To My 100-day-old Daughter

I love you.

We celebrated your 100th-day yesterday. In our Korean tradition, it’s a big deal to celebrate your “Baek-il,” or 100th day. The legend is that due to a high rate of infant mortality in the past, a baby’s 100th day is a huge milestone that is worthy of a huge celebration. It’s basically a celebration of survival, a party to remind you — and all of us — that we’ve made it.

Your 100th day carries another significance. You were born just hours after the NBA’s suspension of its season, Tom Hank testing positive for COVID-19, and the U.S. travel restrictions on European countries — basically America’s wake-up call to the global COVID-19 pandemic. (It’s unfortunate that this wake-up call didn’t wake everyone up.) Just hours after you were born, the hospital policy changed, and all the toiletries miraculously disappeared from grocery stores nationwide. When we were discharged two days later, I felt like I was in a scene of 28 Days Later, where its main character who just left the hospital, confusedly wanders around in a deserted London from a zombie apocalypse.

It’s been a hot mess ever since then. Your parents didn’t know what to do with you, didn’t know what to do with each other, didn’t know what to do with ourselves, and didn’t know what to do with the world full of suffering, despair, and injustice. Each day felt like a month. And…