Three decades

30 years ago, my parents were married in Taiwan, and shortly thereafter, made their way across the ocean to begin a new life for my family here in the States. In the three decades since, they've been able to raise a family, build careers, make good friends, help bring many other members of their family over, serve the community, and countless other things that would take multiple blogs to recount.

Mom on top of Half Dome, last week:
I had the chance to live back at home with my folks for 5 years after college. While many "boomerangers", particularly ones of Asian descent, tend to dread moving back in, I've been enormously blessed to have been able to live with them as a transitioning young adult and to have the benefit of their wisdom, care, and guidance. My parents have taught me how to value hard work, but in the proper context of being able to influence and bless others. How to value simplicity in material things and straightforward honesty in relating to people. How to value quality over status. My Dad's taught me how to fix a sink as well as given advice on how to plan my career, and my Mom has helped massage away the pain of RSI while giving me words of encouragement even when I didn't think I needed them (I actually really did).

My brother and I have been so fortunate as to have such a strong model of a marriage partnership to look up to. Day in and day out, whether we appreciated them or not, we could count on Mom and Dad to lead the family - do some teaching, some planning, some disciplining, some fun outings and good conversation. We could see them work out their differences in arguments peacefully, could see how they would support each other in the various projects and causes that they would volunteer for, and even hear about how they'd work as a team to provide some amateur marriage counseling for their friends. We've been blessed.

The family at L'Ecole restaurant in NYC, 2004:
A few weeks ago on a family hiking trip (my bro was back from NYC), I was walking and talking with my Dad, who was mentioning how he and Mom had to cancel a week-long camping trip to Tuolomne Meadows in Yosemite that they were going to go on for their 30th anniversary (they ended up going to the Valley for three days to hike Half Dome). Since 30 is a nice, big round number, I asked him if he wanted me to plan some party with their friends so that they could celebrate, since they would be in the area. His response was, "Nah, we don't need anything big to celebrate. Every day is a celebration."

Corny? Sure. But with my parents, I know that that kind of sentiment is a sincere one, and I'm grateful for it.


Happy 30th anniversary!