happy birthday, K! i don’t even know how old you are — suppose i could do the math. 33! trying to remember my earliest memory of you, but it’s lost. i think i only remember things from photographs. hm, but let’s dig a bit deeper here. hrm, okay, here’s one. unfortunately, not a happy one. i remember when mom hit you on the hand. i think you had thrown a B paper in the trash. M & I knew to throw ours away at school, but apparently we did not bestow this elderly sisterly wisdom onto you and so mom found the paper and she hit your hands with a ruler. think it was pretty traumatizing as she didn’t generally hit up until this point. at the time it seemed like she was upset about the B, but in retrospect — she was most likely more pissed about the hiding of it. i don’t remember what i did, but i wish that i would have comforted you more or at all, but i was young and unaware and so i probably did nothing and i’m sorry for all the times i did nothing as a big sister when you were younger. i hope to always be able to be there for you now. another memory i have about you is when mom woke me up in the middle of the night wanting to call the police because it was almost midnight and you were not home yet. i used to be pretty annoyed when you would do that “to me” but i suppose you had to do what you had to do at the time to strive for some normalcy in your teenage years and i don’t blame you.
oh oh oh! i thought of a happy memory — at least for me. when m and i took you prom shopping. think it was for junior prom. green dress. it was fun, m and i trying to zip up your dress and both probably deep down wondering why you were the only one who got boobs in the fam. we ended up making fun of how ‘pudgy’ you were instead. i thought you looked really pretty in that green dress although i probably never told you for obvious asian family dynamics reasons. i remember that huge felt taco truck pillow you made for josh, pretty impressive. i remember going to your senior awards ceremony and being proud that you had gotten so many awards — again, unspoken sentiments. i don’t think our parents even went to that. more recently, i remember you being at harry’s vigil and feeling comforted that at least one person from my clan was there. thank you for trudging out on the bart. and thanks for the reluctant hug at the end. hah! hbd – look forward to more memories whether to be forgotten or remembered, sad or happy. <3