but let me correct your memory now
I always think I am above the Asian diaspora being overtly obsessed about media representation (never mind proper), in that if I find my experiences worth sharing, I'll make it about anything that isn't stinky lunch or cut fruit as an apology. But last week my mom asked her grandson not to forget her before she unknowingly slipped him back into his dad's arms, and I'm eating shit, consumed with this uniform desire for others to behold this equally mundane exchange. He was born this year, and he's moving to Italy the next. He'll be four if he comes back. My mom cannot leave the country.
It's not that she's illegal. She has papers. But she also has diabetic arms and legs and feet and a long-expired driver's license. She's 55. Sixty-five is young, and I've been overacquainted with the flux of her making it by then since she was 50. Her mom didn't make it past that even if it's only because she smoked half her life. Despite my mom's fervor and high praise for her, I know more about her father. Promiscuous, the family cook despite being the Ilocano one, jack of all musical trades. That's three things, yet all I can say about my grandma outside of her demise is that we have the same crooked smile.
My mother needs $2,000 to reapply for a passport and go from there. My nephew just needs to look at who feeds him at home. I'll be damned if, eventually, this should be foreign to anyone else. If not already for making you privy to this.