Letters to PiePie

To Baby Or Not to Baby

October 14, 2021

Dear PiePie,

At some point in your life, you might be faced with a decision on whether to have a baby (or two, or three, or many more!) There are many considerations and the prevailing societal sentiments when you’re at that crossroad might be so very different from now, but this was what your mom and I considered when we thought about having a child (you!).

We were hesitant. Having a child is an irreversible, life-changing decision (and I am appreciative that in our day and age, it actually is a decision as opposed to something that just happens). We were comfortable with the life we had, and there was no reason why that had to change. But deep within, I was quite excited to try new things and experience “childrearing”. It seemed like a fun thing to do, taking the plunge into the unknown. Your mom, having lived with sisters that had multiple children, knew the experience better and was more reticent. Ultimately though, she was ambivalent enough that my insistence won out. And voila, hello Piepie! That was not very exciting, isn’t it? It basically came down to me yolo-ing.

Because having a child has become an active decision, more couples now require compelling reasons to make that leapt. Otherwise, the flow of life will simply carry them along past the point of no return. By most rational calculus, having a kid just isn’t attractive. Raising a child takes time, money, and energy. Lots of it. It’s a 24/7 job with no weekends and no holidays. You can’t just take a “me” day. Parenting is tough, this is common knowledge.

And that is why for some, out of self-love, they decide to remain childless – the parents are either content with their current lives and don’t wish to have that change by having children, or their life aspirations might be incompatible with having a child. Another slightly different set of reasons stem from love for the unborn child – the parents might feel that they don’t have the socioeconomic resources to provide adequately for the child, or they worry about the climate future that the child will eventually inherit (this is probably a smaller yet increasingly prominent viewpoint).

I was well-aware of these arguments, and utterly ignorant of reasons “for” having a child. All I could muster was, “But maybe it’ll be interesting…?”. I guess you’re really lucky you got here?

I still don’t know really know the arguments for having children. But I do know that even after all those sleepless nights, even after saying goodbye to weekends, even after reading you the same storybook for the 5^th time, I’d choose to have a child like you again in a heartbeat. “Like you” is probably the operative phrase there.

I am reminded of my “thesis” on happiness from An Expressionless Happiness, where I wrote that new 10/10 life experiences expand our horizon of happiness, allowing us to reach higher peaks that we were previously unaware of. Having a child is like opening up a can of 10/10 experiences, where emotional peaks are reached with surprising regularity. Simply staring at you sleep is a 10/10 experience. Or sitting beside you as you watch TV. Or spending Sunday mornings taking you around, even if I have to wake up early. The happiness and contentment that comes from having a child is unspeakable, which might be why it doesn’t make for a very effective rational argument.

All I know is, I’m glad we decided to have you. It did change our lives, and I am so grateful.

Love, Dad

My University

August 30, 2021

Dear PiePie,

A few days ago, Daddy’s alma mater announced that it would be shutting down when the newest matriculated batch graduates 4 years from now. It would mark a remarkably short run as an institution, given that I was the pioneer batch of this college and graduated just a few years ago. We disagree with the decision and will try to fight it, even if it is likely to prove futile. But a bigger question that surfaces in conversations like this is: what is so special about an institution?

This is a really hard question. And as you read this, I expect you will be in a university (or whatever the equivalent is 20 years from now). It would be interesting for you to ponder about what makes your institution so special. To others, and to yourself. Below, I will simply pen down some reflections about my alma mater and why it is special to me.

There are so many facets of any college – the curriculum, the size and diversity of the cohort, the classroom environment, the physical spaces, the type of discourse that are encouraged, the leadership of the school, the faculty etc. Taken individually, most facets are not unique. Common curriculum? Most liberal arts colleges have it. Residential requirements? That’s easy to implement. Faculty focused on undergraduate teaching? Maybe not as common in larger state universities but certainly hallmarks of smaller colleges like Dartmouth. Whatever it is, someone, somewhere has probably done it. But, taken together, in the interstices amongst all of these facets, is where something that might have been common becomes infinitely unique and precious.

My college experience molded me into who I am and defined the trajectory I am on. The common curriculum forced me to leave the comforts of science and math into the unknown realms of philosophy, political science and literature. Whilst I still have absolutely no idea how to interpret texts, it allowed me to better appreciate the skills required to do so whilst improving my ability to read, write and synthesize. These have helped me more at work than any “hard” knowledge. Yet, the curriculum is still only a small part of the experience.

