July 23-24, 2026
Dear Leland and Everett,
Hoo boy. This summer is flying by. We still have a few weeks to go, but we are more than two-thirds of the way through. I knew this summer was going to be busy, and your mom warned me that we were doing too much. I don’t know that I would do anything differently, though I will admit things have been sufficiently busy that it’s felt difficult at times to catch my breath.
Let’s unpack and see what there is to learn. I’ll hit the high points, and then dig into whatever areas want extra attention.
The first thing to note is that Leland completed fifth grade and, thus, his time in elementary school. We finished the school year with some festivities and a ceremony allowing the school and the kids to say goodbye to one another. I’m generally not a huge fan of “graduation” parties at the end of preschool and elementary school. On the other hand, there is value in ceremony, and having some intentional ceremony allowing Leland and his classmates to say goodbye to the school, and the teachers and remaining kids to say goodbye to them, seemed entirely appropriate. Another dad and I compared these events to those of our childhood; our recollection is that our milestones were marked by fewer ceremonial events (e.g. we don’t recall celebrating the end of elementary school). We agreed that, while celebrating every milestone in a child’s life can go too far (thus, my resistance to graduation parties prior to actual graduation), some ceremony is appropriate. And I’ll give the school and community credit: I think we largely struck the right balance. We didn’t call it graduation, we called it promotion. There were no caps and gowns, though you did walk across a stage and receive a certificate. One thing I found interesting: after the ceremony ended, the kids were (uncharacteristically) almost as enthusiastic as the parents in gathering to take pictures together; it seemed to me Leland and his friends shared an intuitive understanding that they were marking a transition, and that transition was worthy of recording in some purposeful ways.
When planing the summer, Leland specifically requested we not travel immediately after the school year ended. So we spent the first week of summer in a camp with one of Leland’s closest friends. The following week we flew north to spend time with your Gran and Grampa, your cousins, and your cousins’ parents (your aunt and uncle, although I’m pretty sure you think of them as your cousins’ parents). The week after that Leland, per what’s become something of an annual tradition, attended an outdoor camp with another friend. To my surprise, Everett did not want to go to this camp (I was surprised only because Everett these days typically wants to do what Leland does, mostly because Everett enjoys being around his brother; I take it as something of a good sign that Everett was willing to assert his desire to do something different from Leland). Everett has been expressing his love for volleyball, so I used this week as an opportunity to sign Everett up for a volleyball camp. That was, comfortably, the most time Everett has spent playing volleyball (it was 6 hours a day, not counting an hour lunch break); fortunately I think Everett enjoyed it as much as he expected to.
I picked you guys up early from your camps on Friday and we drove up to Guerneville to spend a weekend at a house with another family on a “dads and kids” trip. This was sorta entertaining, as it was the first time I’d taken you both on a trip with another family with no moms involved. My friend and I decided in advance to cook rather than eat out, a decision that made me very curious on how things would go: again, we have gone on several trips where we cook most of the meals, but the moms and dads typically fall into pretty standard roles on those trips, with the moms handling a lot of the meal prep and anticipating household needs while the dads manage the grill and entertain the kids. I was genuinely curious to see how the trip would go without any moms around and, fortunately, everything went very smoothly. The other family’s kids are older, but everyone got along great. We spent our days tubing and kayaking and swimming on the Russian River, and our nights cooking, eating, watching the World Cup, and playing games. It was fun, and a nice opportunity to get out in the wilderness and see some friends we don’t see as often as we’d like.
The following week included July 4 weekend, which meant very few camps were offered. I decided to let you guys have a week of downtime ahead of our big trip. You guys had a playdate or two with friends, but we mostly watched the World Cup (which was a really pretty incredible experience this summer; both watching the games but also seeing visitors from all over the world experience the different cities hosting the games…and some places on the road in between) we played a lot of mahjong (your Ah Ma picked up a custom made mahjong table, which inspired us to play).
