Chinese New Year’s Eve, Without You

Tonight is Chinese New Year’s Eve.

After 53 years, for the first time in my life, I’m sitting down for this meal without my father.

Every year, I insisted on one thing: a family photo. No matter how rushed dinner was, no matter how tired everyone felt, I would always say, “Wait—one photo first.” It became a ritual of its own. Proof that we were all here. That another year had passed, together.

After dinner, I would return to the same place—in front of the computer. While the house slowly quieted down, I would write. I always wrote about the year that had just gone by: where I had been, what I had seen, what I had learned, what I was still trying to understand about life. That routine never changed.

Tonight, I’m sitting in the same place again.

Outside, fireworks crack and echo through the night sky, just like every other year. The sound feels closer this time, louder somehow. My Cody—my toy poodle—looks unsettled. He comes over quietly and presses himself against me, seeking comfort. I rest my hand on him, and he slowly calms down.

Everything looks the same.

The table.

The timing.

The familiar rhythm of the night.

But something essential is missing.

He isn’t here to look at the family photo.

He isn’t here to wish me well.

He isn’t here to hand me a red packet and say “新年快乐”—that small, familiar gesture that carried more meaning than the money inside.

I didn’t realize how deeply those moments were etched into me until they disappeared.

Grief doesn’t always arrive as a wave. Sometimes it’s quiet. It shows up in expectation—in the instinctive pause, waiting for a voice that never comes. In the space between fireworks where I suddenly remember he should be here.

As a photographer, I’ve spent years documenting change—celebrations, traditions, people moving forward. I understand impermanence intellectually. But tonight, I feel it in a way no image ever prepared me for.

Chinese New Year is meant to be about renewal, about stepping into what’s next. Yet tonight reminds me that moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting. Some presence remains even when the chair is empty.

My father may no longer sit at the table, but he is still here—in the habits I keep, in the way I observe quietly, in the values that surface when life slows down.

This is the first Chinese New Year’s Eve without him.

I’m still sitting in front of the computer.

Fireworks still fill the night.

Cody is still by my side.

Everything looks the same.

Except now, I understand how much he mattered in all of it.

Wherever you are, Pa—

thank you for every year before this one.

Tonight, I remember.