February 11, 2025. Seattle, my dear James. My first time in this city since our last time here, together, in that beautiful summer of 2016.

The pike place looks the same. The pier looks the same. The cheese shop looks the same, the big mechanical arms still stirling in the huge milk tank slowly. The seagulls almost look the same. Except that one, captured in your amazing lens, just taking off from the water. Full of energy, grace, and majesty. Full of life.

It was a splendid summer night. We were going on a cruise to Alaska the next day. And we just drove from Portland that day. And we had been on the road for two weeks before that, starting from San Diego.

We climbed on to the rock right next to the lazy sea lions in La Jolla Cove, so close we could count their whiskers.

We joined the long lines at Porto’s Bakery in Burbank, so that you could taste the freshly made cheese potato balls, instead of the ones two days stale when I brought them home previously.

We laughed when we saw many other campers gathered around excitedly to look at a couple of deers in the Yosemite valley basin. As for us from the east coast, deers are probably more often a sighting than dogs and cats at home.

But we did get excited, and quietly so, watching an elk picking at the fruits under an apple tree by a scenic road in the coastal mountains of Northern California.

And in Fresno, I drove a little too close to a sewage truck and got sprayed with some of its stuff leaking from its back to the hood of our car. The next couple of days, you all made fun of me for causing us to not be able to use the AC because the stench was just, put mildly, too strong.

But driving down Lombard Street in the cool summer morning of San Francisco is always such a beautiful memory. Even when it was in a car with a smelly hood. Inside the car, there were the four of us, who couldn’t be happier.

In the Tall Tree Grove where only 50 visitor passes were issued every day, it was surreal for the four of us to hike amongst the giant sequoias in absolute tranquility.

It was deep in the mountains of northwestern pacific. It was so far from home. It was out of this world. At one spot, I asked you and Sister to wait so we could take another family selfie, “hey, picture time. Because we won’t be coming back here again”. Sister said, “why did you say that!” I corrected myself, “Mom and I are not coming back here. But you guys will.”

What a fool I am. I am so sorry, my James.

But at this spot, on this pier by the water just after sunset in Seattle, in the summer of 2016. You took a stunningly beautiful picture of the seagull, taking off, wings spread wide, eyes determined, for the sky.

February 2025. It’s freezing and gloomy by this same water. But it’s warm and bright in heaven.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

January 18, 2025. Dear James. It’s another 18th.

Six months after the last July 18th.

And six months till the next July 18th.

My dear James.

Just two days ago, I was walking in Boston by myself. The freezing wind from the ocean was like a thousand icepicks slamming into my face, its coldness creeping deep into every element of the body. I had to keep my gloved hands in my coat pockets.

I knew not far ahead was the battleship from when this great country was founded, and the naval destroyer from world war 2. I didn’t go to see them. I didn’t need to.

I climbed on them, touched the big guns, the cannonballs, and the torpedoes, with my seven year old boy in the beautiful summer of 2010 already. I didn’t need a new memory from this gloomy and dreadful winter day.

While wandering the mostly deserted streets covered in snow and salts, somehow the TV show Band of Brothers came to mind.

All those years we were together, James, Band of Brothers was a show I always believed we would watch together one day. I had been saving it for the right time to do it. Just thinking we would wait for you to grow a little older. Just a little.

But we never did. Instead, the idiot in me got you the books of The Three Body Problem as soon as it came out, when you just turned sixteen. When you were really not old enough to read them.

I am sorry my James. I am so sorry my baby.

I got home last night. As soon as I pushed open the front door a crack, first thing into my sight was Milo, right at the corner of the door, leaving just enough room for the door to swing open by him, looking at me longingly. And Felix was right behind him.

They had been home alone for a few days. But because of that, they got all the food laid out for them to eat to their heart’s content, all days, and all nights. No longer the need to beg for food for hours before meal time, three times a day.

Sometimes I wondered by myself, are Milo and Felix happier with us at home, or without? Guess I won’t really know the without part. But I am quite sure they are happy enough with us.

James. It is not the way of nature to be without. It can not be any god’s design to be without.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

January 1, 2025. Dear James. The calendar flips to another new number yet again.

Happy New Year. My baby.