July 4 was on a Saturday. We really didn’t have an plans; partly because most of our friends were out of town, but mostly because we were leaving the following Monday and (your mom especially) needed to pack and get some down time ahead of our trip. We don’t typically celebrate Independence Day in any meaningful way: fireworks shows are typically past bedtimes, and most of our crew is too noise-sensitive to enjoy a fireworks show anyway. But America’s 250th seemed worth celebrating, so I wanted to do something. We of course watched some World Cup games, but I looked in advance and found as many Independence Day celebrations on TV as I could and recorded them all. On the day, I scanned through looking for events that you might enjoy that might expose us to a little Americana. Most of what I found did not interest you much. We watched little of the Sail 250, which I thought was pretty cool but everyone else found pretty boring. And we sampled different networks’ telecasts during the evening. The Washington celebrations were impacted by potential storms, which ruined at least one telecast. If memory serves, I believe we settled on CNN, which was showing highlights from celebrations in various cities across the nation. So we could watch as CNN cut from Boston to Nashville to San Diego to New York, among other cities. This telecast still wasn’t enough to hold all of our attention, so I merely put it on while the family played mahjong. The telecast highlight came once the storm in DC cleared. After the President gave what seemed like an interminable speech, the fireworks display began. And oh, what a display. The fireworks played over a cover band singing American classics; not the fireside singalong songs of yesteryear, but pop and rock classics from the last few decades. Most had nothing to do with America specifically, they just happened to be some of the catchiest, most popular songs the nation has produced. They announced that the band were military personnel; I was shocked when I realized the singers were also military personnel in uniform. I was shocked because the singing was so good, and I somehow assumed they had hired professional musicians to cover classic songs. The fact that these were uniformed personnel filled me with a strange delight. I don’t exactly know why, but watching military personnel perform struck me as much more inspirational than our typical habit of hiring stars to perform. The only explanation I have for why I enjoyed the touch so much is that it reminded me of just how multitalented our military, like the nation it represents, truly is when given the opportunity to showcase their talents.
The Monday night after July 4 weekend we left for the airport. Our flight took off around 1am, which meant we left our house around 10pm. You guys are both typically asleep before 10pm, so this was pretty disruptive to your sleep patterns. But you both handled the airport really well. Your mom and I wanted to sleep, and so both skipped the in-flight meal after takeoff. To our surprise, you both decided to eat. Your mom had already fallen asleep, and I decided to let you guys make that decision for yourselves. In retrospect, it might not have been the best decision: while Leland slept really well on the plane, Everett really struggled to fall asleep. Everett is normally the better sleeper, so this surprised me. Everett just couldn’t get comfortable, a situation he eventually found really, really frustrating. My best guess is that the late meal kept Everett awake, and I suspect it’s something we’ll learn from going forward.
We landed in Taiwan around 5am with about 2 hours to kill before our next flight. We wandered the airport and found some food before heading back to our gate. Fortunately Everett slept most of the next flight, because he really needed it.
We landed in Singapore around noon. Like last year, I wanted to get to Asia a few days before your program began so that you guys could adjust to jet lag; unlike last year, we decided we didn’t need to spend those days in Taiwan. You guys have both, independently, been clamoring for us to bring you to Singapore; as best I can tell, you both wanted to see the place where you were born, which has really prompted me to think about how humans form attachment to places. Since Singapore is on the same time zone as Taiwan, we decided to spend our days adjusting to jet lag in Singapore.
We thought four days in Singapore would be more than enough; for the average visitor, it probably is. But we have five and a half years worth of memories and relationships built up, and really, really didn’t have enough time to see and do everything we wanted. Personally I’m horrified at how many people I didn’t see on this trip; your mom and I left feeling like we almost have to come back soon. Maybe if we do the language program again next year, we’ll spend the days leading up in Singapore again.
But we saw and did a lot. We saw the new part of the airport (the Changi Jewel), which is an attraction all its own. We went to the zoo. We briefly visited Orchard Road. We walked around the Marina Bay, visiting the Marina Bay Sands hotel, the attached Shoppes, and wandering across to see the Merlion. During the evenings and on Saturday we saw old friends from when we lived in Singapore. One of Leland’s favorite things to do in Asia is partake in a good hotel breakfast buffet; truth be told, I’m the same way: the combination of western (like omelettes and bacon and pancakes) and eastern (like dumplings and noodles and buns) options make for a strangely delightful combination. So we booked a package for the hotel buffet, which is how we started each day in Singapore. Overall, we managed to consume most of our favorite Singaporean dishes: laksa, char kway teow, carrot cake, prawn me, and bak kut teh. To my delight, you enjoyed pretty much everything. Everett insisted we try durian. The place we visited offered something of a sampler platter. Everett genuinely enjoyed the first type he tried, to my delight. Unfortunately, the subsequent two types had a far sharper flavor, which turned Everett off of the whole experience. It may be awhile before he is willing to try durian again; right now he is dead set against it, despite the one he enjoyed. My only hope is that Everett does, someday, try it again.