A bigger influence was the seemingly innocuous interactions and challenges that existed as part of “daily school life”. It is building up a new student organization while clashing with the administration. It is figuring out how to balance course loads across semesters to pursue a program that no one in your school has done before. It is fielding questions by employers about what your school is, knowing that you alone will shape their first perceptions. It is debating about the purpose and ideal structure of a student government and how students should “come to power”. As the first batch of students, every step we took was into the unknown, guided often by youthful idealism and rarely by common sense. We failed a lot, and sometimes learnt from our scars.

But perhaps the biggest influence came from the people who traversed along this path with me. We argued and debated over trivial issues (should the dining hall serve chicken with skin?), we cursed and swore at one another, but we also hugged and laughed together. It is the people that define the values and culture of an institution. And the first batch of students were the crazies who bought into the dream of a school that existed only in theory, and created it haphazardly in reality.

My schoolmates have searched for pirates in Indonesia and travelled by train from Vietnam to Finland. They are boldly pursuing their passions in ecology and literature and education. They care deeply about the people and world around us. In college, each of us charted a path no one has walked before, and because of that, we are emboldened to subsequently chart our own paths after graduation. Each one of us is an imperfect draft answer to the question: what must a young person learn in order to lead a responsible life in this century? In every one of these “answers”, I have learnt something.

And this is perhaps what I treasure most from college – getting to know and being shaped by the diverse set of individuals who, having had their idealism put through the crucible of crushing uncertainty, is blazing their own unique trails.

We walk together, in a hundred different directions. Go Kingfishers.

Love, Dad

PS: I realized this is probably more of an emotional catharsis for me than a letter to you. I hope to write a proper one soon!

The Examples We Set

June 1, 2021

Dear PiePie,

If someone in school snatches away a shared toy that you are playing with, what should you do? What if the item being taken is your personal belonging – like your bag or water bottle or hair clip? Should you simply accept it and wait for them to return, or ask them for it, or complain to the teacher, or simply snatch it back?

In the world of adults, many of these situations have no definite right or wrong, white or black. What you should do tends to fall in the not-so-helpful zone of ‘it depends’. And yet, as and when these situations happen, you will ask or look to us to guide you on what should or should not be done, and Mommy and I will have to give you a clear instruction on how you should respond.

We worry, as parents probably often do, that the example we set for you right now will ultimately have broader implications – in this case, that you might end up always passively accepting bullying or that you might become an antagonistic person who turns to violence. Both are extreme examples and you’ll probably end up somewhere in the middle, like most of us, but we still do worry.

Amongst friends who have children, it seems many believe the child should ‘stand up for themselves’. After all, no one wants to see their kid being bullied. ‘Society is unforgiving and we would do best for our children to recognize that and be equipped to survive.’ It seems we are trapped in an adverse game theory where the dominant strategy is always to look out for oneself first and foremost, tragedy of the commons be damned. But in times like these I always recall the following quote.

“It’s not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”
L.R Knost

I hope we raised you in such a way that you’re empowered and confident to make this world a little less cruel and heartless. Did we do it well? And…do you perhaps wish we might have raised you differently?

Let us know?

Love, Dad

Two

April 16, 2021

Dear Piepie,

You’re two today! And how much you have grown over the past year.

You are starting to develop a personality, clearly shaped and moulded by the way myself, mommy and yaya act around you. For better or worse, you are one OCD toddler. Your first phrase is “Oh No!” and you’d point to ‘dirty stuff’ – hair on the floor, spilled food on the table, or crayon marks on the wall – and shout (and I mean shout) “OH NOOOOOO!!”. Again and again and again. Until one of us comes over to clean it up. I marvel at how babies learn to develop early traits, and I wonder if those traits tend to carry over as they grow older into adulthood. We’ll see, wont we? 🙂

Some say two-year olds enter a “Terrible Two” stage. You’re probably not there yet because you’re still an angel to us, despite occasional tantrums, and perhaps I’m hoping you’d skip that phase. A lot of the frustrations you have bubbling out stems from you simply wanting something and us not understanding what it is that you would like us to do, and so you’d scream and shout and gesture wildly. Which is quite cute, actually.

