I knew what to expect. Both of my parents had experienced retinal detachments, so I was terrified but prepared. The warning signs sounded vague: “Be wary of sudden bright flashes or arcs of light,” doctors told me. In reality, it was more like hot white blaster fire ricocheting off the hull of an Imperial light cruiser. “Be wary of any new ‘floaters,’ ” they said. When the floaters came, they were like black, stringy Dementors descending unexpectedly over my field of vision.
I’ve always seen the world through this perspective—everything filtered through what I watched, heard, read, and loved. But consuming pop culture like the world was ending when it actually was wasn’t so much fun. By December 2020, we had binged, read, spun enough. My wife and I decided to focus on our health, going on nightly mile-long walks around our Forest Hills neighbourhood, in Queens. One evening, the symptoms started in my left eye. We rushed to a retina specialist for outpatient laser eye surgery. Pew-pew-pew, and the hole was patched. Phew. More lasers in subsequent visits (both eyes, to be safe). My own up-close-and-personal Pink Floyd light-show experience, with encore performances.
Our newfound fixation on health was timely. A staph infection puckered my left calf like Freddy Krueger’s. Meanwhile, gummy bears were apparently killing me—prediabetes had matured into full-blown Wilford Brimley–style “diabeetus.” I was hitting middle age hard. I was no Wolverine; my healing ability was vastly inferior. While my body was failing, my mind was racing. The realisation that “life moves pretty fast” made me channel my inner John Hughes, as I attacked my decades-gestating manuscript like I was frantically writing a Ferris Bueller sequel.
And so, at 48 years old, I was finally able to see my pandemic project, my debut novel, published to great acclaim. No one was happier than my mother. Her da xinganbao (“big precious”) was finally a published author. I have always taken after her family: thick black hair, broad nose, the love of the written word. I was inspired by my grandfather, a famous Chinese reporter who sacrificed everything to immigrate to the US for journalistic integrity. He then spent much of his life caring for his fragile wife, my grandmother, who suffered from anxiety and a weak heart. So much of them was yi chuan, inherited by us. The noble talents, but also the poor eyesight, diabetes, and mental-health issues.
My mother had spent much of her time looking after the men in her life: shuttling my grandfather to appointments, working 12-hour days while her husband pursued his doctorate, raising her sons to do good. But now, like mine, her priorities were shifting: The pandemic presented an opportunity. My mother informed me that she had started writing, too. Or rather, she had resumed writing, tapping back into the collegiate aspirations she abandoned when she began her life here in the States.
And so, at 73 years old, Grace I-Yin Jeng was finally able to see her pandemic project, her first essays, accepted for publication in a Chinese journal.
Both of us were always inspired by my grandfather’s professional legacy, even more so after he passed. His final message years prior was one simple eternal character, ai (“love”), writ large in marker across the unfolded panels of a Chinese newspaper, left on the table of his hospital bed. As I wrote about such big ideas expressed through small moments, I wondered what my mother was writing about. Her childhood in Taiwan and the Philippines? Her early struggles in New York City as an entrepreneur? (She owned three shoe stores.) Having two teenagers and then a third miracle baby in her 40s, or helping thousands as a Social Security caseworker? Her response: “Thoughts on the season changing to autumn—and about you becoming a writer.” She still can’t help but focus on the men in her life.
What no one saw coming: my vision growing exponentially worse. In August 2023, as I was starting the final edits on my book, the lasers stopped working on my left eye. I would have to go under the knife. The vitrectomy would replace my eyeball juice with fresh-squeezed artificial replacement fluid, and a self-dissolving gas bubble would be injected to push my retina into place. A painless procedure (thanks, propofol and Valium!), but the following seven days of constant facedown positioning would be absolute torture. I was inverted and sore, and sleeping with my CPAP machine (like Hannibal Lecter in his face mask) was inhumane. Worse yet, in December 2023, I learned that my right eye required the same process. I immediately burst into tears.
Most people will get cataracts (the slow, natural decay of the lenses in their eyes) as they enter their 70s and 80s. But as a result of these surgeries, my eyes are undergoing vast changes until they stabilise. I am fast developing cataracts and losing my sight. (And no, my other senses aren’t heightened. Turns out I’m not Daredevil, either.) Each check-up fills me with dread. If the vitrectomy surgeries don’t hold, I may need further procedures to save my vision. If it’s only the cataracts I have to contend with, then hopefully within the year, my eyeballs will be “ripe” enough for this next round of routine surgery to replace my zombified lenses. Nothing makes you feel so old as looking forward to receiving the same treatment as octogenarians.
On the other hand, my mom is in great health, hopping on airplanes and cruise ships. On her last visit to Taipei, she got a blue whale tattoo. In honour of my dad, the marine biologist? “No deeper meaning,” she insists. “It’s cute and I like the ocean.” My mother, pleading with her sons to take her to see Bon Jovi. My mother, smoking weed for the first time. She’s been in her renaissance. But plans don’t always work out; her Cabo trip was curtailed when my father grew uncharacteristically pale and refused the buffet. He’s been dealing with his own health crisis ever since: leukemia. While we are slowly being attacked by our own bodies, she keeps us afloat, as per usual—sorting the pills for my dad, sending frozen dumplings to me. All done with grace, by Grace.
Nothing makes you feel so old as looking forward to receiving the same treatment as octogenarians.
Her “big baby,” tall and strong. But now I can no longer lift anything heavier than a half-full banker’s box for fear of putting pressure on these fragile eyes. What I fear, what I am most wary of now, is time—our mortal flesh fades fast, in spite of all we have left to do, say, and see.
Recently, my mother started letting her bob go grey. My temples, too, grow more into the same signature silver of that pliant genius Reed Richards. But I feel further from fantastic, as my limbs become increasingly stiff and achy every day. My eyes, too, miss out on so much wonder before them.
My mother has read my novel and is my biggest champion. Soon I will get to read her new work—in translation, sized up to a 24-point font. But there are still so many stories she hasn’t yet written. I am afraid to ask about them, to hear them spoken in this life or the next. But isn’t everything that’s inherited and passed down simply about ai—love—in the end? At my book events, I can make out her shape, beaming proudly from the front row, that familiar magnetic red phone case flapping wildly as she tries to record a video. What I experience now, however, is all blurry, hazy like a dream. I’m hoping once my vision is renewed, I’ll get to see this all again with her, for the first time and not the last.
