Slapjack

Yesterday, I played slapjack with my six-year-old daughter.

Uno, Hai, Tres, Bon, Cinco, …

l was counting with my beginner’s Spanish and she was counting with her beginner’s Vietnamese. Jack, Queen and King were in English since we both didn’t know how to say those words in our respective chosen language. I did not understand Vietnamese and she did not understand Spanish. So it was difficult for both of us to not only keep track of the sequence of numbers but also say the correct numbers in a different language. We laughed as we struggled to prevail.

Afterwards, my daughter grabbed my phone to use Google Translate. She wanted to see if she can say something in English and stump me if I could not repeat the same phase in Spanish.

I want a dog.

I answered, “Yo quiero un perro.”

I like …

Me gusta …

I love my dad

Hiding my smile, I said, “Yo encanto mi papa.”

“Encanto,” my daughter perked up and asked, “Like the movie?.”

I replied, “Yes. I didn’t know that the movie was called love until I started learning Spanish.”

I watch her eyes sparkle as she was delighted to have learned something new. So our game continued.

I love my mom

Yo encanto mi mama

I love you a hundred and thousand million thousand

I paused. I hesitated because I didn’t know if I should explain to my daughter that a billion is after a million. In my moment of hesitation, I realized that this was a teaching moment — not for her but for me.

As a child, I was taught to hide my emotions. Love was something that was best expressed indirectly such as offering food or asking if someone had eaten dinner. Never asking someone directly about their feelings or expressing your own emotions.

As such, to say, “I love you” was as foreign to me as traveling to a distant land like China or Antarctica. To say, “I love you a hundred thousand million …” would have been the same as traveling to the moon and back.

At that moment, I stopped and think about all things that had to happen in order to make this moment possible. Peace. Diversity. Social mobility. My daughter reminded me that this is America – one of the best places in the world to raise a family. A mixture of cultures. Take what is useful and make it yours. No titles of nobility. No little princelings or emperors. Only an opportunity to try to build or make something with your life to create value for yourself, family, friends, and society as a whole.

And no. I did not know how to say I love you a hundred and thousand million thousand in Spanish. But I certainty know the feeling of that expression.