mauve tuesday gets personal
I know I said I wouldn't think about this any more tonight (*bamf*)--but tonight I got a phone call from my mother that changes things a bit.
Apparently, when my parents moved to Taiwan, they moved their pensions to a special account managed by Charles Schwab, a small San Francisco brokerage company. The folks at Schwab designed a portfolio for them around a number of bonds and securities, with the expectation that they would mature by the time my parents retired. A significant proportion of those securities ended up in a Lehman Brothers account.
Mom: Kevin? Are you planning to go to grad school?
Kevin: Mom, for the last time, I am not going to grad school. Not yet.
Mom: That's good.
Kevin: Really?
Mom: Because, well, we saved up some money just in case you changed your mind...but we can't afford it anymore.
Kevin: ....
I didn't know about any of this until about an hour ago--not long after I wrote that last post. Suffice to say I'm just really glad I'm not going to grad school now.
What really breaks me, though, is that my father tried to reassure my mother (she was losing sleep) by saying, "'Don't worry about it. It's only a year's worth of sweat, and it can be earned back. You still have your health, you're still safe, and Kevin is doing well. That's what important."
That doesn't sound like the fast-talking, excuse-making, sales-pitching sleazy middle manager my dad had been for most of my adolescent life. That sounds like the gentle, farmerly baker's son from Da Chi my mother married.
Old people, why do you have to be so heartbreakingly endearing?
Apparently, when my parents moved to Taiwan, they moved their pensions to a special account managed by Charles Schwab, a small San Francisco brokerage company. The folks at Schwab designed a portfolio for them around a number of bonds and securities, with the expectation that they would mature by the time my parents retired. A significant proportion of those securities ended up in a Lehman Brothers account.
Mom: Kevin? Are you planning to go to grad school?
Kevin: Mom, for the last time, I am not going to grad school. Not yet.
Mom: That's good.
Kevin: Really?
Mom: Because, well, we saved up some money just in case you changed your mind...but we can't afford it anymore.
Kevin: ....
I didn't know about any of this until about an hour ago--not long after I wrote that last post. Suffice to say I'm just really glad I'm not going to grad school now.
What really breaks me, though, is that my father tried to reassure my mother (she was losing sleep) by saying, "'Don't worry about it. It's only a year's worth of sweat, and it can be earned back. You still have your health, you're still safe, and Kevin is doing well. That's what important."
That doesn't sound like the fast-talking, excuse-making, sales-pitching sleazy middle manager my dad had been for most of my adolescent life. That sounds like the gentle, farmerly baker's son from Da Chi my mother married.
Old people, why do you have to be so heartbreakingly endearing?