I had three favorite activities on the trip. The first was walking the Botanic Gardens, which was something of our default family weekend activity when we lived there. The gardens were walking distance from our apartment, so we would go there and wander through the gardens when we didn’t have other things to do but wanted to get out of the house, burn some energy, and get some stimulus. The gardens did not disappoint. We saw a black swan and a number of monitor lizards and, as always, the basic scenery was delightful.
My real favorite activity was visiting our old apartment complex. We obviously can’t visit our old apartment, but we could walk the grounds. Seeing the grounds brought back a lot of memories from the early days of both your lives, which was something I genuinely enjoyed. The best part was hearing Leland’s scattered memories. Ahead of the trip he correctly recalled the outline of our old house. When he saw the old pool where we used to swim almost every weekend, he started explaining to Everett how I used to bait him into swimming the width of the pool at two years old: I would lift him out of the pool and put him on the edge. Leland would jump toward me into the water, at which point I would begin to swim away on my back. Leland would race to catch me; when it worked just right, he would remain about a stroke away from catching my neck until I reached the opposite side of the pool. Leland remembered that experience in remarkable detail, even pointing out the exact spots where we would start and finish.
My third favorite activity was seeing our old helper on Sunday morning before we left. She looked after each of you while your mom and I were at work the first year (for Everett) or three (for Leland) years of your life. She remembers you both fondly, and your mom and I hold a lot of gratitude for the care she showed the two of you. So we invited her to visit us on her day off, and she met us at our hotel, where we treated her to breakfast, gave her a few gifts, and caught up a bit. It was really nice to see her: as much as I enjoyed seeing old friends, seeing our old helper stood out as one of my favorite parts of the trip.
We left a little sad and feeling like the trip had been a little too short, but excited to get to Taiwan. We’re now a little over a week and a half into your three week program, where you spend your days learning Chinese and your nights and weekends exploring Taiwan, seeing friends, and eating some of your favorite foods.
The language program seems to be going well: you both acknowledge learning a lot of Chinese thus far, you both like your teachers, and Leland especially seems to have made some new friends. Your mom travelled to India with work the first week, which made for a slightly more complicated adventure. But we’ve navigated quite well overall. We’re a little short on sleep right this moment, but that’s partly because there just feels like so much to do and experience while we’re here.
We spent last weekend visiting cousins in Taichung. The cousins have some kids your age, which made for an interesting experience: their English seems to be about as good as your Chinese, which makes communication difficult but not impossible. But I’ve become convinced that play is a universal language: you’ve been able to play with these cousins since long before you were able to speak any Chinese (or they any English). Over the course of the weekend, I do get the impression you found the ability to communicate, at least somewhat. I suspect that weekend did as much to improve your Chinese as the program thus far: there’s nothing quite like being motivated (and forced) to practice in a real environment.
We took in a baseball game this past Tuesday, for the second year in a row. Watching professional baseball in Asia is a far more exciting, intense experience than in the US. There are chants and songs and dances that the crowd and cheerleaders perform throughout the game, which creates a really fun and dynamic environment.
Everett’s favorite food is sushi, and his favorite way to consume sushi is via conveyor belts…so we’ve done that three times in less than two weeks. Partly we go so often because everyone enjoys the experience, but mostly we go because sushi is so much cheaper here than in the US. On other nights we’ve had beef noodle soup, dumplings, and all our favorite Taiwanese breakfast foods. It’s been a pretty great experience, and I’m looking forward to our last two weekends (and our last school week in between) before we fly home.
Last night your mom came out with us, and she let you guys play some Pokemon as well as the Taiwanese pinball game you both like. I joked that your mom has suddenly become the “fun parent” while I’ve become the “strict” parent; while your mom was gone last week I was pretty insistent that we come straight home (eating dinner on the way) and be showered and ready for bed by 7:30 or so. Entertainingly, you guys nodded in agreement. I wondered aloud to your mom if there is something inherent about the primary homemaker (I think the word I used was “everyday parent”) becoming more strict and boring, vs the parent who gets to spend less time with the kids naturally wants to maximize the fun in those interactions.
After pinball we grabbed some dinner we could eat on the way home. This was one of those experiences, again, where we benefited from having your mother around. The menu was entirely in Chinese, and while your mom wasn’t able to read everything, she was able to communicate with the stall operators to understand what all the items were. The stall operators were wonderfully friendly, leaving us feeling great about our interactions with them. And the food was wonderful. These were a combination of grilled and fried meats on skewers, and everyone loved them. We observed that the seasoning was perfect: not too strong, but not too mild, and just a delicious flavor.