Yesterday afternoon, I went out for a run. Half way through, it began to drizzle. Kind of felt like tiny frozen raindrops at first, pinching my face as I ran. Then definitely rain. And then out of nowhere, thunders came roaring down. Yep. Thunders on New Year’s Eve. First time in my life.

Felt tired and went to bed at nine last night. Somehow I just woke up at 12:23, dreamless. Spent the next six hours switching between reading and watching some silly documentaries, until a sliver of dawn came through the curtains. Guess that’s the purpose? Happy New Year, my Xiaoyang. 

December 25, 2024. Dear James. Merry Christmas, my baby.

We are home for Christmas again. For the first time since 2019. That was our first Christmas at home, since 2011.

You asked to be home for Christmas in 2019. And we hurried back home that Christmas Eve. In time for Christmas presents unwrapping. I got you and sister the same AirPods. Small things. Sister’s were wrapped in the original box. But I put yours in multiple layers of boxes. One after another. Eventually the largest one on the outside was your size 12 shoebox.

And my prank on you played out. The video I taped of you unwrapping them has so many laughs. Even though I can’t watch it again, that video plays in my mind all day every day still. It even has that look of you faking mad at me while holding the tiny AirPods box in the front, after so much work.

Aunt Zhang and Uncle Wu visited you yesterday. From a long way away. They recounted seeing you when you were just born. Still that chubby little meatball. They still remember you were named after James River in Richmond.

My dear James Wei Huang. Yes. Richmond Virginia Huang. My James.

Merry Christmas my dear. You are home. We are home.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

December 21, 2021. Dear James. It’s been five years since our last ski trip, together. All four of us.

Mom, sister and I finally made it, for the first time. Only the three of us. And your phone, your Apple Watch, and your AirPods.

Always the leader of the pack, you took us through every single slope. You would always speed off into the distance. However, I always knew that you would be standing just behind one of the turns to wait for me, and then sister. Always there.

Five years later. Now it’s little sister to give me the headstarts, and then race off, and then patiently wait for me somewhere ahead.

Time and time again, just seeing sister standing there, looking back up the slope for me to catch up, stirred up a wave of warmth in me despite the cold.

Time and time again, looking at her figure right ahead, I would blink my eyes a few times to flip away the imagination.

No. It’s different. I used to look ahead at you standing there, and look back up the slopes at sister coming down.

But I wasn’t looking back up the slopes anymore. There was only sister waiting for me at the turns.

Sister still loves skiing. But it’s just different. Skiing is different. Our world is different without you.

I miss you so much my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

December 13, 2024. Dear James. I opened your Gmail account this evening, and saw at the very top an email with the subject line “James, discover what’s changed since you’ve been gone”. It’s from Google Gemini, and it further says “Let’s get back together”.

It wants you to try their AI tool. And yes, it’s always been in my imagination this could have been a field you would be spending a lot of time in, my James.

“Let’s get back together“.

James. Two nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with yet another strange dream. You and sister were attending the same college. It was late afternoon at home. Somehow I had to leave for that same college early to start a new teaching job, on a subject that I didn’t know much about. I was nervous and wanted to get there early myself to prepare for the class.

But I was worried about sister driving there alone at night. It’s a long drive, a few hours, with long stretches of mountain and country roads. I asked sister if she could ride in your car instead of driving her own. Sister wasn’t happy. But she agreed that she would talk to you for a ride.

I knew I saw you in the house. But I don’t understand why I wasn’t talking to you about all that. Sister looked just the way she looks now. But how did you look? Why didn’t I have a clear look of you in the dream?

So I stared at the ceiling above the bed in the darkness after waking up. Until I thought I saw it again in my mind the glimpse of your face in that dream. It was more rounded, more of your baby face, than the sharper and more handsome face of the young man.

While still thinking why I didn’t get to see you more clearly and talk to you, I remember that day when you were just starting your fourth grade, and sister her first grade. We just moved back to Virginia three months ago. Mom was in China. I had to make a business trip to Cleveland, OH, for the day.

It was the day the nine year old brother taking care of the six year old baby sister. Breakfast. Waking to neighborhood school bus stop. Walking back home. Dinner. And bed time.

When I called you from the airport at 7 in the morning to make sure you were up, you picked up the phone, and proudly told me, “Ba Ba, we are eating breakfast!” And then just past 3 in the afternoon, you called me, “Ba Ba, we are back home!”

