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Streaming only on Peacock.
I'm going to need the name of everyone that could have a connection with me.
You don't understand.
It was just the five of us.
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All Her Fault, a new series streaming November 6th, only on Peacock.
Hey everybody, it's Meredith.
We'll be back with new episodes on September 9th.
Today, we have another Love Letters classic with an update.
I'm loving these updates because they give me a strange kind of closure.
Years ago, I had my friend Kumar on the show in an episode called The Best Partner I Ever Had.
After I released the episode, I started to worry.
I felt like I'd had Kumar on too soon after he'd gone through a big life event.
I really want people to be able to get perspective on a thing before they share too much on a podcast.
That's something I talked to my sister Brett about a lot.
I remember that as she decided she was getting a divorce, she was like I do not mind talking about this on the podcast.
And I worried she wasn't ready because by the day, her feelings were changing so much.
And with Kumar.
As I was recording him, I thought should I be protecting my friend from talking about his raw feelings while he's still in them?
Now that he has some perspective and his life has changed a lot, I asked him how he felt about sharing back then.
I also asked him to catch us up.
So first, we'll play the episode.
And then at the end new stuff from Kumar about how his life has changed and what it means to go on a podcast and say everything.
Maybe before you're ready.
So picture it.
It's 2017.
I get asked by the Australian Association in Boston to host their annual gala at a fancy hotel.
Apparently some members are fans of my love letters column, so they think I'd be a good host.
I tell them look, I'm not Australian and I've never been to Australia, so I don't know why you'd want to choose me as your emcee.
And they're like, we don't care.
Can you still host?
So I say, sure, why not?
I get my hair done and I put on a fancy dress and I show up to the hotel ballroom and there are Australian guys everywhere.
They're in their 20s and 30s and they all sound like Chris Hemsworth.
A lot of them are very hot.
But what do I do?
Who do I wind up spending the evening with?
A gay man at my table who happens to love two women, his mother and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Meet my friend, Kumar.
Hi, I'm Kumar Virupan.
I'm a scientist at Novartis.
I'm 37 years old.
Do you remember the night we met?
Yes, very clearly.
I still recall that I was like, why is this girl so quiet?
She orates really well on stage.
But when she's sitting down next to me, it's like she doesn't say five words.
And then I don't know how and when, but we start talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
And we just didn't stop.
And like you'd go on stage, do your MC work.
You'd come back and we just pick off where we started.
I was like, that's the power of Buffy, dude.
That's the power of Buffy.
From the Boston Globe and PRX, this is Love Letters.
I'm Meredith Goldstein.
So after that fateful night where I ignore all those hot Australian guys because Kumar is such good company,
He and I stay in touch.
We have dinner at his apartment.
He makes me this gorgeous pavlova egg white dessert.
We talk about our lives and how we got to Boston.
He has no filter, and that reminds me of my sister.
As our friendship develops, I realize Kumar and I have way more in common than a.
We've both had partnerships within our families that many of our peers just don't have.
We've both come to understand that love can mean many different things.
It doesn't have to be romantic.
Let me start from the beginning so you get the full picture.
Kumar grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
I lived there till I was 26 with my parents, who I adore.
I loved growing up in Malaysia.
Kuala Lumpur is still one of my most favorite cities in the world.
I traveled like, for instance, going to Rome, and I still thought Kuala Lumpur was still better in so many ways.
And my community there were always very giving and generous.
So whenever I need any help with anything, I still call my best friend, who's 12 hours in front of me, and she's always there.
Malaysia is comprised of three major cultures or cultural ethnicities.
The Malays, the Chinese and the Indians, which are me, like people who look like me.
I would say culturally, we're defined by each ethnicity.
But at the same time, especially because I'm fifth generation Malaysian, it's very much an amalgam of all three.
Considering I grew up in the capital, think of it like New York, except faster.
New York, except ruder because people are always in a hurry to go somewhere.
So most of the time, like if you hear me and my parents speak, we tend to say words or sentences where we leave words out because we don't want to waste time trying to get to the point.
