honor your parents
as a kid when you follow the expectation to ‘honor your parents’ you simply listen to and obey your parents. the concept is simple. they direct. you follow. this feels impossibly hard as a child but at least it is straight forward. as an adult child this feels much more complicated. for the most part as a kid i followed the ‘honor your parents’ rule for the most part/ enough to get by (LOL). as an adult, i’ve been able to graduate school, pay off my student loans, pay off my credit card monthly, buy a car and a house (yikes never thought i’d hit that milestone!) and maybe most important ask my parents for absolutely nothing. that’s the ultimate goal of parents right? to send your kids off in the world and for them to be self-sufficient. as a child of asian immigrants, that part is the easy part. the true ball of wax is honoring my parents when it comes to knowing them as people, not just mom and dad. when trying to preserve their heart somehow through my life. for them to be able to see the best parts of themselves in me. i’ll never say it to them but at some stage i hit a point where i wanted them to be proud of me because they are truly great parents (to be clear, not perfect by ANY stretch of the imagination..) and they deserve to have kids that reflect their wonderful selves. i’ve been trying to ask my parents more questions about themselves, about their pasts, about their hopes. its uncomfortable at times but whenever they open up its always so exciting and interesting. today i pulled out my sewing machine (its been away for almost a decade...) because andrew wanted to learn. it felt so strange yet totally second nature to show him how to thread the machine, to manage the bobbin, adjust the tension... then it felt even stranger to realize i was the teacher and that even after so long, i knew exactly how to do all the main steps. it reminded me of when my mom taught me how to sew and the nostalgia hit me so hard. i wonder if the biggest part of honoring our parents now is figuring out how to preserve their spirit, and continue it in the family. with every month and year that passes i realize the chances of me having children (at least through my body) becomes so much more slim. maybe the preservation just needs to live within me and maybe that’s enough.















