Every week I open the box a little further, a photograph, a memory, a recipe finding its way back to my hands. I write it all down as it happens. The grief. The joy. The things I never saw coming.
This is my journal, the raw and honest record of writing Her Hands His Eyes. Not polished. Not finished. Just real, and in real time.
You are not reading a book. You are inside the writing of one.
Want to read each entry a week before anyone else? I will also send you the first photograph from inside it. Never published anywhere. Not yet. Just you.
Writing Through It | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 18
Today is my dad’s birthday. I sat down to write his chapter. I watched the cursor blink. Then I realized — Chris is 58. My father never made it to 58. And I wrote anyway.
Losing Water, Keeping Proof | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 16
This week I stayed with the water. Four photographs from one Loy Krathong night pulled me back to the Ping River, to my mother’s hands, and to the question at the center of this book: what gets released, and what…
Losing A Parent | Her Hands His Eyes Journal Entry 15
Losing a parent is not one moment. It returns in smells, in recipes, in ordinary days, and sometimes in the quiet knowledge of who sat in the dark holding the worst news for you.
The Documents | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 14
I did not write the book this week. I handled documents instead, and found myself face to face with the strange way grief can return through legal forms, old drives, and a date typed into a field.
NiNi I Got You | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 13
She called for peanut sauce and found the story instead. This week’s entry is about Remi, one shared link, and the quiet moment I realized family stories are already being passed on.
I Did Not Know I Was Carrying | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 12
Two ordinary words stopped me cold this week: Thai food. This entry is about the quiet loss inside that label, and the moment I realized my grandmother never called it that at all.
Some Days The Box Wins | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 11
Some days you open the box for the story. Some days the box opens you instead. This entry is about grief, the phone calls that steadied me, and the people who make the hard days lighter.
Where Grief Found Me | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 10
This week began with a question I had been avoiding: should this chapter be in the book at all. This entry is about delayed grief, Kun Yai, and the moment I finally decided to write what I almost left out.
The Bowl That Said Everything | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 9
A bowl of Massaman curry said everything my mother did not need to say. This entry is about Chris, first Christmases, and the moment I realized two very different worlds already spoke the same language.
The Morning We Left | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 8
A little girl at an airport window, excited about the plane. Behind her, a mother and father leaving everything they knew. This entry is about that morning, and the love that kept watch over what none of us yet understood.
Her Hands Mother’s Love | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 7
She was just fixing my collar on the first day of school. This entry is about my mother’s hands, the ordinary morning that stayed with me, and the distance between two worlds I still carry.
Hackensack 1976 | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 6
A six-year-old girl broke the blinds trying to make America quiet. This entry is about one slide from Hackensack, my grandfather’s steady love, and the kind of welcome a child feels before she has words for it.
What Her Hands Knew | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 5
I stood at my stove trying to perfect a soup and realized I was really trying to stay inside a memory. This entry is about grief, cooking, and the little girl who always asked for the other half of the…
It Was All of Us | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 4
I thought I was opening my father’s box. This week I realized I was opening something larger, the grief, memory, and love carried by all of us. This entry is about the moment the story stopped being only mine.
The Box on the Counter | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 3
I walked into my kitchen and found a slide scanner on the counter. This entry is about the moment I knew the box could not stay closed, and the quiet love that helped me open it.
Measuring What My Mother Never Wrote Down | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 2
I took my mother’s recipes for granted until she was gone. This entry is about grief, regret, and the work of measuring what once lived only in her hands.
Why I Finally Opened It | Her Hands His Eyes Entry 1
I stood at my stove trying to measure what my mother never did. This entry is about the grief of realizing too late what I should have asked, and the relief of finding her again in a single spoonful.