By the way, I just want to note that, like it now occurs to me why you're so good at embracing Boston because, like it's so many impatient people being sort of East Coast shitty.
And it probably doesn't even seem East Coast shitty to you.
Like all these bad moods and rushing and traffic and mass whole behavior.
You're just like, whatever.
I love that.
Expectations are high in Kumar's conservative family.
He leans into that because he's motivated.
Big type A energy.
Okay, so high school in Malaysia, probably peaked in high school when I was school captain.
Wait, what is school captain?
You know, like Harry Potter has head boy.
It's the same thing.
Usually like they're known as the upper echelon, if you will, because you have to be good at some sporting activity extracurricular and you have to like be like a certain GPA in order to be elected.
Then I started college in Malaysia and that's when I realized I could peak in academia, because for the longest time I was just like doing you know, fairly OK.
By my family standards, I was doing poorly.
By like the general population, I was doing pretty well.
Kumar studies science in college in Malaysia.
He then decides to come to the U.S. to get a Ph.D. in genetics.
My biochem professor, who was also my colleague at that point, was like, you should go to Miami.
I think you'll like it because, you know, there's water everywhere.
And, you know, the dean always used to tell you that you work too hard.
So at least in Miami, you learn how to not work as hard.
Leaving Malaysia is hard for Kumar, mostly because he is so close to his parents, especially to his dad at this point.
They bond over food, fine dining and musicals.
His mom is more of the enforcer when it comes to achieving academic goals.
But she also encourages his curiosity, especially about science.
Together, the three of them are a pretty close unit.
Before I left for America, my dad said, I know you need to pursue your dreams.
His only thing he said was, you need to come back every year.
Every year you come home.
And the deal was, I come home every day, I WhatsApp them every day or message them every day.
And you would know the difference between your text messages, because my mom would have no punctuation and my dad was just filled with emojis.
Kumar is 26 when he lands in the U.S.
At this point, he identifies as bisexual, but he hasn't come out to his parents.
In Miami, he finally has the chance to figure out what he really wants.
It was for the first time in my life that I was staying by myself in concept.
Had a roommate, but still.
I lived at home for 26 years.
College was only like 15 minutes away from me.
So like, and my job was at the college I graduated from.
So living by myself, learning my own identity and allowing myself this space to grow into who I was.
Because, like being head boy slash school captain is.
It marks you for life of like.
You need to be in this box.
So when I got into Miami, that box is no longer there.
In 2012, I decided that I needed to do a social experiment.
Coming as a scientist, I was like let me date a guy and a girl At the same time for a whole month and give them three dates each.
Spare them between weekday and weekend and switch around the week after.
I did it actually for four dates.
And then I did like a pro-con list, like a table, and I scored it because, you know, scientists.
And the scoring system, I guess, was biased, because at that point that's how I figured out I was gay.
Kumar decides to come out to his mom during a trip back home to Malaysia about four months later.
My mom and I were driving around, which is what we usually do when I first touch down.
It's like, jet lag, fuck that.
I'm just going to continue spending time with my parents because they're my priority.
So I spent my time with my mom and dad, took them out for lunch, then dropped dad at home because he's much older.
And I told my mom, while she was grumbling about something, so mommy, guess what?
Um...
I don't like girls.
And she's like, at all?
At all.
And she just continued talking about whatever she was grumbling about.
Back in the U.S., Kumar embraces life as a Ph.D. student, making more close friends.
Turns out it is pretty fun to discover you're a gay man in Miami.
Then started the Kumar became a whore of Miami period.
My hot boy years, not hot boy summer. started in 2012.
And wow yeah, there are some very scary stories which are kind of funny, but I think should not be on the podcast, just because it's a little weird.
Or you and I can talk about it over a bottle of Riesling.
That sounds good.
Kumar then moves to Boston.
And in 2015, less than a year later, he meets a guy at a party Kumar hosted his apartment.
The relationship lasts about a year and three months.
By the time I meet Kumar at the Australian dinner, he's single and working for the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a world-renowned genetic center.