Before that day, I asked you if we should get someday over to help you. You assured me you were confident you could take care of sister and yourself. Sure you did, my James.

Always the dependable big brother. Even when it was just the more rounded and chubby face of that little boy.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

December 5, 2024. Dear James. It’s bitter cold out there. Weather forecast says snow is going to start at 5AM. Thirty more minutes. We are going to see the first snow of the year. Always one of the exciting moments for you, my James.

That also means Christmas is coming too. Forever a moment I have been trying so hard to escape from.

Watched a TV show just a few days ago. A doctor told his daughter that he had a very bad day because he just told another father that his daughter just had her last Christmas. That father acted out and hit the doctor for the bad news.

Dear James, at that exact moment, all I was thinking was I wanted to be in the shoes of that father. No, not that hitting the doctor part. Just the knowing part, my dear James.

We have the funniest gift unwrapping video of you for the Christmas of 2019. I have been watching it over and over again in my mind thousands of times.

If I had known it would be our last Christmas. If I had been given that news the day after that Christmas. It would still crush me, I know. But I would make sure every day after would be more fun for you. And every one of those days would have a purpose, my James. I would make sure of it. No matter what came after.

A couple days ago, your good friend Jason texted me, asking about us, telling me he was just looking at old pictures, and thinking of you, and missing you.

For minutes. I was in tears. But they were warm. So very warm.

I miss you too, My Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

November 24, 2024. My dear James.

Saw that McRib is back for the holidays on the internet. That’s another unexpected bell that went off out of nowhere.

James. Remember our first, and last, time having McRib? It was at the Flushing, New York, McDonald’s, in December 2009. In one of those every few weeks trip from Connecticut to Flushing, for groceries, diem sum, and haircuts. But that time we went straight for the McRib. And the McDonald’s was so crowded. Seemed everybody was going for the holiday special menu. There wasn’t even a table for us in the restaurant. We had to eat outside in the cold. But it was delicious, even though we complained about the heavy saltiness. You love ribs. I love ribs.

But we never went back for a McRib. Don’t know why. We just never did it again.

James. You don’t know it. And we never even talked about it. Your first time in a McDonald’s was when you were just seven months old, in March 2004. We were visiting from Richmond to find an apartment before our move back to northern Virginia. We went to the Vienna McDonald’s for breakfast before meeting the real estate agent. Of course you didn’t eat anything there except snacking on a few cheerios we always carried abound. And before that, I had to run up and down the Tysons Corner Hilton to find a microwave to warm up the little jar of applesauce for your big breakfast.

And now our home is so close to this McDonald’s. How would you have imagined that? I never would. Fate really is determined on play tricks on us, isn’t it? Yet I would never ever want to go back in there.

And how can I forget the McDonald’s in that small town down from the Snowshoe Mountain? Almost every single time, we would stop in that place. Big Mac for you. Big Mac for me. Cheeseburger for sister. Salad, or chicken or fish for mom. Apple pies for you all. Yep. The McDonald’s we had been to the most, in the middle of nowhere.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

November 18, 2024. My dear James.

It sometimes seems like forever ago. When the time we shared seems to be running away faster and faster. And when the time forward seems meandering at a snail’s pace. Time has been playing tricks with me.

Last night, you came back to my dream. Since seemingly forever ago.

You and sister had both been off to college. But somehow I felt you were just starting your second year, even though you should have been three years ahead of sister.

You were both back home for a short holiday break. But before I could even see you, talk to you, and feel your presence at home, something upset you and you were already back to college before the end of the break.

A girl came home with you on the trip. I asked her to check on you but I heard nothing back. I messaged you to make sure you were ok, but no response either.

Then the day later, somebody showed up and delivered a big and strange suitcase, with all your things. I frantically tried to unpack it. I unwrapped some photo frames at the top of the suitcase, large, small, rectangle, round. But thoughts of what might be happening to you flashed through my mind and soon overwhelmed me.

I knew I needed to do something more urgently. I needed to stop unpacking the suitcase, and go to you. But where? I felt helpless.

And I stopped going through the suitcase. And it all went away. Before I could try to see what else were in the suitcase that you sent me for the last time.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I loved you my dear baby. 

November 9, 2024. My dear James.

After visiting you, I pulled up the Maps app on the phone. Zoomed out, zoomed in, moving around. And then I saw that spot for a trailhead that looked so strange to me, pretty sure I had never been there.

