Just here and there

Chat used to ask me why she doesn't have baby pictures. I told her that the year she was born, the camera was already invented but money was not...at least not in my economy. This was Chat at 6 months old. We tell her the reason she is dark is because she didn't have any covering from day one because I can't afford it.

Chat in one of the rare -very rare occasions that she is not wearing black. When she was young and living at home, she would get ticked at her dad because Don would always get to her about "there's other color besides black" and when she would wear dresses way above her knees Don would say, "Where's the skirt to that blouse?"

Two months ago, when I was walking around KL airport, waiting for my flight to Penang, a thought suddenly came to me that jolted me into a profound realization: I said to myself, "One of these days, I will either get disabled or dead. I will do whatever I want to do now if I can afford it."

Then two weeks after I landed back here in Dallas, I landed in the hospital. Lying in that hospital bed I was reminded of that thought and while anguished about the future, I concluded I have no regrets of the past.

If you thought I look horrible here with my bedhead, you should have seen my face-red and swollen from the dengue fever. This was the night when the doctor told me I could go home in the morning. Chat likes to take pictures of me in the hospital because she said she wants to show it to me when "you get cocky at times."