As I get to know him better, the thing that I relate to most is how he talks about his parents.
It's like they're his friends, maybe even his life partners.
It reminds me of what I have with my sister and what I used to have with my mom before she died.
Like, sure, Kumar talks about guys and dating, and his close community of friends.
But it's clear who comes first, his mom and his dad, which is why his life changes so much in 2018.
Early March, my dad started having syncope, which is like fainting spells.
And my mom would try and resuscitate him because my mom was a nurse.
And it usually worked up to that point.
And my mom would always call me after saying, your dad just went through syncope.
I just wanted to let you know.
Kumar's friends in Malaysia help his mom take his dad to the hospital after these incidents.
One time, his dad remains in the hospital because he's not healthy enough to come home.
I was just like, I know I'm depressed about this.
I know I'm anxious about this.
So bought the next plane ticket out, got home, went straight to the hospital.
My best friend actually picked me up and I just took care of him.
Kumar says his parents had always made clear that they wanted to die at home.
So Kumar and his mother bring his father back to the house.
I'll not forget the time he died because I was sitting right next to him.
I didn't know what to do because I've never seen like a person die.
So my mom's in the garden.
I'm screaming at her, mommy, can you come in?
Mommy, can you come in?
And my mom was like, why?
I'm gardening outside.
It was like 12 o'clock.
She comes in.
She's like, I think your dad's dying.
All I remembered was just seeing his blood pressure drop and drop and drop till it got to zero.
And then I was like, OK, do I call time of death?
And my mom's like, yeah.
So 12.18 p.m., April 14th in Malaysia in 2018 is when he died.
I should mention that even though Kumar's mom, had asked him not to tell his dad he was gay.
Kumar had come out to his father about a year before his father died.
In 2017, I told my dad and I remember my dad crying and I thought oh great, I fucked him up, didn't I?
He's going to die like tomorrow.
He just said, I'm happy that you're okay and I'm happy that you're happy because I knew it.
I just don't know why your mom didn't know it.
And then he said don't tell your mom that I know.
So, after he died and my mom was like you know, blackmailing me and saying you know you need to get married to a woman because you know you'd have children.
Your dad didn't know he'll be in heaven, looking.
I'm like well one, we don't know if he's in heaven.
What if he's looking up instead of down?
And then two, he knew and she's like how, and i told her the entire story.
She's like you, little dipshit.
After his dad dies, Kumar is home in Malaysia for two months to help.
Kumar does have a sibling who's estranged from the family.
That sibling is present for some of the aftermath of their father's death.
But it's just one more stressful thing for Kumar and his mom to have to work around.
They do their best to focus on this wonderful man they've lost.
Like in Judaism, there's Shiva, right?
Seven days of mourning, you let people take care of you.
In Hinduism, which is what I grew up with, it's 16 days of mourning.
Except in this case, you try to get the body buried slash, cremated as fast as you can and then start the mourning period for 16 days where you pretend, if you will, that the person is still in your house.
That means you still prepare three meals a day for them, as if they're still alive.
Kumar's main focus in this mourning period is on his mom.
Her name is Meena.
She just lost a partner of 30-something years.
And she didn't know what to do.
So I told her, I'll take care of you.
I take care of the groceries.
I take care of her.
I make sure she takes a shower.
I make sure she gets everything she needs done.
And on the 16th day, which is this beautiful ceremony, you don't sleep for the entire night and you have prayers.
And these prayers are meant to like ascend them to heaven, because that's the day that their soul leaves to heaven.
At the end, You dip yourself in the river to say that I'm done with the mourning.
I'm ready to let go.
For Kumar and his mom, it's a period of massive adjustment.
But as Kumar heads back to his life in Boston, the big changes are only beginning for both of them.
Their story continues when we come back.
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There's a battle playing out right now over who should control American universities.
We're going to bankrupt these universities.
In season one, we were guessing what was to come.
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From the Boston Globe and on the media, it's season two of The Harvard Plan.
This time, it really is personal.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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Okay, we're back.
So I'm no stranger to having a spouse-like relationship with a parent or sibling.