I’m super happy at how you are turning out, and I do think we owe a lot of it to yaya, who is able to make sure all your physical needs are met, but also be strict enough with you such that you will actually listen to us. The silver lining of Covid is also that we’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with you as you start to develop your personality and traits, thus having the chance to influence that, while also just being there to see the ‘firsts’. In some ways, I think this might also be the time when you’re the most “fun” – because you’re just developed enough to go about and do some things on your own, but still quite clingy to us (which we like!). And as I mentioned in the letter for your first birthday, which I re-read, we need to be so thankful that you’d still be clingy to us.

I hope I’m able to treasure these moments as much as possible. To go through these new experiences as if I’m already looking back and reminiscing, savouring. To stretch these moments out even as the drumbeats of life thumps steadily on. To steal an eternity from the ephemeral.

You’ll only be two, once.

Love, Dad

On Choosing Jobs

April 1, 2021

Dear Piepie,

I’m going to be changing jobs soon. I first changed jobs a few months after you were born and now, as you’re nearing two, I’ll be changing jobs again. A decade ago, this pace of changing jobs will probably be considered quick, but nowadays, a two-year tenure is no longer considered that short. I do hope that I’ll be with my next role longer though.

There are many reasons that I’m moving, but in all such decisions, there’s always a pull and push. An attraction towards the new situation and some disenchantment towards the current situation. In this letter however, I thought it might be helpful to reflect on the pull – how I thought about whether the new situation is something that is attractive to me. In 20 years’ time, perhaps the notion of work has changed so much that what I’m writing here no longer fully applies. We’ll have that discussion again if that’s the case.

There are many factors goes into whether a role is attractive – below are some of the typical considerations:

Current compensation
- Pay and package: How much is the monthly pay and what are the leave and medical benefits?
- Stability of pay and package: How much of your package is guaranteed (not in annual bonus or commissions)? How financially stable is the company that is employing you? What is the company’s policies on redundancies, and do they retrench employees often?
Alignment to future goal
- Skillset building: Does what you will be doing help develop skillsets that will allow you to pursue your future goals?
- Exposure to industry: Does the work expose you to people who might be able to help you with your future goal?
- Internal mobility/trajectory: Does the company offer good internal mobility and trajectory?
Content of work
- How much do you think you will enjoy the day-to-day job scope?
  - There will always be grunt work that needs to be done, but everyone has hidden superpowers – things that are ‘boring’ to most which they simply enjoy doing more than others. For me, I quite enjoy working on excel spreadsheets and reading about businesses and annual reports, which is why I am going into investments
Culture
- Work-life balance: How many hours do you have to work a week? How are those hours spread out (across evenings and/or weekends)?
- Working relationship with superiors: Is your superior ‘fair’ and ‘supportive’? Will you be able to work well with him/her?
- Working environment with colleagues: What kind of colleague relationships does the work environment foster? What’s the demographic mix of employees?
  - I’m assuming here that most people are nice, and that the company structure dictates a lot of the interpersonal interactions
  - There are no absolute ‘good’ or ‘bad’ environment, just one that fits what you’re optimising for at that moment

While there are many factors here (and the list is far from comprehensive), what factors you should weight more heavily depends on your personality, interest, and the stage of life you’re at. As a young college graduate with minimal financial commitments, you might not need to weight current compensation and content of work as highly, but to value opportunities that builds up your skillset and connections in the direction of what you might want to do in the future. If you don’t know what you want to do, as is common with many young people, opportunities that allow you to ‘try things’ (eg. rotate across functions and departments), or which keeps career paths open (eg. consulting), might be attractive. In my current career transition, I can definitively say that I am optimising for culture and content of work, while making willing sacrifices to career progression and compensation. Put differently, I am choosing to do something that I think I will enjoy, in an environment with people I like working with, even if it means I have to take a slight pay cut and lose out on potentially faster career progression elsewhere.

Also, you only get the chance to evaluate roles if you’re willing to wait for the right opportunity, while being clear about what that right opportunity is. The more desperate you are to leave your current situation, the less attractive the opportunity needs to be for you to move. And it becomes more likely for you to make a move that you come to question later. Opportunities do not come along when you want them to. Often, they appear when you least expect them. But knowing what you want allows you to pounce at a moment’s notice, so be prepared.

