There is a famous grief quote that says “Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate”. As my mind has dwelt on the memories of Uncle Keith since his unexpected passing, food has played a significant role in those memories.
It is a well known stereotype that Asian families struggle to say “I love you” out loud. And my maternal grandmother certainly seemed to fit this stereotype - English wasn't her strongest language, and I can't remember a time that she said “I love you”, though I never doubted that she loved me, largely because of the delicious food she cooked whenever we visited her house when I was little.
She lived in that house with my Uncle Keith, who filled both a fun uncle and grandfatherly role in my mind at the time. He let us play on his computer and video game consoles (the fun uncle side), and I can recall hours of fun with my sisters and cousins repeatedly playing the first level of Super Mario Bros, the tutorial maze in Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider mansion, laughing repeatedly at the animation of Crash Bandicoot being crushed by a rolling boulder, and watching villagers pick berries for a pixelated William Wallace in the Age of Empires 2 tutorial level on the computer. And when we were finally told enough on screen time (usually because we were squabbling about who's turn it was), there was an old copy of Clue to play, or the cozy coupe and big wheel tricycle that Uncle Keith kept in his garage between our visits, or the laundry basket full of special toys that lived at his house for us.
But on the grandfatherly side, it was Uncle Keith who told me stories about how my mother had behaved as a little girl, and showed me pictures of her or told me about her report cards. Their dad died when my mom was just 3, and my Uncle Keith at 15 stepped in to parent his younger siblings, a story I knew by heart as a kid, but didn't come to recognize as an act of great love until I was grown.
Like my grandmother, Uncle Keith used food to express to his nieces how much he looked forward to our visits. When we arrived he had always acquired a huge box of donuts from Shoppers, my favorite being the Boston cream donut bigger than my hand, or a huge bag of puffy Cheetos. To this day when I see Chester Cheetah printed on a bag in the grocery store, I think of Uncle Keith. But by far his favorite thing was to take us for dim sum. Dim sum was my chance to impress Uncle Keith by being brave enough to try new things. He would occasionally make up the dare - for example, he told me lap cheong in sticky rice was made of monkey meat - but I loved trying to rise to the challenge.
But no matter how brave I got with food, Uncle Keith was always braver. I don't remember when this particular memory occurred, but I recall one Chinese restaurant served roast duck with the head on the platter, bill and all, and my own horror watching Uncle Keith grab that duck bill and chomp down on the head.
Eventually Uncle Keith moved to the Pacific Northwest, and visits from him became a more infrequent treat. But he'd call us regularly, and in my mind I can still hear his low baritone voice saying “Em-uh-ly, pick up the phone”, because he knew that if I was in charge, I screened calls on the family landline before answering, and he would often leave messages starting that way, in case I picked up.
When I was in college, I interviewed for a summer internship with Microsoft, which flew me out to Seattle. Uncle Keith picked me up from the airport at 10 PM (so close to 1 AM to my East Coast brain), and immediately insisted on taking me to his favorite 24 hour dim sum location so that I could try the char siu bao bun with bolo bao topping, a combination he hadn't found on the East Coast. The next day, my interviews were in the late afternoon, so he took me to Pike Place Market that morning, with a long list of tourist goods to taste, the best of which was Beecher's mac and cheese. After my interview we drove out to a Chinese restaurant for a feast with several of his and Aunt Molly’s friends, where Uncle Keith bragged not only about my Microsoft interview, but also about the fact that I was comfortably eating the bitter melon dish they had ordered. My lifetime of food bravery had paid off, and I'd succeeded in making him proud.
Uncle Keith visited us last in March of 2025. My husband had started making his own pizza from scratch, and Uncle Keith was eager to try the “famous” Ryan homemade pizza. It was a love filled family dinner, and Uncle Keith ended it saying “until next time”. How bittersweet it is now to think that when that next time comes, we will be in the presence of God together. Until then, the smell, taste, and texture of my favorite dim sum dishes will serve as a symbol to my children of their Chinese heritage and of how much I miss Uncle Keith’s role in my life.
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