Maybe spouse-like is not the right way to say it, but I know what it means to have a family member be a primary partner.
When I was young, like a preteen, my mom would meet me at school for lunch sometimes.
We'd sit in the cafeteria and talk like we were Sex and the City characters at a bar.
I was like 12.
And then she'd go home to teach piano and and I'd go back to class.
We were always in it together, until she died when I was in my 30s.
It's not just my mom.
My sister Brett, likes to refer to me as her sister wife, and by that she means I'm basically her partner, even though she's married.
One of the most revealing moments in our sibling relationship was right after my mom died and we met with a financial planner.
Brett was shocked to learn that day that if she died, her husband would inherit whatever she had, not me.
It was so clear that whatever marriage meant to Brett, she didn't think it ranked above what we have.
That's why I totally get it when Kumar loses his dad and says, my mom is now my top priority.
Part of that is cultural.
In Malaysia, As in many other places outside of the US, family elders are often taken care of by relatives, not nursing homes.
But it's also a function of Kumar's special relationship with his mother, Meena.
Following Kumar's return home to Boston after his father's death, he and his mom are messaging each other multiple times a day.
They spend a lot of time talking about Patch, the family dog, who Meena refers to as her daughter.
In 2019, when Mina comes to Boston for the holidays, she brings Patch with her.
One night around Christmas that year, I go over to Kumar's place.
I'm with Aaron from season two of this podcast.
Aaron and Kumar had met at a Love Letters event in Boston, and of course they hit it off.
So it's me, Aaron, Kumar, and Patch watching Love Actually with Kumar's mom.
Who thought it was a bullshit movie.
Well, I mean, listen, that's something we can discuss on another episode.
But also that was when you were like I think some of these scenes were edited out in Malaysia, the whole porn plot.
Anyway.
At this point, Kumar's mom is only supposed to stay with him through the holidays.
She was supposed to fly home after New Year.
And then I talked to my roommate who, you know, got along really well with my mom.
And she's like, you know, if Mina wants to stay all six months, do it.
I was like, let's not push it.
Maybe we'll get her till March.
So we extended her stay from early January to mid-March.
She was supposed to fly home Friday the 13th, but then lockdown happened.
March 13th, as in March 13th, 2020, the day the world ground to a halt.
It becomes clear pretty quickly that Kumar's mom is not flying home to Malaysia anytime soon.
So Kumar suddenly has a new and indefinite roommate, his mother.
He's okay with that.
She was already kind of like my unofficial best friend.
I didn't realize she was until after my dad died.
And my mom was already so much a part of my life.
Like, especially after my dad died, she would hang out with me and my friends in Malaysia as much as how she did in America.
Like she's someone I talk to so much, very easy to share a life with her here that I just had to.
I just constantly would think of like does my mom need medication?
Have I made her lunch?
I don't want her to do laundry.
I'm going to do laundry for her because she's done laundry for me my entire life.
Even while I lived at home and a working adult, she still did my laundry.
So, like I said no, while in America I take care of you because I promised my father, after you die, she's going to be okay.
When I watch Gilmore Girls, because I tried getting my mom into Gilmore Girls and I didn't realize this until she started watching season one.
I'm just like, hmm, mommy, do you realize you're like Lorelai and I'm like Rory?
She's like, yeah, except I'm not that annoying and I don't talk that much.
Kumar and his mom take full advantage of lockdown and work from home culture.
They do all this stuff I wish I could have done with my mom.
Dare I say, they have many Gilmore Girls adventures.
They hop in a car and visit friends in Connecticut.
They take Patch to multiple farm stands.
Kumar occasionally documents their fun on Instagram, and he tags it.
Mommy is adorable.
My favorite pic was from August 2020.
It's Kumar, his mom, and Patch on a really cool Boston restaurant patio.
Kumar is wearing a crown.
The caption says today I had one of the best birthdays I've had in the US because I got to spend the whole day with hashtag.
Mommy is adorable.
