Dear Nanay,

It looks like we’re going to miss All Saint’s weekend and your second death anniversary prayer/food gathering with the family.

And Christmas. This is going to be my first Christmas without the rest of the family, as we’re being extra cautious and not doing any socializing without a vaccine. If anything else, your eldest is still paranoid as heck about health.

It’s going to be difficult on top of an insane year and I remember when the lockdown was first announced, we discussed as cousins how we were going to keep you at home if you were still alive, and who would have to tell you the news. What we thought was a month long inconvenience is now a hellscape with no end in sight.

And now you have Bacon with you up there, I hope you guys are splitting those shake shake fries that you’re having all the time.

I miss the family and being able to just be in the same room and pick at the same food, or rib each other to make unnecessary expensive purchases at each other, and the possibility of travel.

But we’ve been so lucky to not have lost any human this year to covid, not like hundreds of thousands of families in the world and I’m not discounting that. Small miracle considering how many people we essentially need to interact with on a daily basis.

I miss sitting next to you and hearing you make snarky comments about the rabbits and telling me they’re all fattened up for slaughter. No, they still can’t be eaten, and now they have lavender in their diet, so they might have a slight potpourri like taste. (That sounds horrible but I know of a French guy who might find that good)

What can we say after most of a year being in lockdown? The fear that it will be even longer still? The uncertainty of what we face in still unprecedented times?

So I’ve been trying to get out of being in my head a lot of the time and listening to a better voice, one that used to be Anthony Bourdain. It’s been difficult trying to find solace in a man that died by suicide. However, just hearing him speak still gives me that sense of a friend who’s going through things too, but will always be willing to listen.

So I will take his words, sent to David Chang by email after a night out.

“Be a fool. For love. For yourself. What you think MIGHT possibly make you happy. Even for a little while. Whatever the cost or good sense might dictate. Good to see you. Tony.”

This is my new mantra, however semi-destructive it might be to my liver, my kidneys or my knees. Cheers AB.