and Words
Hey
Well, my temperature’s rising, and my feet on the floor
Crazy people knocking ’cause they’re wanting some more
Let me in, baby, I don’t know what you got
But you better take it easy, this place is hot
And I’m so glad we made it
So glad we made it
Why won’t you gimme some lovin’
Gimme some lovin’
Gimme some lovin’ every day
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
As I closed my freshman year in high school, my trajectory steadily declined. No, I sugarcoat it; I steered my future steadily into impending death, like a Kamikaze pilot. Many high school friends likely don’t remember me from ninth grade, but that’s because I rarely attended. My algebra teacher once shamed me with, “Mr. Wong, you’re out of school more often than you’re in school.” Then everything abruptly changed.
One might easily conclude that this occurred between ninth and tenth grade. It didn’t; it occurred as I took my final on World History. Entering the final, I had a failing grade. Our teacher, Mr. Beasley did one last review session, and I paid attention and aced that final. For years, I struggled to decipher what motivated me to change. Mrs. Broadwell, my English and Latin teacher, once asked me point blank as she praised me for the change, and I honestly responded with, “I don’t know.”
Eventually, it came to me. I refused to compete with my older sister. She finished her senior year while I started my freshman year. At South Plantation High, the seniors finished their courses a couple of weeks early in order to prepare for graduation. The moment she stepped off campus, I allowed myself to achieve and excel. This included that World History final. I won’t tell you that any of this was rational in any sense of that word.
However, that day changed the trajectory of my life. I can’t deny it.
Years ago, I watched an endearing film with Jim Belushi called, “Mr. Destiny”. I could try to describe the premise of the film, but the trailer does an excellent job. The playing of this song at the pizza parlor highlights a plot point between Belushi and Linda Hamilton, his wife in an alternate timeline. The film is fun and heartwarming. You should watch it.
However, this film inspires me to contemplate the possibility of moments like this in my own history. Can I reflect on the events of my life and isolate individual events that singularly affected its trajectory? I already named one above. For me to continue down that path would’ve led me to decades of uninspired mediocrity. After that day decades ago, I scored straight A’s (save for one B that mocked me in every report card). I could chronicle the events of my high school tenure, but I have already done that. Instead, I’ll ponder upon other moments in my life.
The earliest and likely the most impactful occurred when I was nine, with the death of my father. While my dad had very modest education, he possessed great business savvy. He saved and started his own business, a successful restaurant. I remember reading the stat from Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential that only 25% of restaurants succeed. My dad did it with exceptional cooking skills but without a high school education. He was truly a force of nature.
And in one moment, he disappeared. To describe it as his absence is not sufficient. Air occupies space; his death did not feel like absence. However, his passing sucked the air of the room; it felt like a vacuum. We flew in a figurative plane as it snapped out of existence and left us in the air. A black hole tore the fabric of reality and took my father. It threatened to take the rest of my family with it. Everyone in my family, my mom, sisters, and I, fought and persevered.
As adults, my sister and I contemplated what it would’ve been like having my dad around into our adulthood. He was a kind man and would’ve continued being a great father. I get emotional thinking of him watching my sister and I graduating with engineering degrees only fourteen years after his death. I only hope that I lived up to his expectations as I give away my sister at her wedding a few years after graduation.
Though much like “Mr. Destiny”, we understood that having him as we grew up would’ve made our lives considerably easier. Adversity shaped who we became. As we struggled, we persevered. Waiting on tables while I attended college instilled humility in me. Sure, I would’ve loved if he helped me navigate the bullying but navigating it on my own also taught me self-sufficiency. We couldn’t simply change that minute point in history and not expect it to have a cascading effect on life.
I didn’t stray too far when I went to college. Thanks to a summer engineering program at the University of Miami, I attended ‘The U’ for the subsequent five years. While I was ‘on my own’ in college, my family was always there to back me up, such as when thieves broke into my car and stole my battery. My sister followed me a year later. Miami was far enough away so that we couldn’t feasibly commute from our childhood home. However, we were all still a pretty close-knit bunch.
As my studies closed in 1991, I spent half my time at the career placement office and the remaining time finishing my projects. I meticulously penciled my name onto companies’ schedules as they came on campus for 30-minute interviews, I even got a couple of follow up interviews. These 30-minute slots were filled with questions that confirmed items on my resume. However, one company grilled me. They spent that half-hour asking me deep technical questions, and I finally impressed.
That company was Microsoft. They flew me out to the Seattle area weeks later and grilled me for an additional nine hours on campus. Weeks later, I’d finally get an offer. It was literally the only job offer I got, though one professor did ask if I would become his graduate assistant. While I could rationalize that it was fate to get the one offer, I stopped interviewing with other companies once I got that offer. In months, I packed up everything I had and moved cross-country to be on my own.
I accepted that job over thirty years ago and have now spent most of my life here in Washington. Had I also gotten a job offer in Florida with the likes of FPL, I might have stayed there with my family and everything I knew. I would’ve stayed closer to my Chinese and Spanish speaking roots. While, given the same circumstances, I would’ve made the same choice, I became orphaned from my culture.
We’ll never really know where that figurative fork on the road will lead. Whether we make certain choices in life or fate decides to blindside us, it all affects the trajectory of our lives. However, I’ll take a bite out of the typical time travel movie and talk about the time paradox. Occasionally, I ponder about the what-ifs and think about my dad at my graduation or teaching me how to drive.
I can be saddened by these conspicuously missing moments and understand that it needs to be this way. Though perhaps, it is precisely that realization that saddens me more.