The Family’s Time

Discovering a new song from an old artist.

New York | May 2025

My dad has always been one of my best friends.

When I was too small to go on amusement park rides with my sister, he would play the carnival games with me and win me a stuffed animal. On Sundays, he’d make me Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes and play cards or board games with me. When my mom suggested sending us to church or Chinese school for weekend mornings, his response was always,

“Let them be kids.”

In the evenings, he’d teach me chess or poker. He never let me win; he wanted me to learn. He taught me about photography and would show me the good movies and music. His car only ever played oldies rock.

“Well, we weren’t going to listen to Barney,” he’d say, grinning. He was constantly rebuilding his computer with tennis games on in the background. He’s the wisest person I know.

This summer, my parents stopped in, as they do more frequently when I have the time. I pulled up the playlist named after the neighborhood I grew up in, kept in album order for the sake of record-like playing. We discovered a Billy Joel song he’d never heard of, recorded from a live session in 1972. His face was priceless. We thought he knew every Billy Joel song ever written.

I asked him a question about cover art, one that a boy once asked me, who crossed my mind more than I’d like to admit. It was a music question that I didn’t have an answer to when initially asked. He immediately had an answer:

“Turnstiles by Billy Joel. The characters on the album cover are representations of the characters he sings about in the album. Why?”

I paused.

“Oh, a guy I was seeing once asked me… and I didn’t have an answer. You’d really like talking to him…”

He gave me a funny look. I’d never mentioned a guy to him quite like that. As if I knew they would probably get along as best friends, too…

And as my mom hemmed a dress and my best friend told me to pack, he shook his head with a small smile.

My sister was getting ready to report to the Oscars, and I needed a small alteration for a “Just in case we stop in Cannes!” dress.

He knew that he and my mom had done it. They managed to give us good lives—more privilege than they had—while still raising good people. In his mind, that was any parent’s duty.

A Love Letter

Written with Honey