Nai Nai

 My Chinese grandma name is Nai Nai.  It means Milk Milk or Boob Boob (Henry likes that one).  It’s my favorite name I’ve ever been called.

Henry.

My oldest.  

Our surprise baby who came four years before we planned. When we discovered he was coming, we made a total change of plans—Law school for John and a more creative English degree for me.  I thought he’d slow us down or crimp our style, and in some ways, he might have, but mostly, he made us brave.  He made us passionate about him and our little family unit.  He taught us how to be self-less and patient (oh boy did we ever need that), and how beautiful and wonderful the world was.

We almost lost him when he was two and a half.  I heard his heart stop beating and a hundred doctors rushed in, pushing us out of the room, yelling words no parents want to hear.

But he’s a fierce little fighter and was running around, up to his wild mischief before I recovered let along he recovered.  Again and again throughout his life, he faced all sorts of crazy odds and spent more time than any of our kids at the doctors and hospitals.  Each time, when John and I thought, Uh, this is bad, he bounced back—as if nothing scary happened at all.

Each time we were in the hospital, or getting sent through a cat-scan or X-ray or wheeled into surgery, he said, Someday, I want to be here.  I want to be a doctor (after he wanted to be a nurse—that’s who he most often saw).   We weren’t sure he’d finish High School, let alone go to any college at all.

This week, he graduates from University of Utah with a degree in Chinese with an emphasis in Pre-Med.  He will take the MCAT in June.  And true to form for Henry, he’s done this while he’s figured out how to get the love of his life to leave her adopted country (Canada), giving up her citizenship there (she was on the very last step), to move down to his parents house so he could marry her.  She did it (bless her heart).  They married and within nine months, told us we’d be grandparents.  Nine months after Hero was born, they told us that they were pregnant again.

He and his wife, Chloe Yahweh Zheng, not even three years after they celebrate their anniversary (a month before), gave us twins, Zuzu and Alfie.  They take after their parents—fierce, wise, calm, strong, beautiful, and full of goodness.

I sat in the hospital holding both of the girls (not pictured—not possible), smelling their fresh new life smell, watching Henry and Chloe sleep beside me and cried.  They were born after three hours of labor, twenty five minutes of pushing, absolutely no complications—vaginal (sorry tmi but important to note) delivery. 

And now they are home and they are healthy and so so beautiful.  Hero is in love with them—sometimes just a little too much—but Henry and Chloe would have it no other way.  They help her hold them and talk to them and share her books with them.

They are family.  You can’t walk into their house and not be filled with love and peace.

Yeah, it’s a complicated way to do this, but would I change Henry coming earlier than we thought?

Never.  It made our life.  Literally.

And I think these girls—they will make theirs.

I mean . . . 

And then there is the other children.

Piper and her friends didn’t get asked to Prom.  Didn’t stop them.  They bought dresses and tickets and took themselves.

Just so brave.  And awesome.

And Finn.  Oh, I can’t even write about this.  He did such a great job this year with track—one of their best 400m runners (winning or coming in second and amazing times), but on his final race—his legs gave out and he fell.  But he got up.  He got up and stumbled over the finish line.  His legs and hand bloody, his body utterly spent, he fell on me.  

What happened?  Why couldn’t I run?

Not enough food or water, hours in the sun, and then half an hour sitting on a chair waiting to run.  A perfect storm to freeze his muscles and hurt his body.  

How did he feel about it, half an hour later?  Laughter and jokes.  This will be a great story, Mom, he said as we drove away.  I’ll always remember this.

Where did he come from? 

I had a race like this, Shoreline Cross Country Championships.  I hadn’t eaten or drunk enough and sat too long.  My legs were rubber, I couldn’t run at all, I kept weaving and almost passing out.  A thirty-something alma mater from my school ran beside me, the whole time, pulling me with her voice.  When I finished the race, nearly the last runner (I was usually in the top five), I cried.  I cried for a week after.  I felt the failure in my bones.  I still feel it, thirty years later.

But Finn, within twenty minutes, he was over it.

My new motto: Be like Finn.

And then, Phoebe and Jake, graduated from BYU.  Jake in Electrical Engineering (a degree that usually takes 5 years to finish—he did it in 4–with a scholarship the whole time) starting a job at Qualtrics next week.  HIs brain makes ours spin in awe.  And Phoebe graduated with all sorts of awards and scholarships (I didn’t keep track)—but most of all—with a sheer love of what she studied.  She plans on working for a year and then going back to graduate school for an MBA that focuses on international development (I think).

Celia.  Our creative genus is figuring out how to be happy in this crazy world.  College has been a challenge for her—lots of set backs and fits and starts.  She still doesn’t know what she wants to study or even if she’ll continue to go to college.  But we know, without a doubt, that when she figures out what she wants, she will be brilliant at it.  Everything she touches, she makes better.

She smiles and laughs and hugs us again. 

Yeah, things aren’t perfect.  Far from it.  But I am taking the miraculous, the beautiful, the simple, the pure, the good and I am going with that.

Nai Nai signing off.