You guys are currently on your field trips, with Leland visiting a museum on the coast and Everett visiting a bakery factory (where I assume they make all the baked goods distributed around Taipei for this particular brand). This weekend we plan to spend some time with some of Leland’s classmates out near the coast on Saturday, and then hang out with our local friends on Sunday. Next weekend we’ve booked a hotel in town (one where we stayed last year, and everyone loved) before we head home next Sunday.
We still have another nine days before we leave, but the time is starting to feel short. Everyone has been articulating the things they still want to do on this trip, and we’re starting to realize that we might not get to all of them. So last night we made a list, and will start chipping away at that list this weekend.
The approaching end of the trip makes me appreciate that summer is almost over. You’ll be back in school three weeks from yesterday. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the trip, as well as the summer, and yet two things are simultaneously true: I’ll cherish memories from this trip to Taiwan and this summer as a whole, and I’ll be ready when they both end. I’ll be ready to get back home to our beds and our friends back home, and I’ll be ready when you guys go back to school and we can get back into a bit of a routine again.
Perhaps I should be careful what I wish for, because I’m not entirely sure how long it will take us to adjust to a new normal, whatever that may be. One thing this summer has only reinforced is that Leland is changing, and will continue to do so. In your Chinese programs here in Taiwan, Leland has moved up to classes with middle school-aged kids. Leland is loving it, and to his credit has made friends as seamlessly with the older kids as he does with peers and younger kids. Those older kids have more independence than Leland gets from his parents currently, and it’s prompted Leland to seek out more independence himself. I sorta anticipate this trend will only continue as he get into middle school and starts interacting with older kids back home. Last night we had a pretty entertaining conversation, where Leland was asking for the opportunity to go to Taipei 101 with your friends unsupervised…but had forgotten to do most of his daily responsibilities. We were able to have a healthy conversation about the linkage between independence and responsibility, and that you have to demonstrate responsibility in order to gain more independence. Fortunately Leland was able to learn that lesson without missing out on fun with his friends: apparently the plans changed to get families together this weekend (which makes me wonder if some of the other parents also balked at the idea of letting you kids go out unsupervised). So this summer has only reinforced the theme of change, and the idea that Leland is embarking on a period of change that will likely feel rapid to mom and dad.
For Everett, the themes of this summer are obviously different; they are also harder to summarize. Even predating this summer, Everett’s temper started to flash in new ways. Long ago Everett learned to retreat to his room when emotions overtook him, and I’ve long been grateful for his ability to handle his extreme negative emotions in such a healthy manner. Over the last few months, however, Everett’s temper has begun to flare up – particularly when interacting with Leland – and without the mature toolkit kicking in. Partly this is because Leland doesn’t help things: unlike Mom and Dad, Leland doesn’t have the maturity to prompt or invite a mature response from Everett. What I think I’ve noticed: when Everett’s anger starts to escalate, Leland goes into a type of defensive mode that presents (at least to Everett’s eyes) as belittling or mean-spirited behavior. And while Everett is not wrong that Leland’s behavior is often unattractive in those situations, what Everett is too young to understand and appreciate (at least yet) is that Leland isn’t acting out of malice, but out of a desire to protect himself from Everett’s wrath. Leland’s immature attempts to protect himself reflect his youth and inexperience, as do Everett’s reactions when his brother dismisses Everett’s frustrations and concerns.
Those arguments between the two of you are something I’m watching and hoping to steer in the coming years. For better and worse, I suspect it’s a dynamic the two of you will carry into adulthood. Quite often we discover where pain gets stuck through recurring confrontation with loved ones, and those recurring confrontations serve as guides for how to heal – if only we find the tools to discern and follow the clues using a new map. As your dad, I’d love to help you heal now, and I certainly will try. But my sense is that forming scars as kids and then learning to heal as adults is something of a developmental milestone for adulthood.
On this trip, Everett’s temper has extended beyond just Leland and been directed at Dad and (particularly) Mom as well. I have a few hypothesis for why that might be. For one thing, Everett did a really good job holding things together while Mom was traveling with work. I’m increasingly convinced that kids have an intuitive sense when one parent is gone that they need to behave better for the remaining parent, recognizing that the single parent is more likely to get overloaded and overwhelmed if presented with too many problems. Consistent with that hypothesis, when Mom came back from her trip, Everett almost immediately devolved into something of an emotional wreck. Your poor mom was exhausted after taking a red-eye back to join us for the weekend…only for Everett to seemingly punish her by having a remarkably short fuse with her (and everyone else) the night she came home. I asked, even as it was happening, if Everett had found it difficult having mom be gone while we were adjusting to life in Taiwan: he responded angrily and sarcastically, “believe it or not, Dad, yes!”. I always think find it helpful when we identify the real root of our frustrations. In this instance, identifying the issue helped, but didn’t solve everything.
