(For the girl I lit the candles for)

I’ve mostly eaten one meal a day for most of my life – usually just dinner.  My parents were too occupied, uninvolved, or stingy to feed me properly.  I rarely ate lunch in high school, relying on the hot chocolate at my after-school job for sustenance and nutrition.  The only period of my life when I ate more than one was in college when I had a meal plan.  From then on, in law school, grad school, and even at work, it was just one.

I don’t even know why I even mentioned all that, but it seemed relevant to faith.  Most of my life was filled with doubt and uncertainty.  I remember my first job out of college working at night – surrounded by poorly designed robotic machines, large jars of ethanol and other chemicals, bacterial plates. wearing my lab coat from my locker, etc.  Wondering what the future held.

But I had my faith.  It wasn’t always the most defined or directed, but I knew I believed that things would somehow work out, even if I had massive doubt – in events and self.

Maybe it’s because I had no choice.  I wasn’t one of those who could buy, test, network, or charm my way in and out of things.  But I think it’s more than that.  Faith was the bass line in my life, sometimes simple and repetitive like the D-A-Bm-G in With or Without You. 

Yet, steady and comforting, something to play to in terms of rhythm and structure.

(For the girl I lit the candles for)

When it hits, it’s like the tsunami out of nowhere or being plunged into total darkness, heavy darkness.  It really ambushes you.  All you can do is hold on for dear life and hope it passes.

It does. 

It somehow does.  Prayer works.  Surrendering to God works.  Thinking of you works. 

And the light, relief comes in to fill up the room.

(For the girl I lit the candles for)

You didn’t attend the wedding because you were traveling. Initially, I was disappointed because you meant a lot to me and I wanted to see you there.

But God or the universe has a way of getting it right even though it doesn’t seem so at the time.  Now, for reasons obvious and still opaque, I am glad you weren’t there.

When I saw you at ———- wedding at the church from a distance, the first time in several years, I won’t lie – my heart jumped a little bit.  Before arriving at the church, I also felt anxious because I knew you were going to be there.  That soft spot never went away.  I don’t think it ever will.

Bur long story short, I wanted to touch history and sometimes history not only touches you back, but knocks you down to the ground.  People change and they don’t as well.  But that’s another story.

I’ve also come to realize we love different people differently.  It’s just life and the universe at play.  Life turns out so differently than expected and maybe, just maybe it’s ok, even eventually good.

(For the girl I lit the candles for)

I originally wanted to write about all the ways we were similar.  And yes, I also know we are different in other ways.

But while all those matter, I think this is more about brokenness and weakness. Relationships work when two people’s brokennesses fit together.  People need to be loved and accepted the most in their most broken and wounded state, not when they are at their best.

I know my brokenness is somewhat obvious or appears to be so.  Although I don’t think that people know me as well as they think they do.

I often wondered what yours was, but I could see, feel glimpses at times.  What Bono describes as “the shadow behind your eyes.”  It doesn’t matter. God uses broken sticks to draw straight lines.

(For the girl I lit the candles for)

I learned quite a bit about Jesuit teachings in Boston.  One of my colleagues is a Jesuit priest who served in San Quentin Prison, ministering to death row prisoners.  The Jesuits have rigorous training.  One of their most significant techniques, if not the most, is the discernment of spirits.

It involves prayer, meditation, etc. to discern the path forward.  If someone is going down a bad path, the evil spirits will encourage it and you will feel positively. The good spirits will seem discordant.  Conversely, the opposite for someone going down a good path.

With you, I do feel that this is a good path – at least in the writing, hoping, and praying.  It is powerful.  In this dark period, ever since deciding to write you, my strength has returned.  The same strength that allowed me to endure this lonely, beautiful journey. To bite my tongue, control my fears, stand alone, dream. 

The strength that was nearly wiped out and missing for a long time.

And yes, sometimes I think this is crazy.  Until I get reminded that it isn’t.  In the words of Simon and Garfunkel, after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same.