COVID was one of the best things for my mom and I, because I got to spend so much time with her and And so I just started posting Instagram stories or whatever we did, because I enjoyed them so much.
Every Sunday was our special mommy-son patch day, where we would spend the day grocery shopping, which is one of the favorite things we used to love doing together.
We'd go to the Asian store in Quincy, Can-Man, and then we'd have lunch somewhere.
Then we'd go to BJ's, and then we'd go to the white people's store Wegmans, and then we'd come home either to cook part of the groceries or, most of the time, Down the street there used to be Sichuan Garden that we'd pick up food and we'd eat it in the car.
And then we'd continue our journey.
Tell me about dating with mom in the house.
I went on dating apps and I would tell my mother I still remember one of the first dates I went to was in Connecticut.
We were visiting family in Milford.
And I said, OK, mommy, I'm going to meet a collaborator in this other city outside of Milford.
Actually, I went on a date.
The entire family knew I went on a date, except my mother.
So I'd come home and my mom would be like, how's the collaboration?
Did she talk about genetics?
Yes, mommy, we talked about different kinds of genetics.
And then the other family members are trying to pull me aside and ask me secretly what was going on.
In 2021, Kumar's mom is still here.
He's still having dates.
Around this time, he meets a man who seems to be worth more than just a secret date or two.
I finally found a person that I actually liked-liked, and we dated for almost like a month and a half before I told my mother.
Let's give him a name.
Soup.
Did you say soup?
Yes, because my best friends at home used to call him the Soup Can.
Okay, okay, okay.
So Soup, you meet Soup, and can you just give me a little intro to how you met and what you liked about Soup?
We met on Facebook dating.
What I liked about Soup on the first date was he went to the bathroom and he kissed me on the forehead.
It's something so small, but it's like, who kisses you on the forehead anymore?
And it's only going to the bathroom.
Right.
You'll be right back, hopefully.
So you know, back in the day I used to worry that oh, if I meet someone, they're going to have to except the relationship I have that's super close with my mom.
And now that's super close with my sister.
Like, it's not just me.
Right.
When you started liking soup, were you like, oh like he's really got to understand that I'm not just like living alone.
I haven't like, what were your thoughts about how to message that?
And what were your concerns about it, if any?
So I usually lay it out front.
This is what my life is like.
And you have to accept it.
If not, we're not going to date it.
So you told Sup right off the bat?
Yeah, right off the bat.
I was like, my mom got stuck from COVID.
I have a roommate and my mom has a dog.
So there are four of us, including Patch, in the apartment at all times.
Do you remember what he, you know, thought about that?
He said I think it was something along the lines of I was very close with my mom too, and I lost her when I was very young.
So I understand very well. how much your mother needs to be a part of your life.
So like when we'd meet his friends and I'd say, my mom's my roommate.
And he's like, and he clarifies with the friends, his mom lives with him.
He's not living with his mom.
But the relationship with Soup ends in November 2021.
Soup said he just didn't want to be in a relationship anymore.
When I went home, my mom was in the living room and I brought home like the bag of my things.
And she's like, oh, did you have a good time with soup?
And I said, well, we just broke up.
So I go into my room and I say, okay, mommy, I know you're worried.
I'm going to leave the door open.
So in case if you need anything, you can come check on me.
And how she would check in on me is she would brush her hand against my forehead or my cheek to see if I'm okay and breathing.
I'm assuming.
And then she'd brush my hair with her hand and then she'd walk away.
So the next day, I remember her coming into my room and she said...
You know, these things happen.
Everything's going to be OK.
And you know what?
If you end up being single for the rest of your life, that's also not the worst thing.
It's not like you don't have friends.
I'm like, you're right, mommy.
A few weeks after that breakup in December, Kumar is back on the dating apps.
He lands on a cute lawyer who lives in the region.
And he's like, all right, why don't we go on a date?
I was like, you know what?
Tonight seems fine.
And I try not to tell my mom about first dates, because then she's going to ask, like you know, when can I meet him?
All these questions, you know.
So as I'm leaving the apartment, my mom had an upset stomach at that point.
