The first thing I want you to know

Before anything else, I want to say this plainly.

You are loved. Not when you’re good, not when you understand, not when you forgive — just always, constantly, without condition. You were loved before you were born, and you will be loved longer than either of us will be alive to speak it.

I don’t know how much you remember of me, depending on when you’re reading this. But I know what I remember of you: every small thing. The way Châu Sa laughs — fully, with her whole body, like laughter is something that happens to her rather than something she does. The way Dẫn watches things carefully before he decides what he thinks of them. You are both so distinctly yourselves.

This site exists because I wanted there to be a place that held the record of what I know about your family, your history, and who I am. So that no matter what happens — no matter how much time passes, no matter how the circumstances of our lives arrange themselves — you would be able to find it when you went looking.

You may have found it through a search. You typed your name, and this came up. Hello, my love. That’s exactly what I hoped would happen.

I built this so you would know that your father was always thinking about you. That the distance between us was never a measure of love. That there is a whole history you belong to, and I wanted to be the one to give it to you.

There are letters here, and videos, and photographs, and the stories of the people who came before us — your grandparents and great-grandparents, the places they came from, the lives they made. All of it is yours.

I will keep writing.

I love you more than you will ever know, until the day you have your own children and understand suddenly that the amount of love a parent has for a child is actually incomprehensible.

Your father