There’s a Taoist saying – “Loving someone gives you strength, being loved by someone gives you courage.”

I think that’s spot on.

(For the girl I lit the candles for)

I think I was born more scared than brave.  Scared of so much, I was forced by fate to confront and control fears early on.  My initial instinct was to flee, but over time evolved into the opposite.  The British Secret Air Service’s motto is “Who Dares Wins” – it is correct.  After all the years, though, it can still be difficult for me to practice courage.

There’s a saying I really like “Fight back even though you’re crying.”  One time in middle school, a bigger guy grabs my hockey stick and tells me he just wants to borrow it.  I knew if I let him have it, I would never see it again.  So I tug hard while he’s also doing the same. I have tears in my eyes. 

I prevail. 

That stick is still at home.

(For the girl I lit the candles for)

I miss the days of chatting on AOL Instant Messenger.  Not the life of the party, I still enjoy human interaction.  These days, I feel like a tech dinosaur – writing sentences and paragraphs in the age of texting,  Twitter, and Instagram.  Some of my younger friends are confused and even alarmed by this practice.

I remember distinctly this one time we were chatting on IM and somehow the topic shifted to physical beauty.  And I don’t remember exactly what was said, but vaguely I remember asking you if you thought you were beautiful.  It was an honest, sincere question.  Your reply wasn’t in the vicinity of true confidence and you sounded unsure.

And I’m so glad I got to tell you that you were. As a matter of fact and plainly.  No hidden motives, agendas, games.  It was sincere and true. Someone told me later that you would nener forget that.

(For the girl I lit the candles for)

Those two little tents are nothing in the history of the world.  But I think they meant everything to God.  They were truly stars shining in the summer night.

Starting and leading that drama team will be one of my proudest accomplishments. It used all the skills I had picked up to that point and proved that nothing in life is wasted.  I had worked an after-school job in high school doing clerical type work for a startup software company.  Really repetitive, boring, and basic duties.  But it’s there, however, where I learned how organizations function and how their parts should work together.  It helped me to put that team together – it lasted for 20 years, the longest running short term missions project at church, only taken down by COVID.

That experience would also come in useful 20+ years later when I would have to comprehend how the 55.000 strong NYPD functioned and guide it in a concrete jungle of dreams and nightmares,  

From time to time, I ask God to remember those tents when I ask for His help. One year, I drew a picture of you in my notebook. 

I still have it.

(For the girl I lit the candles for)

I didn’t tell many people about you.  But when I did, it was like a faucet that couldn’t be turned off.  Once at church in NYC, a friend was telling me about how her husband and her ended up together.  He originally liked someone else, Becky or so-and-so from Brooklyn and my friend helped him to make a mixtape for the other girl.  My friend then asked me whether there was someone that also made me feel that way and I said “—-— from Princeton “ (yes, I know, I should have been “—-— from Gaithersburg” but I’m sometimes stupid that way).  And when I get excited, I can get really loud and she had to quieten me down, as we were in the church nursery.  She then teased me the rest of that Sunday.

I’ll also say this – for what it’s worth, when I tell people who know both of us, I get two responses – mild surprise and something like that kinda makes sense.

(For the girl I lit the candles for)

I’ve generally felt a calling to study power and be connected to it.  Not so much the pursuit, not ambitious or driven enough.  Power for me was not for its own sake or to lord it over others.  I wanted it to be more about not being powerless, legitimacy as an immigrant and Asian in this society, the ability to change things, and protect others.

I think I had real power at various stages.  Mine was always a combination of position, knowledge, skills, character, and will.  At some key moments, I knew I was created for that specific point in time.  The stars aligned and I was the right person for certain events.  They also say that power reveals who you are, I hope I did well on this front.

But I’ve always known not to grasp on to it.  While power isn’t an illusion, I refuse to worship or be controlled by it.  Power is seductive and more powerful than any drug. 

And I think that approach ended up protecting and saving my soul.