Lastly, being able to choose your career is a privilege. Remember that most people who lived before, even just centuries ago, never had this choice. Cherish this ‘power’!

Love, Dad

On Tradition

February 12, 2021

Dear PiePie,

It is the first day of Chinese New Year and we just went to visit your great-grandmother and the extended relatives on grandpa’s side. Chinese New Year is laden with tradition, even as much of those practises have been adapted and diluted with the passing of time and of those who upheld the traditions.

We exchange oranges and greetings, and the elders give red packets (红包) to those who are younger according to some unwritten criterions. Like, those who are married are no longer eligible for red packets. Or those who experienced a death in the family in the past year are not required to give red packets. And there are probably many more rules I’ve never heard of. We are to stay up the night before to welcome the new year as a family (守岁) while enjoying a sumptuous reunion dinner. While our family doesn’t adhere strictly to these traditions, the practical result is that Chinese New Year is a time for distant relatives to come together and reacquaint themselves.

When I was a child, I dreaded such gatherings. Adults just seemed to sit around making small talk, and it was always quite boring. Even as I grew older, these traditions were more of a chore than something I looked forward to. And I suspect you’ll feel the same way too.

But I am starting to appreciate the opportunities that these traditions provide for us to reconnect with family and friends. They provide a reminder, or perhaps an excuse, for us to reach out with a greeting and a simple “how are you?”.

You will get busier and will have less time for those whom you were previously close with, whether family or friends. And these traditions are the thin threads holding together your memories and shared experiences, even as you slowly drift apart. That, I think, is when you might start to appreciate occasions like these.

It’s interesting that there are comparable traditions across cultures that provide similar opportunities for families and friends to gather. Whether they are called Christmas, Thanksgiving or Diwali, they almost always, as part of the tradition, comprise a sumptuous meal which the family gather together from all around the city (or world) to enjoy. It brings people together.

You will eventually drift apart from us. But I do hope that these traditions continue to bind us together and to our shared heritage, however loosely. And I hope it serves as a reminder from whence you came.

Love, Dad

On Money

January 29, 2021

Dear PiePie,

Between 21^st Jan and 28^th Jan of 2021, a relatively small public company called Gamestop saw its share price went from about $40 to an intraday high of $500, having already gone from $4 to $40 in the preceding 3 months. That’s a >100x increase in 3 months! It was a wild time in the markets, as hordes of retail investors loosely banded over a Reddit thread took the fight to hedge funds and institutional investors who were overly short on the stock – they borrowed a lot of shares to sell first and buy later, hoping that the prices will drop. Through heavy buying, the retail investors basically tried to force these funds to go out of business and to liquidate their positions, which would cause the prices to rise further as they bought back stocks to “return” them. Fortunes were made and lost as this previously obscure company dominated headlines all across the world.

Many attributed this episode as an indication that the masses – who had been previously excluded from many financial instruments – now have increasingly similar access to invest and trade like the institutional financial firms and funds, the “smart money”. While it’s still far from a level playing field, both are on the same field now at least. By the time you’re reading this, hopefully the field has levelled even more, because you’ll soon have to manage your own finances.

So, how should you think about money? There isn’t really a rulebook, but these are things I wished someone told me earlier on.

Money is a means to an end, and it helps to know what your end is. Money doesn’t mean much unless it can be exchanged for things that makes you happy or for things you care about. The goal isn’t to make more money, but to use money to get to things you care about. It turns out that a lot of these “other things” we care about or that makes us happy don’t always require that we make more money, especially if we need to sacrifice our time and life and happiness to get the money. Don’t lose track of the end goals even as you are on the path to acquire the money to get there. For me, I like that I spend time with you throughout the pandemic as I work from home, and so, despite earning not that much and not particularly enjoying what I do, the goal of spending more time with you in your infancy (which is ultimately what I want) is achieved. And that is an end in itself.

Money buys you options, and options are valuable. It helps to know what your end is, but sometimes, you just don’t know. And that’s ok – you can still accumulate wealth without knowing what you want the wealth to do for you. Money will eventually allow you to capitalise on opportunities and buy you the freedom to do things you want. But throughout the process of working hard to accumulate money, don’t forget to keep exploring and figuring out what you are going to do with the supposed freedom and options that money buys you. It’s a perpetual process of testing hypotheses about what makes you happy. There’s no point ending up on the other side of wealth and still being confused about what that wealth gets you.