My second hypothesis is just one of fatigue: I think Everett is tired, and fatigue is contributing to his short fuse. I’m noticing Everett often presents as tired well before bedtime on this trip, and (unusually) is sleeping until the alarms go off in the morning. And fair enough: we’ve had an incredibly busy and active summer, and I can hardly blame Everett for struggling to keep up with sleep.
To your mom’s credit, she came out with us last night partly because she wanted to invest a little time and energy into repairing relations with Everett a bit. She originally envisioned taking Everett out alone, while I enabled Leland to hang out with one of his friends. But Leland’s friend wasn’t available after all, so we all went out together. But your mom still focused some energy on spending time with Everett. At the end of the night I asked if things were better between the two of you, and Everett said yes. I asked if they were merely improved (but still needing work) or all the way better, and Everett said “all the way better”. I’m really glad you guys (Everett and Mom) were able to get the time and interactions you needed to repair, and I’m particularly glad your mom knows how to invest in your relationship to repair things when needed.
My third hypothesis is that Everett is not looking forward to Leland going to middle school next year. This will be Everett’s first year at Elementary school without Leland, and Everett has been dreading that eventuality for a year. It was on our trip to Taiwan this time last year when I first broached the subject, remarking that it would be Everett’s last year with Leland on campus. Everett, I’ll never forget your response: your face instantly contorted into what was intended to be a smile, but was pretty clearly a desperate attempt to hold back tears. At the spring talent show I noticed a pretty heavy dose of “senior year spring semester energy” – that sense of invincibility from being Big Man on Campus, that sense of inevitability that the year would finish soon (and nothing anyone could do would stop it), and that excitement that a milestone was on the horizon – from the fifth graders. After the show, Everett raced to find me, burried your head in my shoulder, and said “next year is going to by horrible!” I asked if it was because Leland would be gone, and he affirmed “Leland and all his friends!” It struck me that Everett noticed the same energy I had, but that he – understandably – had personalized his reaction to it.
For the last two years, Everett has spent much (most?) of his time at recess and afterschool playing with Leland and his friends. I once asked Leland if that bugged him; he responded “kinda?” Everett is sufficiently physically developed that he can mostly tag along, and he particularly seems to thrive when the group plays sports. Sometimes Leland’s friends pick on Everett, which leads me to try to find a delicate balance: on the one hand, I expect Leland to protect Everett when his friends cross the line into truly inappropriate behavior; on the other hand, taking some abuse from the older kids is price of group entry for the younger brother. I had a younger sister myself, so haven’t lived these dynamics, but I’ve asked every man I know with an older or younger brother if they’ve experienced the same dynamics, and to a man they’ve all affirmed. I genuinely think there is something universal to that element of brotherly interaction: younger brother tags along, and suffers some abuse along the way. The benefit, so far as I can tell, is that as you guys age Everett will have a small army of protectors looking out for him in adolescence.
But the downside of spending so much time with Leland’s friends is that Everett has underinvested in relationships with kids closer to his own age. To be fair, I sympathize: I too tended to hang out with older kids growing up, and I suspect being tall and physically developed lends itself to seeing older kids as peers. I am curious how much of Everett’s recent behavior is prompted by a presumably unconscious sense of dread that Leland is going to a different school next year. Personally, I suspect having Leland move on to middle school will be very healthy for Everett, as I suspect it will prod Everett to form more of an independent identity and rely less on his seeming identity as Leland’s younger brother.
My final hypothesis is that Everett is our bellwether kid. I believe every family has a bellwether kid, and you can almost always identify the kid if you know the family well enough and know what to look for. The idea is that the bellwether kid is the relatively sensitive kid who feels the positive and negative energy radiating out of those around him. And when the bellwether kid feels negative energy flowing out of family members, it really bothers them. What happens is that no matter the source of the negative energy, the bellwether kid reacts, and most often reacts via misbehavior. So if Dad is feeling stressed out because of work, the bellwether kid intuitively feels the stress and acts out in an effort to get the negative energy away. Families tend to treat their bellwether kids as problematic, at least partly because it’s much more convenient to try to “fix” the bellwether kid than it is to address the negative energies flowing through the rest of the family.
