We had a pair of rabbits once. One was gray and the other was white. He would not let me carry them any way other than by the ears. He told me that if I did, they would die. I'm not sure if that is true, but I'm still too afraid to try. We had them for a while. But then gave those away, eventually, too.

He loved fish. He had an aquarium that was set up right next to his chair in front of the window. We went through fishes and fishes. Mostly gold fish. He was very careful with the filter and the food. Every time we ate a restaurant with an extravagant aquarium, he would take me to see the fish.

I was typing something on my laptop one day. He walked past the room, looked back and said, "Oh wow, you can type without looking at the keyboard?"

He took me to Christmas in the Park every year when I was younger. Sometimes during the day, other times at night. I would play in the water that shot out from the ground. Even though he had seen the different sets many times before, he would still act surprised and excited to see each one again with me.

The two of us went to the flea market. We walked by the pet stands and I went straight to the puppies to play with them. I really wanted one. The next time we went, my dad bought one. It was a Labrador Retriever. We named it Lucky. The first few nights it gave us a hard time, crying. But it got used to us. My dad always got sick of the smell of dog poop. It made him vomit. So my mom and I would clean it up. Eventually, we had to get ride of Lucky so we gave it away. A year later or so, we got another one. We also named it Lucky (for my father could not pronounce other names well). This one was a lot more aggressive. Both were incredibly lovable. Once again, we gave that one away too. Every now and then we would find a picture of one of the Luckys and he would mention how cute they were. And indeed, they were awfully cute.

Every morning he had hot homemade Vietnamese coffee. I say Vietnamese coffee because it is a lot stronger than the weak Starbucks kind. He would dip bread in it and eat it And I would watch, sitting next to him at the dinner table. There were only three seats, and he sat in the same one everyday. The one facing the window so he can look outside. On some occasions, he would make me my own small cup of coffee and a side of bread and we would eat/drink it together. I could not have too much though because I was still young. That is how I grew to love coffee to this day.

Memories. Sometimes a memory can be difficult to recall. Other times, they just pop up during a very random time of day. Those random times, I would like to record here. Only specific memories. The ones of my dad who has passed. God rest his soul. Let's celebrate the life he lived. This blog is him -- through my mind. Through my eyes. Through my soul.

The first one:
I would often fall asleep on the couch in the living room downstairs at night. My parents would watch TV and I would doze off. When everyone was ready to go upstairs and sleep, my bed was in their room, my mom would turn off the lights downstairs and my dad would pick me up carefully to bring me to my bed. He would always try his best to not wake me up. Even as I grew up, grew heavier, he would still carry me as gently as he could.