Beyond a certain point, money doesn’t really matter. When you don’t have enough, money is a necessity, because of course you need to buy food and clothe yourself and pay rent. But after you’re earning enough to live comfortably, what you’re spending on tend to be ‘wants’ and the incremental joys that money can bring gradually diminishes. Of course, what “living comfortably” means differs from person to person, so if your baseline is to eat at restaurants every day and to go to the salon every week, then you’re going to have to work a lot harder to reach that baseline level. Life is a little easier if you are able to temper your ‘wants’. Which leads to the next point.

Do not overextend yourself and commit to expenses you cannot actually afford. It is emotionally stressful to have to worry about whether you have enough money to pay your bills. And one of the ways people get into such situations of stress is to overspend on large purchases like a house or car, even though your income may barely cover the monthly repayments. In general, it is ideal to always budget a buffer on your expenditures so that you have comfort in the knowledge that you have more than enough and do not have to worry about money. You’ll live far more happily this way, and it is worth it.

Finally, if a deal seems too good to be true, you’re probably right. Very rarely is there a “free lunch” in this world, and in the context of personal finance, rarely is there a way to “get rich quick” without also probably putting a substantial amount of your money at risk. Be super weary of anything or anyone promising you a way to become rich quickly, it’s either a scam or there’s usually a catch somewhere. Understand what the worst-case scenario for the situation is and ask yourself if you can accept that outcome. Because even if the worst-case scenario sounds improbable, the probability of that happening is likely greater than you think it is.

I hope these advices are helpful, and money will not be a source of worry for you.

Love, Dad

2020: Crisis and Opportunities

December 31, 2020

Dear PiePie,

It’s the last day of 2020. What a year to usher in the ‘roaring 20s’.

It’s been a scary, tiring year for many people. Covid took the headlines, infecting 83M people and resulting in more than 1.8M deaths. It halted travel and caused a shift in how people work and play. It locked people in at homes to ‘flatten the curve’. It decimated businesses that relied on in-person interactions like F&B and retail.

But it’s also been a year of opportunities for some, as the stock market boomed and demonstrated the divergence between the real economy and the financial economy. It boosted digital adoption – in payments and food delivery and entertainment – with aunties in Singapore learning how to use QR codes en masse.

For us, we have been fortunate. None of us contracted Covid. None of us lost our jobs, even being able to work from home. In this upending of worlds, Mommy and me have been able to spend a lot more time around you. Without Covid, most working parents would never have been at home to witness the growth of their child day-in, day-out.

Perhaps there isn’t a lasting impact to how our relationship will turn out eventually. But I’m simply happy to have experienced those moments with you. As you learnt to walk, and then jump, and then climb the stairs, and then fall down the stairs. As you went from eating mushy food to solids to grabbing our rice and pasta and potatoes and carrots. As your entertainment preference changed from BTS to Frozen/Moana to Cocomelon to Kongsuni. As you learnt to make facial expressions and throw fake tantrums and furrow your eyebrows.

It’s been a wild ride, and we’re barely able to keep up with you. But it’s brought so much joy and variety to our lives.

So, although 2020 was a wash for many people, it was a good year for us because we got to experience so much more with you.

Love, Dad

An Expressionless Happiness

December 24, 2020

Dear PiePie,

I saw an interview that IU (Korean singer) did with her brother where they talked about happiness.

In it, her brother asked (12:10 onwards), “I think my sister is a very strong person, but…there could be things you can’t talk easily with other people, even if you’re close to them, and there could be parts that you endure and bear on your own. All the while, you’ve been working very hard. You do this and that without a break … Watching you be like this, I wonder, ‘Is she really happy living like that? Are you happy now?’”

IU’s response, after a pause, was “I’m happy when there’s nothing going on, that’s what I think now. I don’t think happiness has to be ‘Wow I’m so happy’ (with a smiley face). That could be a kind of happiness but I think there is an expressionless happiness. I think there’s nothing that makes me sad or angry; I think that’s a state of happiness.”

