“Mommy Will You Ever Be Bigger Than Daddy?”

I have started, probably later than I ought to have, to mark Kina’s height against the frame of the door between our living room and our kitchen. The two marks I’ve made so far, from August and December, are a little less than an inch apart, which seems like a lot to me—a person who has not grown at all since he was in college. To Kina, growth is just one of those things one does to pass the time, a ritual that frequently leads to new shoes and astonished adults. The other day, Laurea mused out loud whether Kina would end up taller than her someday; Kina later wondered whether Laurea would ever be taller than me, to which we replied that no, probably she wouldn’t*, and that people do eventually stop growing—a strange thing, when you think about it.

Do you remember when you stopped growing? Do you remember what it felt like to outgrow your own shoes? It feels boring now not to grow, in a way, like I’ve been cheated out of that constant state of change. Growing up felt so mundane—I left school on the last day of eighth grade and came back three months later and four inches taller. Old folks would remark on how much I’d grown, and it felt like a real accomplishment. Good job, hormones! What does it mean, to a child, that we stop growing? You spend your whole childhood and adolescence in a state of evolution, and then… pfft.

What does it mean that things stop? How much of the drama we face as a civilization stems from our deep-seated need to create struggle and change for ourselves once our bones have settled? Reflecting on the year you’ve just survived (and congratulations, by the way), imagine what might have been different if everybody on earth was awkwardly lanky and wearing oversized sweatshirts, too preoccupied with the machinations of their own bodies to formulate elaborate schemes and executive orders to subjugate entire swaths of humanity to one person’s will. I suppose that’s basically middle school, which I do not recall being much fun, but at least I knew that everybody was confused, achy, and had horrible complexions.

In two and a half hours, this year will stop growing, too. Along with it, the story of 2020 will be settled—for a time—and thank god. There’s almost nothing from the news that I want to carry with me into next year. Axios posted an infographic yesterday of the Google Trends that emerged over the course of 2020, and any one of them would be more than enough bad news: the fires in Australia, impeachment, murder hornets, George Floyd, Beirut, Chadwick Boseman, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Breonna Taylor, Four Seasons Total Landscaping, and the emergence of a global pandemic. If we’re talking about growth, this year was a spurt, and if there’s anything I know about growth spurts as a parent, it’s that the pain never really stops, but wonderful things emerge as you go. I’m not saying that 2021 is going to be any more likable than 2020 (and I certainly wouldn’t bet on it), but I will be watching for the little changes around us that signal what this growth was for. It has to be for something, right?

Old folks—parents, really—like to talk about how much kids have grown because it helps us to mark the passage of time. It’s a kind of change that we can grasp and follow, some reliable good news. We don’t know where that growth leads, or what these new little people emerging from their cocoons will face in the coming year, but the one thing on which we are absolutely certain we can agree is how rabidly we will fight for them on their journey, so that they can keep marking the hours for us. Every few months, as long as we live in this apartment, I will make another little tick on the frame of the door to our kitchen, watch Kina closing in on us, getting bigger and stronger. Those marks on the door do a lot to hold this house together, and someday, when she stops growing, I hope she has what she needs to feel at home in her height, and on this absurd planet. That’s the growth I’m really looking for.

To the new year ahead, then: awkward, lanky, and full of promise. Look for the shafts of light. Thanks for being here, and thanks for following Kina’s growth with us.

dad

* I once asked Laurea, who is of average Asian-American-woman height, how tall she felt she was, and she replied, without delay, “eight feet tall”. For my part, I am psychologically two inches shorter than my actual height. You can infer a lot about our relationship from this.