So I always take care of my mom.
Like if she has an upset stomach, I'm like, do you want to go see a doctor?
Do you want to go do something?
And she's like, no, everything's fine.
And she's a nurse.
So I trust her diagnosis and things.
I said, yeah, I'm heading out now.
I'm going to go have dinner.
So don't worry about me.
What I always do whenever I get to my location anywhere, I call my mom and I say, hi, mommy.
She doesn't even say hi.
All she says, okay, okay, leave me alone.
I'm having my soup.
I had a great date.
I remember coming home that day and I stopped at two McDonald's because the first one was closed, the second one
And the reason I wanted to stop at McDonald's was to get my mother fries so that I could like talk to her about what happened that day.
My mom, for some reason, loved McDonald's.
Don't know why.
So tried the second McDonald's, too many cars.
And I said, fuck this.
Let me go home.
I go home.
It's like 12, 15 at that point.
I open the door and Patch comes running through the door.
It's what she usually does.
But her mood was slightly different.
I was like, okay, well, I guess maybe she got in trouble for something, right?
So I walk in and I'm like, why are the living room lights on?
And my mother's room lights are also on, which is down the hall.
So I'm like, mommy, mommy, and she's not answering.
Kumar discovers his mom lying on the ground near the sectional.
So I see that and I'm like, fuck, I guess this is happening.
So then I get on top of my mom, remembering everything my mother taught me about how to resuscitate someone, and including it with whatever I learned in undergrad, as I'm trying to call 911.
They came, they got in, and they're like, sir, we're going to take care of your mom.
I'm like, okay, so I'm just crossing my fingers that we get to resuscitate her.
I eavesdropped one of the paramedics talking to the other paramedics about They can't find a sinus, which is a sinus rhythm.
And then I just said, well, did I just lose my mom?
And they go, yes, sir, I'm sorry, you just lost your mom.
And I burst out crying.
She was 74 years old.
Kumar immediately calls his closest friends.
One comes right over, even though it's past midnight.
When I learned of Kumar's mom's death, I was really worried about him.
I knew all too well that he'd not only lost his mom, but his best friend.
That's how I felt when my mom died in 2013, and I still had my other best friend, my sister.
Days later, Kumar has his mother cremated at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, where he's surrounded by loved ones.
A few days after that, Kumar goes to Malaysia carry out his mom's wishes.
Luckily, she told him some of the things she wanted when she died.
But it is a long flight to Malaysia with a lot of time for reflection.
I had 23 hours by myself and all I could think about was my mom's in a cake box because she was too cheap.
She said, don't buy an urn because we're going to throw it away anyway.
What's the point of doing that?
I'd even buy a coffin because my mom would call me stupid for doing that.
That 23 hours was so hard because I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know who I was, what I was.
I was literally questioning every part of myself as well, because I've had this person in my life all that time.
She wanted to be buried next to my dad as ashes.
She wanted no autopsy, regardless of what it was, unless she was murdered by the street.
Then she said please get an autopsy and do a serial drama about it, because she liked true crime stories.
He's there for two months.
After that, he begins the process of reframing his life.
For two years, Kumar's world had revolved around his mother and both of his parents before that.
Slowly, he begins to adapt with Patch, his canine sibling, who's now in his care.
I know we're not that far away from all this happening, but it's still new.
But what has surprised you about getting back into a routine here, just about life now and what it looks like?
My therapist really helps me notice.
Every time I make a good checkpoint, which is when I do something the first time.
It's usually the hardest.
So when I go to Wegmans the first time, I'm thinking of my mom, as she would come up to me and say can I please have this bread?
It's only a dollar.
And I tell her, no, that's a burger bun and there's so much sugar in it.
She's like, you don't let me get anything.
I was like, I will let you get bread.
However, you have to check that there's not a lot of sugar.
So I'm reminded of her all of these instances, but all it took was that first time for that thing to happen for me to physically feel that thing and then process it And let it go.
Grief is less of you getting over it.
It's more like you're growing around it.
Like a burning bush is in between.
That burning bush is going to continue being there.