It rings true, and it got me thinking about happiness. It seems unlikely that anyone will be regularly experiencing moments of euphoric joy or exhilarating elation – the type that puts a grin on your face. But you can still be happy in a ‘serene, peaceful bliss’ sort of way. For me, the people I love (you!) are healthy, work can be a chore but it is manageable, and you are growing up well. I go to bed late, but without anxiety or worry. I have time to listen to music I like and watch dramas I enjoy. It is not a terribly exciting life, but in a tired, expressionless way, I am incredibly happy.

I do wonder if I’m lowering the bar for “happiness”. If perhaps I should strive for a higher emotional peak. If perhaps I have been ‘modulating’ my emotional mountains and valleys such that I never get too high nor too low. Watching you, it seems that kids are more easily delighted (and upset) and silly things can make you laugh oh so hard. And yet, to a ‘grown-up’, silly things just seem…silly.

Somewhere, it seems we lost the unadulterated happiness that comes with experiencing moments of wonder.

This is neither good or bad though. Definitely, the feelings of childlike wonder are further and fewer between; less of the world surprise and amaze you. The same things that used to make you ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ no longer achieve the same effects. But in place of such wonder, is a deeper appreciation of things that I didn’t quite think about when I was younger. Health. Family. Friends. Absence of events that make you sad or angry.

And so, here’s my current hypothesis on happiness.

Perhaps, as we experience more and more of life, the definition of happiness shifts. Earlier in life, our ‘world’ is rapidly expanding and we experience different and new things constantly – the first time we touch a rabbit, the first time we eat chips, the first time we feel the rush of the wind outside the car window. Some things bring us to greater emotional heights – they redefine the 10/10 of our experience – while other things just slot within the 7/10 of our current universe of experience.

At some point, however, the ‘world’ no longer expands quite as rapidly, and with it, the redefining of the 10/10 happens less and less frequently. But because new 10/10 moments happen less frequently, we become more confident of our current universe of experience. We are better able to assess what we have and be assured that an 8/10 is really an 8/10. Sure, some of what’s in the unknown ‘world’ that we’ve never experience could be awesome – redefining the metaphorical 10/10 – but that wouldn’t make our 8/10 drop much.

Childlike wonders of the new are thus replaced with deeper appreciation and gratitude of the old. And that may be how expressionless happiness come to be, when we’ve moved so far over the spectrum that humdrum contentment becomes genuinely satisfying.

Who knows? Perhaps my running hypothesis on happiness will evolve. But at this moment, I’m happy, in an expressionless way. 😊

Love, Dad

Enjoying The Moments

December 18, 2020

Dear PiePie,

8 months into this experiment of trying to write a weekly letter to you, and it’s quite obvious that such a cadence is simply not possible. The time I’m taking to write these letters come on the margins of work, “adulting” (managing personal finance, home improvement) and falls squarely into the leisure/hobby bucket of time, which is not much to begin with. And so, I’ll be targeting a reduced cadence of one letter per month, which should still make 200 letters by the time you go to college, if college is still a thing young people go to 20 years from now.

One interesting contradiction I’ve come to experience is that sometimes, I find myself having to decide between taking the couple of hours to write these letters or spending those couple of hours with you “in the moment”. It’s a weird choice, because in some way, I am choosing between interacting with the present you, or chatting with the future you. And this does not have a right answer or obvious choice.

There is a greater permanence in these letters that I’m writing, and perhaps this is what you’ll eventually remember me by. And yet, the present moment is so precious in its impermanence. These current moments – of you jumping off my calves, of you bringing a book to us to read to you, of you babbling to yourself as you walk aimlessly around the house – feel like sand sifting through the fingers. That if we are not careful to consciously experience it, we will soon be left with no sand with our grasps and wondering what the sand had felt like.

In the age we’re in, it is so easy to live life through the lens of a camera. When you see fireworks, will you simply stare in awe, or whip out your phone to record the moment while viewing the spectacle through your screen?

I find myself leaning towards experiencing the moments in the present – my excuse for why the letters are so far and few between! – but I do appreciate that when I take videos of you or write these letters, they remind me of moments I would otherwise have forgotten and lose to the ether of space. The conscious documentation of the present also helps remind me to treasure this impermanence.

So, as is typical in life, it seems the answer is to find a middle ground between the two modes, but beyond that incredibly generic statement, I’m not able to offer any definitive answers as to the ideal path to take or balance to strike. Regardless, whether I’m experiencing those moments with you in the present or recording them down to savour in the future, I’m grateful that those moments exist.

Love, Dad