We left approximately 2 hours today after I was finished my treatment. I think that today I may drop a bit of weight as traveling was a bit tough. I ate things throughout the morning, and we stopped for Subway in Mattawa. I ate half of my 6inch sub and then afterward I did not feel great. I did not throw up but I spent the next couple of hours in an uncomfortable state. It is a weird sensation where I get a bit light headed and I do not feel well. I ended up taking a 15 minute power nap during the ride and then I felt much better afterwards. I never realized how much Mel speeds. She also brakes hard, which is not great when you have some nausea.
Right now we are feeling super lazy and ordered food into the hotel so we do not need to leave. We will probably end up going to T&T though as my mother requested some things and we need to stock up on some Asian snacks for the room. The kids love going there and we can spend hours in that store. It is rare that my mom actually specifies that she wants something, so I feel that we need to go get it for her. It is an herb that we use in eating pho and I always buy it for her and she ends of freezing it. I would also like to go to a Lebanese grocery store to pick up some things from there as well.
My mom has always been an intermediary between my father and us. I would always push the boundaries of what was allowed and would question and beg and plead them for things. Most of the time they would say no and I was actually ok with that. My mom would always come to me afterwards to explain why my father said no and check in to see if I was upset or not. She was always concerned for our well-being. I was not always a good son and would get mad at her when she picked me up late after hockey. The weather was bad and she would be coming from work and would be coming to get me and I was not always tolerant of her being late. She has a great fear of driving in the winter because of me and me making her drive me around. My parents did not want me to play hockey and it was difficult to get them to allow me. It was an expenditure that was expensive and not something that immigrants would have ever budgeted for. Once I started though they made it work. They never came for our of town tournaments and I would get a room by myself at 15 years old. Looking back it was a bit ridiculous that they just let me do that. I was responsible for feeding myself and would order pizza to my room while other parents and kids went out to eat. I appreciated every thing that they did and my mom would save her money as my father handled all of the finances and would disperse money to my mom to spend and provide the kids with an allowance if we were not working. My mom would save her money and give it to us when she thought we did not have money. I am not sure if she offered to my siblings or not but I never took it. She would scrimp on groceries so she would have extra. Parents always look out for their kids over themselves. If I am giving the choice of spending money I will always spend it on Mel or the kids first. I think that I learned that from my parents and saw them do it so frequently.
As is tradition in Asian households the first question that is asked when you walk into the house is have you eaten. It took Mel awhile to get adjusted to that. The mark of whether the kids are well behaved in my mother’s eyes are whether the kids ate well or not. If they ate a lot of food then they were good boys. If they did not eat a lot then it was not a good day. I eat a lot less now than I use to. They thought that I use to eat a lot and the portion sizes for me were a lot more than what they are now. When my mother sees me eat so little it stresses her out. She also talks to her sister and knew that my cousin was not eating much and throwing up, so that association does not help. My mom still tries to protect me and any talk about death in our family is forbidden to share with me, or if anyone else is having any problems. I understand that she is trying to protect me and shield me as a mother’s instinct. It is difficult to share things with her with some of the issues with language barriers and she does not understand it all. She saw me increase my appetite and then also saw it decrease. I think that she sees some connections with what happened with my cousin and it worries her but she will not share that with me, nor my siblings. This evening I have recovered my eating and have managed to eat frequently. I just need to maintain this for the rest of the weekend.
Quoc Hao