This trip in particular, and this summer more broadly, has left us all a little stressed out. Your mom, on top of everything else, has been going through a lot of organizational changes at work, which is causing her more work stress than usual. I’ve noticed that I’m feeling and carrying more stress than I have since I worked; my sense is that this summer has included a little too much stimulus and not quite enough self care. In my last note I set a goal to do a good job of setting boundaries in order to continue my creative pursuits. Well, until now I’ve broadly failed at the attempt, and I think the lack of creative outlets and self care has come at the cost of feeling and carrying stress.
Ha, I’m just now realizing I left out a pretty major event that occurred this summer. Last Wednesday, a little over a week ago, a friend called me. It’s actually the family we met in Guerneville. The wife is here this summer with the kids, while the husband is home and working. Well, it turns out the wife was in a bike accident while visiting Sun Moon Lake; she was calling me from the emergency room in the small town nearest the lake. It was 1am back home, so the husband wasn’t reachable. Her kids had helped her get an ambulance and get to the hospital, where the doctors were telling her that 1) she broke her back, 2) that she needed invasive surgery, and 3) that she might be paralyzed. She was, quite understandably, panicked, and looking for some advice on what to do. When she called I was actually walking through the MRT station on my way to pick you up; I had tons of background noise and chaos surrounding me. For the first few minutes while she talked, I really had no idea what to say. For awhile I realized I could just listen and hear her talk: she was emotional after all, and understandably needed to express her fears and concerns to give her some space to function. So for awhile I adjusted to the new reality by just listening. Eventually I asked her what happened, but honestly that was a ploy to buy myself more time to figure out what to say. I’ll admit I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t know what to do or say. But one thing she mentioned repeatedly was that she wasn’t sure that this was the doctor she wanted operating on her. One should always get a second opinion in situations like this, and it’s fair to wonder whether the one available doctor in a small town is the most capable doctor to handle such an important procedure. Truth be told, I think her intuition also told her that this doctor wasn’t the right one for her. So I asked the first question that finally popped into my head: “are you safe to move?” She realized she hadn’t asked that question, so hung up to talk to the doctor (and call other people). Well, it turned out she was safe to move, so later that night she and the kids rode an ambulance, sirens blaring, for three hours to a hospital in Taipei.
As this was happening, my thoughts turned to my friend (the husband/dad of the family) and the kids. The husband is probably my closest friend in the world, so I couldn’t help but empathize with him. And for the kids, I couldn’t imagine how traumatic and stressful it might be to 1) watch mom break her back basically right in front of them and 2) suddenly be thrust into a position where so many decisions and actions rested on their shoulders. So I reached out to my friend, and I reached out to the kids. The kids had made contact with the dad, so he was now awake and aware of the situation. The kids seemed to be handling the situation decently well, and my goal there was mostly just to make sure they felt like they could reach out if they needed anything. I offered to the dad that it might make sense to set up a group WhatsApp where the kids could reach out for help, and then whichever dad (my friend or me) happened to be awake or available could respond and provide whatever help was needed.
This was all happening while your mom was in India. Unfortunately, this meant that, though I prioritized picking you guys up, looking after you, and minimizing your disruptions, I was pretty constantly on the phone calling or texting folks. You guys handled the situation wonderfully, but I felt pretty bad about how much time I spent on the phone that week, and how little parental attention you guys were getting Wednesday and Thursday night of that week.
By Wednesday night, the mom had reached a hospital in Taipei that specializes in spinal surgery. She contacted everyone she could think of back in the States, and managed to find a spinal surgery specialist in Taipei who her network knew and could contact. Fortunately, this doctor happened to be the attending doctor in the ER Thursday morning. By the time he reached her, he was already aware of her situation (their mutual friend had somehow made contact) and was looking for her. He asked for new scans, reviewed her situation, and decided he could address her situation with a minimally invasive surgery. According to my friend, this doctor exuded competence; he clearly put her mind at ease about finding the right doctor. Even better, he was able to fit her in for surgery that afternoon.
After dropping you guys off at school and coming home for a bit, I went to the hospital to find the family and see if there was anything I could do to help. If nothing else, I just wanted to see the situation in person, just to give my friend back home an update based on my in-person observations. When I arrived, I found the daughter near an entrance to the hospital with her grandmother (her mom’s mom) who lives in Taipei. Turns out the daughter had an ear infection, so the grandmother was helping her schedule an appointment with a doctor in the hospital so that she might get some antibiotics. When I arrived they briefly paused their scheduling attempt to bring me to the ER to see the mom. The mom seemed pretty glad to see me. She was pretty emotional at the sight of me, and I’d be fascinated to (at some later date) hear what she was feeling in that moment. My sense is she felt some relief at having an adult present (to be fair, her mom was also there, though I got the sense she didn’t feel at all comfortable leaning on her mom for support, for reasons I don’t fully understand). I kinda suspect she also felt some shame over the accident; she had already expressed that she felt like the accident was the result of carelessness on her part. I also strongly suspect she just felt unusually vulnerable, which probably felt pretty uncomfortable and unfamiliar: this is a person who strikes me as someone who doesn’t let her guard down easily, for better and worse.
