Huang Kid, Singular

 

Fall 2025 marks a milestone in the Huang family, namely that only one kid is home with us. Asher just started 5th grade, but his two older siblings are off at college, Aaron at Kansas State and Jada at Drexel. (Though Jada is literally down the street from us and comes home most weekends, we see her less and less as her schedule fills up more and more with friends and studies and work, and later this month she leaves for a quarter abroad in Taiwan.)

The nest is emptying, which Amy and I feel in both emotional and practical ways. How many groceries to buy, who's going to wash the dishes, and how weekend plans are formed will now change. As will how we parent each of our kids in this new equilibrium. Time is undefeated, and has brought us to this stage in our family's journey, for which we are both sentimental and grateful.

Little Bro with the Big Feels

 

 

With Aaron moved into Kansas State and having started classes, and Jada also off at college and coming home less often as she establishes her own social and professional space, the Huang family is settling into having only one kid at home. Amy and I miss our older kids, but alongside that sentiment we also feel proud of their maturing into adults, and proud of ourselves for giving them the foundation to do so. And,  truth be told, we find ourselves daydreaming more and more of the greater freedom that comes from not having to constantly tend to the needs of our children. 

But Asher has only known a world in which his big sibs have been home. Oh sure, they rib him, mercilessly at times. And other times he has been content, even when they want to hang out with him, to keep his nose in his screens or see his own friends.

Ah, but now that they are gone he has been feeling his big feels, missing their presence on his floor at night and not knowing what to do with their absence in his life. "I just want the five of us to be together," he lamented to me between big sobs the other night. It was small comfort that we'll all be going to California four months from now. 

So, day by day, we solder on, lifting up the big kids in prayer that they are safe and thriving, making good decisions and deriving the right lessons from bad decisions. And we hug extra hugs for our little one, who's not so little anymore by the way, that he also finds his friends and activities and joy and purpose.

A Moving Experience

 

 

This week was our second college move-in but our first time doing it out of town. Getting Jada into her freshman dorm at Drexel involved loading up the car and driving down the street, since campus is literally in our neighborhood. Plus, the school did a great job of coordinating the logistics, which came in handy since it was pouring rain and we had boxes in and on top of our car as well as all five of us. 

For Aaron, Kansas State move-in involved me and him flying into Kansas City, renting a car, and driving it two hours into Manhattan where campus is located. We efficiently hit a Walmart and a bike shop, the former to buy dorm items and the latter to scope out the e-bike he wanted to use to get around town. Having banged out both tasks, we checked into our hotel adjacent to campus, walked to some Mexican take-out, feasted in the hotel lobby, and crashed out for the day. 

The next morning I went for a short run through campus to Aaron’s dorm, where I was lucky to run into a staff member so I could ask them a few questions about the place. After that I returned to our room, showered, went out and got breakfast, and then woke up Aaron. In short order, we loaded up the car, made the short drive to campus, hauled his stuff into his room, and then drove to the bike shop to pick up his bike. 

It’s at this point that our paths diverged. I gave Aaron a long hug and wished him well, and then headed back to Kansas City in our rental car, while he biked back towards his dorm to get to know his new wheels and get himself unpacked. As I drove back to the airport, I said some prayers for our middle child, giving thanks for the path he’s taken to get here and asking God to protect and prosper his time in college. 

In eight long years we will hope to repeat this rite of passage one last time, with Asher our youngest. With two out of three kids out of the nest (and Jada, while she returns home most weekends, will be in Taiwan for the fall quarter for study abroad), things will certainly feel different around the house. Such is the saga of every parent lucky enough to watch their kid grow up and move on.

Happy Birthday to Amy

 

Wishing my queen the happiest of birthdays. Thankful she arrived in this world and then intersected with my life. What a ride we two have been on! And the best is yet to come.

I Have Decided

 

Many Christians can trace their first ownership of their faith decision to a kid camp. I hope Asher will do the same. When I drove him home from his last one of this summer - 1 1-week camp, and then a few weeks later 2 consecutive 2-week camps - he asked me, "Dad, are you saved?" I said yes and asked him to tell me what that meant, to which he responded that he had "made the decision" at camp. I expressed my great joy, and we proceeded to talk further about what it meant to know faith things versus making a choice to believe them. We also talked at length about how our faith journeys are not easy but they are joyous, for I want him to know he will face trials and tribulations AND that to walk in faith is far from drudgery but rather is a life of peace and purpose and happiness.