Less than twenty minutes later, I pulled into a parking lot, put on your AirPods, got off the car, and started walking. One foot in front of the other. Just the way we did it, so many, many times, together.

Slowly, the residential neighborhoods faded away. Leaves got thicker on the ground. The trail turned up hills, into the woods, and down to a creek. It’s a world of deep orange, one of your favorite colors. And a world of tranquility.

I thought I got lost at first. Pretty sure I had never been there before. I just let my feet lead me along. And then a couple hours later, the turns, the foot bridges, and the little creek beaches began to look more and more familiar.

They all were so close, as they were right here and I could just reach out and touch them.

Yet they all felt so far away, as if they were something somewhere deep in the memory vault that I couldn’t place.  

I kept looking at the creek along the trail. It’s mostly dry, the creek bed all a thick layer of orange leaves. Eventually I found the same creek in my memory. When it was filled with clear and lively water, braced on both banks by the lively green of early summer.

The summer of 2012. The summer when we just moved back to Virginia from Connecticut. The very first hiking we did, you, sister, mom and I, together, was this trail, along this creek, although we didn’t hike all the way to where I started today.

Only that we started from the beginning of the trail on the other end. The beginning I would be walking into if I continued on today.

I kept putting one foot in front of the other for a while. I thought that was what I wanted to do.

I thought that was what I have been doing every day and night this past four years, and three months. Back to the beginning.

Eventually I stopped this afternoon. Not today. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the beginning of that trail today. I just turned around and found another way back to the car.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

October 27, 2024. Dear James. Winter is back. It is getting cold out there, again.

Days ago, in the twilight moments of the night, my mind’s eye opened to an image of a bright hotel lobby. It’s as big as a basketball court. Black sectional sofas in the middle, a long front desk to the right. The big fitness center at the far end, the hallway to the outdoor pool on its left. The lounges on its right. But there was no people in it. And no sound. No movement of anything. Just a still picture. And then opened my eyes trying to see more of it. Of course, it was only darkness of the night.

But that image is the hotel lobby lingers. And I knew right away where. It is the lobby of the hotel we stayed in in Rome. The summer of 2017. Even though I am very sure we do not have a picture of that hotel lobby in our photo album.

Yes. Even though it has been three years, two months, and five days since I had to close the photo album, and to close my eyes to pictures of you, I know for certain we don’t have any picture if that hotel lobby.

But I just saw it in my dream. A snapshot. Instead of a movie clip like the other dreams.

Why that lobby? And why didn’t I get to see more than just a still, and silent, image? I have been asking myself for days.

To no avail.

This morning. I decided to get away from that stillness, onto a moving train. But then the train is taking me back to the morning train from Berlin to Prague during the spring break of 2019.

It is a movie clip, ending with you dragging the large suitcase, leading us on the cobblestone streets of yet another intriguing and captivatingly beautiful place.

I miss you Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

September 10, 2024. Dear James. I found myself waking up in a dream. I woke up to find the house empty.

And then somehow I realized my sister, my mom and my dad were going on a small cruise ship, touring a few small islands.

I thought to myself. It must have been a mistake. How could they be going on a cruise without me. So I hurried to the ship. I didn’t have a ticket. But I sneaked onto the boat amongst other passengers.

I found the cabin on the upper deck, but it was for only two beds, for my sister and my mom. Dad must be somewhere else. I kept looking, and found dad’s bunk on a lower deck. There was his stuff on the bunk. And my gray suitcase standing on the floor. I recognized it right away. I even opened it to check, and found my stuff in there. It felt good to know they were prepared for me too.

But there was no bunk for me.

I thought to myself. There must be an empty bed somewhere on the ship. So I just stayed on it, and tried to find my family. And I did.

When I was alone with my sister, I asked her quietly why they went on a cruise without me. She hesitated for a long moment. Then she said that was because they decided on the cruise in a hurry, only the day before, and somehow couldn’t find me when they booked the trip.

A relief washed over me upon hearing her explanation. They didn’t leave me out on purpose.

The ship arrived at an island later that day. It’s an island we had been to before, even though its name escaped me. So the four of us just took a walk around the main district near the port, more for the family being together. For some reason my mom and my dad were always hanging back. I couldn’t see them clearly. Even my sister didn’t talk much, except for when we needed to choose which way to go.