After I arrived, the mom turned her attention to me, and I kept her company by letting her talk and asking her questions about the situation. This freed the daughter up to focus on getting her ear appointment scheduled. The son seemed deeply uncomfortable by the situation, and generally seemed to be avoiding the ER entirely. I can’t say I blame him: even at 15, I can’t image that it’s easy for the baby of the family to see mom in that kind of state.
When I arrived it was unclear whether the mom would have surgery that day. We were uncertain right up to the point where they prepped her for surgery in the early afternoon. I was lucky to be able to stay with her up until it was time for her to go into surgery, at which point I helped the daughter and grandmother move their belongings up to her room (which only became available once we confirmed she would go into surgery; until that happened the mom would remain in the ER). For whatever reason, I think my presence helped the mom in the hours before surgery.
I left the hospital to come pick the two of you up from school. Each of you, independently, came running up to ask “Dad, is Auntie paralyzed?” Clearly this situation had something of an impact on the two of you too. I had to tell you, honestly, that I didn’t know for sure, but that she had gone into surgery and that we would need to wait until the surgery was over and we heard what the doctor had to say.
At this point I texted my friend back home, just to give him an update on everything I had seen and experienced. He could get most of the same information from his kids, so I focused on 1) making sure I shared all the relevant details briefly – just in case the kids left something out due to the complexity of the situation, and 2) giving him my personal observations on how everyone was doing. Basically, I was sending my friend the updates I would have wanted had the situation been reversed. Fortunately I thought the kids were holding up remarkably well, and I frankly thought the day had gone about as well as could be imagined: the mom had gone from being relegated to a crowded and brightly lit ER where she was unlikely to get any sleep (due to pain, brightness, noise, and a lack of privacy) to having surgery with a doctor that inspired confidence in one of the most discerning people I know and moving into a private room. The kids let us know when the mom came out of surgery several hours later, but they didn’t hear from the doctor that evening.
I went back to the hospital the next day (Friday) to find out the surgery had been successful, that the mom would be receiving a brace for her back later in the day, and that upon receiving the brace the doctor wanted her up and walking around. That shocking outcome simplified my role for Friday. I participated in the celebratory mood before noticing both kids pulling out snacks early in the afternoon. I asked them what they had for lunch. They responded with blank stares. I asked when they had last eaten a meal. The blank stares remained. Finally I asked “what have you guys eaten today”. Without either kid changing expression, both just held up the snacks as if to say “this”. I said “how about we go get something to eat”. The mom agreed, and though the situation immediately became more complicated thanks to a nurse arriving to clean her wounds and take a new x-ray, followed by the brace being delivered, I managed to help get the kids each a cooked meal that day. I left the hospital thinking the prior 48 hours (starting from the time she had broken her back) could not have gone much better for the mom, and feeling a sense of gratitude for the rapid improvement in her prognosis, and perhaps a little proud of my tiny contributions.
After spending the weekend in Taichung with the cousins, I returned to the hospital on Monday to help the mom as she got discharged from the hospital. My contributions at the hospital were small: helping to carry stuff home, but also (again) just providing the mom a sense of security from having an adult she trusted around. We got the mom into a taxi and back to the apartment where she and the kids are staying in Taipei. I helped her unpack and get settled in. We took inventory and realized she needed a few things to feel ready to unwind and sleep through the night, so we split up to run some errands: the daughter went to a supermarket to pick up an assigned list of items, while I went with the mom to a medial supply store to pick up a few tools she apparently needed to help sleep at night. I was fairly stunned by how well she was able to get around: she walked slowly and gingerly, but far more capably than I ever would have anticipated. Once the mom felt adequately set up, I left to let her focus on rest and recovery. I told her I would come back to check on her later in the week, but she texted me a few days later to say coming by would be unnecessary because things were going well and she and the kids were fully capable of taking care of her needs. This was good news and a welcome break from what had been a fair amount of time and energy allocated on my part. I am reminded as I type that I would like to check on the kids, just to make sure they too are doing well and don’t need some support.