But your trees and other plants are growing around it.
I wrestled with whether to ask Kumar to tell his story, because he's still so in the middle of it.
And I'll admit I'd wanted him to talk about this stuff even before his mom died, because I was trying to figure out for my own good how do you have a romantic life when your primary commitments are to family and friends.
Like even now, Brett, my sister, is so primary in my life.
I want to make room for romantic love in the right ways, but it won't look like it does in the movies, where your romantic partner is always your person and everything else falls away.
I know Kumar will find romantic love, and it'll be on his schedule and on his terms.
I've gone on dates with two separate men since I got back.
One was the guy that I went on a date with when my mom died.
The second one.
We dated for a while and then I realized something after the second or third date that I'm still not okay.
All I wanted to do was, every time I was done with the date, come home and tell my mom.
Like, not the details, but just like, Mommy, I went out and I had a good time.
And she'd be like, are you sure you had a good time or not?
Did you drink enough?
Kumar was worried about his birthday this year, his first without his mom.
But it actually went okay.
His friends in Malaysia set up a Zoom date to check in.
I see my high school friends, my senior year high school friends all on my screen that I'm staring at right now.
They're all wearing my favorite color, pink.
They're all wishing me happy birthday.
They're all singing happy birthday to me.
So it started going on really well.
And I even planned for the afternoon that Patch and I would do what my mom and I did when she lived here, which is we go to the same farm.
We buy the chocolate milk my mom and I have.
We do the same thing that we do on my birthday.
And when I got home, I was feeling pretty okay.
It was like this very new feeling of just like, I'm so happy I made these memories with her.
I'm so happy I got all this time with her.
I got all this time with my dad that he made it so much a point that I had to come home every year so that I could have more memories in my bank, to have this fuzzy feeling.
Kumar knows that the road he's on won't be simple or even linear.
For now, he's just trying to honor his and be grateful for the best partner he's ever had.
My mom was definitely like a teenage white girl because she liked pumpkin spice.
Both of us loved the fall.
So I see colors changing.
I think of her.
I see the colors in her room.
I think of her.
I see patch.
I think of her.
But instead of before I'm introspecting and being sad, I'm more of just like introspecting and like I'm so happy that, Unlike some of my friends who regret when their parents die and they're like I didn't do enough, that with both my parents I can safely say I did most of the things I planned to do and everything they wanted to do.
Today morning, when I woke up, I realized the one thing I didn't do for my mom.
I promised her when I was six we used to watch Miss World and Miss Universe competitions together every year.
And it was like in the middle of the night.
And I used to tell my mom I'm going to get you a strapless red dress when I grow up and I have money.
Mommy,
That was the only thing I didn't get for her.
She would never have worn it.
She would have kept it in the closet, like the bra that I bought for her from 40 Wings that she didn't wear until the time she died because she thought it was too expensive.
Thank you so much for telling your story.
Thank you so much for having me and for reminding us that love doesn't have to be what we traditionally think it is.
Now, we fast forward to the present.
I should mention that I sent these questions to Kumar as an email and then he sent me back little voice recordings from his phone.
To start, Kumar's life has changed a lot since our recording.
Kumar met a man whose name is Noah.
We started dating in November of 2023.
And what we did was we met on Hinge around Thanksgiving.
And because he's in his 40s and i was in my late 30s, we came into dating in a very different, more targeted approach, if you will.
He very much thinks with his feelings and i very much think with my brain, so one of the things that we both, by coincidence, had were recordings of our lives.
One from me was from love letters.
Thanks to you, He got to learn very quickly about my relationship with my mother and the importance of family.
He had a separate recording which I'm blanking on what the name of the recording is right now.
That was a podcast on gratitude.
That was with Marcy Nettles, if I remember correctly.
So he had a recording on how he coped with being a caregiver to his father and subsequently his mother.
So we both got to learn very quickly many things about each other and how much we loved our parents.
And once I knew how much he loved his mother, I knew it was a yes, please moment.
A lesson here.
