check this out.

some people may or may not know, that during the spring, i was living in florida with my friends, sarah and jef, writing and recuperating from 2008. while my mom and brother were traveling in china, my dad went through dizzy spells. i urged him to see a doctor who took an x-ray of his brain. the technician said there was a spot, but would need the doctor to take a look to diagnose. but the doctor was on vacation for a week. i talked to eric and he said it could be either ear or brain related, giving me a test to distinguish. it appeared brain related. we were all terrified it was a stroke.

my father had to go to florida for a court case that would determine the fate of what had been years of terror and stress. i would talk to him daily to make sure he was calm about things. sarah asked me if i should go home to be with him. i don't know. he's a proud man, and i could see him saying no because he didn't want to seem needy. i called him the day he was supposed to fly home, and asked him if he wanted me to fly home so he wouldn't be alone. he said, only if it's convenient for me.

i realized, he was scared.

i booked a flight leaving within a few hours, and sarah rushed me to the airport. i waited in san jose airport for 2 hours, surprising my dad when he walked by after getting off his flight.

my dad and i have a very cautious relationship. there are entire universes left unsaid, because we are both so unable to express love towards each other. but that week, we bonded.

he trusted me because i had been there for him even though he hadn't asked for it. in a time in which he was actually very scared, i made him feel loved and not alone. this may seem kind of obvious, but my dad is not an emotionally trusting man. deep down, i think he's had feelings that those he loves will abandon him when he needs them most, which is why he is so self-sufficient and expects very little from others.

his doctor was out of town so he wasn't able to get the results of the xray, but bad news was still in the back of our minds.

we ate a lot of strawberries. it started when i bought some from the sunday farmer's market, but then just kept buying more and more. it turned into an insane amount of strawberries. i'm talking about $30 pallets of like eighty strawberries we would eat between us in one night. every night. i don't know why we ate strawberries, but we did. it became our thing.

the dizziness went away. by the time the doctor came back, my dad said he felt better, was even starting to play basketball again, and the doctor said the x-ray was fine if the symptoms weren't persistent.

so, i was just sitting here, eating strawberries. i realized these are the first i've bought since that week alone with my dad in fremont in the spring. i reminisced about the bonding between my dad and i that week, and realized what an insane amount of strawberries we ate. and how it was very out of the ordinary.

then i wondered...

i googled "strawberries" and "stroke." Got a few links that link the potassium in strawberries to being good for preventing stroke.

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maybe...it was an instinct.