So, on the one hand, I give myself some grace for not writing thus far this summer: between a busy June schedule, followed by trips to Singapore and then Taiwan, where your mom left for India while we got you settled into a school routine just in time to learn that our family friend broke her back and needed some support…of course I haven’t had as much time to write. On the other hand, I subscribe to the theory that your external world comes to reflect your internal state, and take the chaos of the last few weeks especially as cause for reflection. I have yet to reflect sufficiently to identify what, if anything, the chaos of the last few weeks are meant to teach me. What does feel increasingly clear is that, despite my aspiration to set boundaries, I have not done a great job of actually doing so. It’s tempting to make excuses for the lack of boundary setting: one week you guys were home from school, and I’m not sure I’d ever be comfortable denying a friend support in a scenario like what happened last week. But I recall wasting some opportunities to write early in the summer when you guys were in camps. And over the course of this week I’ve said yes (sometimes explicitly, other times implicitly) to encroachments on my time that I knew would frustrate my desire to write. So I wonder how much of the chaos of the last few weeks is meant to remind me to set more and better boundaries, vs how much is due to some other internal resistance to creation. Honestly, at this point, I don’t know the answer.
Either way, I’ve enjoyed the summer thus far, and I look forward to the rest of it. My intention is to write again next week, so we’ll see if I do a better job of setting boundaries and prioritizing some of my own wants and needs. In the meantime, I very much look forward to our weekend together as a family. We’re becoming increasingly capable and confident navigating Taiwan by ourselves (versus our first few trips, where we pretty constantly had folks hosting us and showing us around), which really opens up our ability to enjoy and appreciate our time here. Leland even hit something of a milestone tonight: twice he motioned for me to let him order food on behalf of the family in Chinese. Until now we’ve prodded Leland to use his Chinese in Taiwan frequently; he almost always declines. The lone exceptions: when Leland wants a treat, and I tell him that he’s going to have to order it for himself if he wants it. But tonight was different: Leland quietly but proactively asked for the opportunity to practice his Chinese. In each case the interactions turned more complex than anticipated; in one interaction they were out of one of our requested items; in another they had several clarifying questions. In each case Leland handled the communication, and translated to me when he needed my inputs deciding the correct answer. I was quite proud of that progress, which seems to affirm the overarching thesis that these trips to Taiwan seem to help your Chinese; in part from the sheer frequency of practice at school, in part from the intrinsic motivation that you seem to get from being in Taiwan and recognizing how speaking Chinese opens up opportunities and experiences that are otherwise unavailable, and in part from the opportunities to practice out in the real world surrounded by people who often speak English reluctantly if at all.
Everett himself seems to have hit something of a stride with his own Chinese. He’s not as far along as Leland, but he’s in the same class Leland was in last year (at a younger age). Earlier this week when I asked if Everett was learning any Chinese, you response emphatically “Yes. A lot.” Leland expressed a similar confidence in his learning at about this point in the program last year, so I am optimistic about Everett’s future motivation and progress as well.
In terms of the future, I’ll be curious to see. At some point I anticipate sports (especially for Everett) are likely to encroach on our ability to spend summers in Taiwan. And it’s entirely possible you guys will decide you don’t want to do this trip anymore. Earlier in the trip I genuinely wondered whether we would all decide we wanted to come back next year; at this point I’ll be a little surprised if we aren’t unanimous in our desire to return. If anyone disagrees, it would likely be Everett. But Everett enjoys our local friends, and has really started enjoying the program in a way I don’t think he did last year or even last week, so I’m optimistic even he will want to come back next year.
Because as disruptive as this trip is to my schedule, I genuinely enjoy coming here. I enjoy seeing our friends, eating the food, and experiencing a culture so vastly different from America’s. I also enjoy how much both of you enjoy your time here. I particularly enjoy how much your mom loves being back in Taiwan, and how happy she seems when she’s here. I also enjoy how we get to grant you both a little more independence while we’re here, trusting that things are a little safer and more accessible in Taipei than they are in American cities. On a deeper level, I enjoy how we get to measure progress via our time here: it’s relatively easy to remember where we were this time last year as a family and compare to our current situation; this comparison allows me to gauge not only your progress in terms of learning Chinese, but even just your basic maturation and ability to handle increased responsibility and independence. These trips serve as little test beds, which allow us to learn and recalibrate, often making minor but important adjustments to how we operate for the following year. We have big changes on the horizon, but I find myself optimistic that this trip is helping us prepare for those changes, in part by helping us appreciate how much has already changed, but also by helping us take a fuller and more honest look at where we are as a family, and where we need to focus our attention and energy accordingly.
With that, here’s to a great weekend ahead, visiting friends and experiencing some new things.
I love you both.
Love,
Dad
Letters to Leland 