Amy grew up in the church while I did not. Faith is built in both ways, both early exposure as you are growing up and coming to one's own determinations when old enough to. Asher is now 10 and rounding into a more mature understanding of the world and his place in it. Thankful for camp and church and the extended faith family to nurture his young relationship with God. I pray it will be a fruitful and rooted one.

My First Time Hosting a Golf Weekend Was An Absolute Blast

 

 

Note: this post does not involve any of the Huang kids. I guess an important thing about being a father to kids is that sometimes you have to do some kid-free things to maintain your sanity. Over the years, I’ve learned to pick my spots – dropping the kids off at Kid Watch at the Y so I can go work out, taking personal days from work to bike around in a nearby city, even hiring a nanny so Amy and I can go on a long weekend. 

What I’ve long schemed about, especially since buying a place in Orlando, is hosting a golf weekend with friends. Asher’s not quite old enough to be left home alone, so the timing of this necessarily has to synch up with when he’s away at sleepaway camp, which this summer has provided two possible slots since he’s been at two-week programs at two different locations. 

During Asher’s two-weeker last month, circumstances didn’t allow any travel (save for a solo day trip). But this month, I was able to take Amy to Miami for a few days as a belated celebration of our 25^th wedding anniversary, which was a lovely return to a cherished place for our marriage in that we’ve now been here six times without the kids, so it really feels like a special getaway place where we can spend grown-up time together. Indeed, we ended up seeing new sights but also returning to familiar haunts, both types of activities engendering great joy in quality time free of kid responsibilities. 

I then drove Amy to Orlando where we spent a night together there before dropping her off at the airport, and then three of my closest friends arrived for my first ever golf weekend. It was a wonderful “worlds collide” moment, in that none of them had ever met each other, one of them being a friend from high school, one from college, and one from work. But, they instantly bonded with each other, which was perhaps the greatest joy I experienced that weekend. 

I say “perhaps” because there were many other contenders. Being able to play golf on back-to-back days with the same foursome was an absolute blast, as we picked each other up after the numerous bad shots we all hit, and rejoiced in the few solid shots we did hit. It was also fun to do some sight-seeing with fellow adults, shuttling around places like Kennedy Space Center and ICON Park without having to manage kid-level worries. Maybe the greatest thrill, given how packed my schedule normally is, was being able to do multiple multi-hour fun things in a row, a stark contrast from when carving out time to play a round of golf is necessarily preceded and succeeded by running around to make up the time I’ve indulged in (e.g. racing through a grocery run beforehand, zipping immediately off to work once all putts have landed on the 18^th green). 

It helped immensely that these three friends I picked for this first golf weekend are fellow brothers in the faith. We reveled in personal testimonies, candidly shared struggles in our respective journeys, and even had some mutual friends and experiences based on different ways our lives had unknowingly crossed in past years. What a blessing to have extended time for iron to sharpen iron. Can’t wait to plan next year’s golf weekend!

Everyone's Story is Epic

 

 

 

"Covenant of Water," "Pachinko," and "Roots" are three books I've read this year that explore issues of shame, honor, and love over multiple generations. All three books moved me deeply, with excellent writing and exquisite character development and plentiful plot twists.

It strikes me that my connection to these stories runs deeper than the fact they are all great works of literature. The notion that family stories unfold over many generations is a powerful one for me. It reminds me that my life does not exist in a vacuum but rather flows from those who came before me and in turn flows into those who come after me.

All of us have a past that shapes who we are, what opportunities were available to us, what wounds we must work through. In turn, all of us influence a future that extends well beyond our lifetimes, in the form of the people we invest in and the values they learn from us.

As I grow older, it feels increasingly important to me to take time to think on these things. To consider how my life was influenced by that which preceded me: multiple generations of families in Taiwan (with some European blood mixed in), poverty turned into comfort, two hustling immigrant parents from whom I gained life opportunities and work ethic. 

I could not have conceived in advance, but I can now look back and evaluate, the twists and turns that have brought me to this present day. Going to the East Coast for college, the jobs I chose to devote my career to, the family Amy and I have built for ourselves. And then, those kids who God blessed us with, what paths will they take and what will they and their kids and their kids' kids get into?

Along the way, as with those great works of literature I have had the pleasure to savor this year, there have been instances of unimaginable blessing and crushing loss, of things honorable and dishonorable, of love gained and lost and fought for and secured. Every person's story is an incredible, multi-generation epic. I enjoyed reading three books that probed this brilliantly. I am realizing my own story is unfolding with similar wonder.