Back to the ship later that evening. The ship intercom was asking everyone to go back to their own bunk for ticket inspection. Anybody without a bunk would be required to leave the ship.

So I ran up and down the whole ship, trying to search for an empty bunk. But there was none. Not a single one for me.

Then I woke up. Really woke up. From that dream.

It felt so good to have been talking to my sister. In that dream. And that feeling lingered for a minute or two even after my mind was returning to this real life.

Except, I never have a sister. I finally realized. And I have never had that gray suitcase. 

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

September 8, 2024. Dear James. Dreams are supposed to be weird, I guess. This one I just woke up with is no different. If not more so.

I was on a trail by the ocean, running, by myself. Then I saw a boy running from the other direction, towards me. He turned around and then ran in the same direction right before me. He was fast. People were cheering for him.

I tried to match his pace. But only for a few steps. Soon the boy left me farther and farther behind, and disappeared from my sight. However hard I tried.

The trail got rocky. The trees and bushes alongside grew thicker. And it turned quiet as I ran on. There was nobody else for a long while, until I saw a young man just ahead of me. He ran at a pace slow enough for me. He looked tired. I caught up to him. He told me he came from far away. He had been on this journey for a long long time.

We ran together, at a relaxing pace just right for me. At a pace I feel home. The young man suddenly asked me, “Why are you carrying the big rock on your back while running?”

“Did I?” I answered. I didn’t even know. Then I knew. I noticed the big rock on my back. And I realized both of my arms were twisted backward carrying it.

We ran on together. The trail ended in a big drop, a small cliff actually. It was a patch of black sand, black rocks, and black ocean water below.

It never crossed my mind that we should stop there. I was just thinking how to jump and land safely below. I told the young man to wait and let me try first. He told me to drop the rock first. I said no. I couldn’t. And I wouldn’t. The rock would stay with me at all times. Somehow I had a vague sense the rock meant something to you, although I didn’t know what exactly.

So I jumped. And I did land on the sand safely, even with my fragile knees that have always caused me problems. And with the rock still on my back. I looked back up to the young man. I told him not to do it. It was too high, too dangerous. I told him to find another way down. 

So indeed, the young man found a way to the right of the cliff, and got almost as low as where I was. But instead of coming to the dark bottom of the cliff, he continued onto another trail, winding away to the right, and ran on. Alongside the green trees, under the bright sky, although there was no sun. Until his slender figure disappeared, gradually, but eventually, into the distance.  

September 2, 2024. Somehow something has been nagging in the back of my mind all day, my James. Then I looked up the emailed flight itinerary. And there it was. Ten years ago today, we just completed our first sweep of Europe for fifteen days.

Ten years ago today, we took a flight at noon out of Paris back home. After we spent every last euro on wines and souvenirs at a store that morning.

The evening before, the four of us were strolling back to the hotel after dinner. We stopped at the river bank before crossing the bridge over the Seine. I would talk nonstop. And you laughed at me and said, “BaBa is drunk.”

Next to us, the colorful lights from the top of the Eiffel Tower were floating on the water, morphing into gentle curves in the summer breeze. Ever so playful. Ever so magical.

I can stay drunk in that magic forever. If it was ever up to me. My James.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

August 22, 2024. Dear James. In less than three hours, we will be getting on the road for sister’s college. Yes, it’s her move-in day.

Little sister is a college student now. My James.

Little sister had her seventeenth birthday. Little sister got her formal driver’s license. Little sister started senior year at high school. Little sister had her eighteenth birthday.

And now little sister is leaving home and becoming a college student.

Little sister has been walking the trails where I had always thought I would see you first, my Xiaoyang. Little sister hasn’t been little for a long time.

Last night, I asked little sister if she would like grilled cheese for breakfast. She happily said yes. Why did I think of grilled cheese? It’s been a long time since I last made it. So long that I can remember exactly when. But I knew it must be during your early high school years. One of those mornings.

Because grilled cheese is one of your favorites.

Because grilled cheese was the order you made at that small eatery near our new home, shortly after we moved from Virginia to New Canaan, Connecticut. You ordered grilled cheese. And I had to ask you, “What is grilled cheese?”

That year you were just turning six. The summer of 2009.

And I know you would be coming with us, my dearest son. 

