we are back in the early ’80s, and my sister is the wild child once again, and I am the good son once again, and life is a wide horizon.
“We should talk about some of the uglier questions,” Dad tells me. We are sitting in a McDonald’s, drinking coffee. He picks at a hot apple pie that looks more like a fritter.
We talk about his condition and my mom’s health issues. We talk about where they might live for the rest of their days, and where Mom should live if she should outlive Dad. We talk about where he and Mom might want to be buried.
A few months ago, I wrote my dad a letter. I told him that, whatever happened, my siblings and I would take care of Mom. I gave him my word.
Later, on Christmas Day, after my siblings and their families have left town, Dad and I walk with Mom. The mall is closed, so we drive to Dad’s lab, a huge building on campus with a lot of computers and cubicles and the smell of chalk.
We stroll up and down the academic hallways, past posters detailing the latest research findings. I follow my parents. After all these years, they still hold hands.
For the past three Christmases, I have traveled overseas on my own, to Spain, India and Turkey, to prove something to myself, I’m not sure exactly what. I have a list of about 20 places I plan to get to, if I’m lucky.
I realize that my dad has passed along to me a heart for exploring the unfamiliar, a desire to embrace the world.
This evening, Dad asks me where I’m hoping to go next. I talk to him about Laos, Nepal and Bhutan, and also Russia and Poland. And, of course, Burma and southern Spain and Portugal and Australia and New Zealand. And Jerusalem. Well, maybe there are more than 20 places.
“Where would you like to go?” I ask him.
He talks to me about Egypt and Peru and Argentina and Tibet and South Africa. He has been all over the world, but these are the places he has yet to visit. “If I’m well enough,” he says, “let’s go someplace next year.”
I nod. And I know that, whether or not Dad makes it to these places, I will add them to my list. And when I get to Egypt and Peru and Argentina and Tibet and South Africa, I will say a prayer, and I will carry my father’s name with me.
January
The pain that I felt when I said goodbye to my parents tonight — it’s a pain I haven’t felt in a long time.
When I saw my father’s tears, I felt an inner collapse, and I could barely walk out of the house. The night air was so cold.
Still, I know it was a gift I was given, to see my father’s tears, because they were the tears of love, the love for his family.
I also know it was a gift to spend the past few weeks with him and Mom. I know I will look back on this time and be grateful.
There was a funny moment today. I was driving through the snow, on my way to pick up Dad’s medicine, and the radio was playing ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin,” and I got stuck behind a man who was driving an old funeral hearse. I said to myself: “Life takes you to unexpected places.”
February
On Valentine’s Day, I take my parents to their favorite Italian restaurant. Mom complains about being rushed, and my parents bicker and then make up and then are quiet.
We are joined by one of Dad’s students who will be traveling back to Vietnam to marry his sweetheart. He is applying for the grant that will be awarded in my parents’ names this spring. He needs to write a personal statement.
“Do you have any advice for me?” he asks.
“Think deeply,” I say, “about why you want to do what you want to do.”
“Ah, yes, the ‘why’ question,” he says.
After dinner, I take my parents to a concert at the university. We listen to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, and in the darkness, I see my father take my mother’s hand.
They are tired, so I drive them home at intermission. I walk them to the door and kiss them goodnight. I want to leave my parents to the magic of their movie — a real and imperfect magic, not a fantasy — and I want to disappear from the screen. And so I do, the snow surrounding me, and the night.
April
Finally, it’s springtime in Illinois. Everything seems to be blooming. There are even some cherry blossoms in the neighborhoods I drive through. This town is full of parks, and the sidewalks and roads seem full of people walking, running and riding their bikes. It was a long, brutal winter here, and there were times I wasn’t sure we would make it this far.
But here we are.
Yesterday, the Beckman Institute held a ceremony to honor several students who had won awards. We recognized two graduate students who had won the inaugural research fund established in my parents’ names. All I could do was watch Mom and Dad and savor the moment.
We celebrated with dinner at my parents’ favorite Chinese restaurant. Most of Dad’s students came, and even some of his former students, now gray-haired. I was astonished to learn that Dad had advised more than 100 Ph.D. students. It felt good to watch him and Mom laugh and joke, and my dad beamed as he walked from table to table, pouring wine.
After dinner, I took my 2-year-old niece out into the mall. The wide corridors were empty. My niece wore a flowery frock, and she still had her bib on. She was barefoot. And all she wanted to do was run. And so we ran together through the wide corridors of the empty mall, and she was laughing, and I was laughing. She stopped in front of a mirror in a storefront, and I felt I could see the passage of time, from her face to mine, and she said, “Reflection.”
Our time is limited. And even though I know this in my bones, I have to remind myself. All of this will pass.
But here we are.
On Twitter: @tomthuang