If you participate in a podcast about your life, it can become a pretty amazing summary of who you are for the next person who falls in love with you.
Of course, I had asked Kumar, how did Patch, his sibling slash dog, take to Noah?
Patch, by the way, is 14 years old now.
How Patch met him is I told Patch, Patch, I'm bringing a new friend home.
You have to be really nice.
So he came home.
He was at the front door and she ran out to greet him and instantly took to him.
The hardest question I had to ask Kumar was did I push you to be on our podcast after your mom died too quickly?
I asked if it was too raw and how the grief of the moment looks to him now.
Well, I think grief, as you and I know together, is relative.
I did then try listening to what my body was saying and it really felt like that grief was still in me.
But I was making all these memories around that grief.
I was celebrating my mother.
I was celebrating my father.
I was celebrating Buffy, my first dog.
And most importantly, I was celebrating Patch who was with me.
By having Patch with me, it was great.
The part that I thought was the best or the most cathartic part of doing the interview with you was that you chose to release the episode on the day that I was flying, or like the day before I was flying back to Malaysia for the one-year anniversary prayers that I was doing in Malaysia from my mother.
So there was some level of catharsism that was associated with listening to the recording and sending it to many people.
The day that we recorded, it felt like I was releasing something.
The day the recording came out it felt really appropriate for me to listen to it on the plane leaving Boston to go home to Malaysia.
A last thing about Kumar and his life now.
There is a children's book about Patch.
This really comes from Kumar's partner, Noah.
Kumar can explain.
And this children's book actually came because of our routine as a family.
In the mornings I take care of Patch because my schedule is relatively flexible, and When he comes back from work he works at a gay and lesbian addiction center where he's a group facilitator.
So when he gets back from work at about like four if not five he's usually very much excitable about telling me how his day was and how he feels like his job has really given him a lot and he feels accomplished.
So, at the same time, Patch just wants his attention because she's just like my other.
Big brother is home and he's the nice one.
So they then go out for their walks.
So it takes them a while to go out and get home.
I used to go on these evening walks with Noah and Patch, but I thought to myself it would be more efficient if they just go out for their walks and I prepare dinner at home.
So I'd be at home preparing dinner, just being like Good old Kumar, loving to cook, and maybe even calling my best friends in Malaysia or catching up on emails at work or text messages from friends in the US.
So they would come home after like their 45 minute to two hour walk.
And Noah would come home with all these brilliant ideas.
It just feels like his walk was him discovering gratitude, which is the name of his company called Discover Gratitude.
So one day early on in our relationship, about like maybe six or seven months in, and we just we move in, we like unofficially moved in together.
And he'd come home.
And I say you know, it's kind of funny because every time you go out it feels like you're doing.
Discover Gratitude with Pat.
And that was when the idea was born.
Noah then thought we should probably write a book.
So we got an illustrator. through two degrees of separation.
Their name is Ash Analambidakis, and they study at Mass Art.
And so the two of them just worked together for about four or five months, coming up with the storyboard, figuring out illustrations and having it embrace the identity of our family, that Noah does everything with his feelings and Kumar is always the one who tries to overthink everything.
And Patch brings us together in joy, love, and gratitude.
I love this book.
I love the illustrations.
And I love my little family that I got, which every day we're discovering gratitude and love and joy with each other, that our parents, his parents and my parents would all be very proud of us to have found each other, to have just found partners in each other.
I mean, most importantly, it's between me and Noah.
And the one thing I would also let everyone know, because I know it is a very challenging world out there to find a partner.
I don't know if Noah is my perfect partner, but I do know that when you find someone, you have to work at it and communicate as transparently as you can with your partner or with the person you want to be your partner because of this chemistry or, you know, with this person that you just find so much joy with.
Because having a partner is very much a partnership.
Having love is very much a partnership.
And that's what I had with my parents.
That's what he had with his parents.
And that's what we now have with each other.
The book is called Discover Gratitude with Patch.
You can find it at discovergratitudewithpatch.com.
We'll be back with a new episode of Love Letters in two weeks.
We'll start with a funny one.
See you then.
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