August 12, 2024. Dear James. Been jogging around a couple dozen miles in this city the last few days. The place I once was so familiar with has become almost a stranger. It’s grown so much. Meanwhile, all I have been trying to do is find the vestige from 24 years ago, 30 years ago, and 40 years ago. All those most likely considered eyesores to the busy people here, but buried deep in my forgotten memory.

The city looks younger. But the solace to my eyes are the traces of aged corners I randomly found. And then the thought keeps running through my mind: would it be different if I had made a left instead of right at this spot 30 years ago? Would you be still with me had I turned back there that night 25 years ago instead of moving forward the next morning?

Would. Could. Should. So convinced with all those lefts, or rights, or backs, or forwards back then. The last few days, it was all just my feet leading me. It seems it doesn’t really matter where I turned in all those dozens of miles. But it can’t be, can it, my James?

For 24 years, this city has gradually become just a name in my subconscious. Now it’s become a map again. But it seems it doesn’t really matter.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby. 

August 4, 2024. My dear James. Today you are twenty-one. A big man. Probably a head and a half taller than me.

Those days. Twenty one years ago. Twenty years ago. I would often just knelt by your crib, and then later your bed, laid my head down by yours. And just watched. Seconds, and minutes, sailed by. Didn’t matter. Because every single second of those time was overflowing with joy, hope, and boundless imagination. I had all I wanted. I had the whole world I needed.

And time added up. Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. Those were how I summed up your life on this earth. And then years. And years. And years.

Not enough years. My dear baby. Even though we are all just passersby in this river of time.

We had to celebrate your birthday on August 3 because I have to make this trip. I am sorry My dearest James.

It was sizzling hot at home when we were together just a few hours ago. Now while I am waiting for the next flight in the early hours of August 4, at this busy airport even at midnight, it feels like the loneliest and coldest winter in a summer.

Today you are twenty-one. My James.

Happy Birthday. My dearest son. 

Dear James, you must have been hearing from your friends a lot today when they visited you, talking to you by your side.

I am all tears reading the messages they sent to me:

“Not a day goes by that I don’t cherish the friendship we had. He was a great man and continues to inspire me everyday”

We miss you. We love you forever James. 

Dear James. Four years.

Life is a birdsong. Is it just coincidence that you left us those fascinating photos of birds you took? The seagull taking off over the water of Seattle bay. The California Gull soaring high in the blue sky over the coast south of Los Angeles. The eagles in the New Canaan Nature Center.

We will meet again. On this. I am sure. My James. Is this my driving belief, for everything?

1461. One thousand, four hundred, and sixty-one days and nights have passed me by on this earth, my James.

Nights are always dark. But there had been a few bright days. The day sister turned seventeen. The days sister received her early college admission decisions. The day sister graduated high school.

Yes, my dear Xiaoyang. Those were happy days. I teared up looking at sister at those moments. But the darkness always goes along with even those moments. Every single one of those should have been a moment for you too, my baby.

Watched a movie not long ago. A father risked everything to be able to be with his terminally ill son. About your age, James. At the end of the movie, they were on a beach. The son on a hammock, swinging in the breeze. Amidst the splashes of the ocean waves, the father said to his son about all the wonderful places he planned to visit with him. The movie ended whit him saying, “We have time.”

The son just looked at his father, still swinging on the hammock, and smiled. All smiles. Just like you always do, my James.

James, remember we always got a national park annual pass. And we always made good use of it, leaving footprints all over the country, Hawaii, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, California, Puerto Rico, West Virginia, and of course, Virginia. After Christmas in 2020, sister, mom and I were at the gate of Everglades National Park, I didn’t give it a second thought and bought the annual pass again, wishing that we would hold on to the tradition and go on hiking just like before.

But no. We never used the pass again after that day. Sometimes things are just not meant to be the same, right?

Four years ago, you, sister and I had that two hour conversation about your college plan, and sister’s high school choice, in your study.

And then, before we knew it, we were all plunged into the utter darkness. What would sister’s high school be like? That had been the fear gripping me every single day.

Now sister is going to start college. But why do I have more fears now?

Remember when you were three years old, I put you in the dark walk-in closet as a punishment. I would hear you cry all that time outside. Later when sister was two, I did the same with her. But I heard nothing from the inside. Then when I opened the door, I saw her just smiling at me.

I knew back then the two of you are different.

But then when you were twelve and sister was nine, the three of us were watching a Harry Potter movie. Sister got scared by the movie scenes and walked away. She refused to come back.

Then I realized I really don’t know.

But I was still too careless to have fears. Until it was too late. I am sorry my James.

On the bookshelves from you room, I kept a recruitment letter to you from the United States Marine Corps. The mail came in in the summer of 2022. Even after we had moved from that house for almost two years. On the envelope, it says: “It’s just different without you”. I have saved the letter ever since although I never opened it. The letter is for you.

A journey of sixteen years, and three-hundred, and forty-eight days. A journey that is worth ten lifetimes for me.

And it has been a one day at a time wandering. For four years. What lays ahead, my James? It just different without you, my baby.

“Ba Ba, do it again!” That big smile with that big dimple on your right cheek, with the excitement flowing from your big eyes all over to me. When you were two years old, I would toss you real high, way into the air, and then catch you real low, just before you hit the floor. And then I looked at your face, expecting a shock. But you would smile big at me, and said, “Ba Ba, do it again!”

My dear James, you have always been such a thrill seeker. But yes, Ba Ba would give everything and anything. Only if I am allowed to do it again.

Four years. My James. It has been too long. My baby. But if it is so long, why does my mind keep going back to the bits and pieces of ten, and twenty, years ago many times a day?

What if I have come through all these four years, and whatever years that remain, just to find that what I really sought was the bits and pieces I had left behind, before July 18, 2020.

Remember I told you that I didn’t have dreams? I might have at most one or two dreams a year, for as long as I could remember.

In the past four years, however, I have become a dreamer. The dreams just began to come. And then it dawned on me. If it is not this world, there must be another world. A world where we can still be together.

I love you my James. I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby.  

June 16, 2024. It is another day of the day that gave, and then took away, the meaning of my existence. Dear James. It’s been the same blue sky since. And the same greenery, full of life. It’s another day of your favorite colors.

And the same walk of you and me. Our alone time.

And there is the same spot in the woods of the county park, where you volunteered to pull out the weeds in the early spring of 2016. You would never have thought we would be living so close to the park now, my James.

The ever so gentle breezes brush by occasionally. I was wondering if it was the same up there. Probably not. As I see the few white strands of clouds remain motionless in the infinite blue. In the thin air.

Somehow my mind drifts into the same blue sky, and thin air over the Monarch Mountain, Colorado, in December 2016. There were only a few of us on that beautiful, serene mountain that day. After four hours of unreal skiing, you suddenly said to me, “Dad, I am having a headache.”

I didn’t expect to hear that from you, the most athletic, the best and most enthusiastic skier amongst us. I never thought the high altitude would impact you first. Nevertheless, we decided to pack up and head down the mountain right away.

That night we stopped at an Applebee’s for dinner. I don’t remember what you ordered, although most likely steak. But I do remember that, on your plate, they stacked a mountain of fried onion rings so large that we had never seen before, or after, that day.

The night before the Monarch Mountain, we stayed at a small town called Salida. We even admired the name back then. But, was it really just an innocent, and incidental, name?

My Xiaoyang, there is also a book called Into Thin Air. It’s about a major disaster on Mount Everest in 1996. Way before you were born. It was about some of the bravest, toughest, and most experienced mountaineers, and some of their clients, on their mission to the peak of Everest. Quite many of them, even knowing they should have given up and come back down earlier, decided to push on, into the thin air, and never came back down. 

All the bravest souls.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you more my baby. 

June 4, 2024. Dear James, it was sister’s high school graduation ceremony, in Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C.

Watching her walking into the hall in an ocean of graduation robes and caps, through the lens of your big camera, I cried. For your baby sister. I knew it must be happiness.

It was the first time I held up your big camera, James. And it was still going strong. And I still could only use the full auto mode.

And then sister was on stage. Receiving her diploma, and her award certificate. It was all big smiles on her face. A precious moment of her life. And my life.

But tears just welled up uncontrollably, and down. For the first time, for sister, for anybody, that was not you.

More than a few times, in my imaginations, I have had that image of you in the same robe and cap,and the gold and blue and yellow tassel flowing in the air. In your big smiles. And that dimple high on your right cheek. Three years ago.

I miss you my Xiaoyang. I love you forever my baby.