How is your mom doing?

Many of us are living in a phase of life where we’re in between. Our elders, and sometimes our friends, are passing. We sense our own eventual precarity.

Whenever I catch up with close friends, we ask each other, “How’s your mom [dad]?” Hopefully, things are alright. When they are not, we say a little prayer and/or send our regards. We may never get to meet our friend’s parents but feel like we know them because we know our friends.

For mother's day, here’s an update on my mom.

For most her life, Clara Nguyen Thi Tuyet voluntarily lived in my dad’s shadow. They were a modern couple, but she also fully realized her role as a Vietnamese woman: she dutifully supported her husband and raised a family. She financially pulled her weight by working. She cooked or oversaw 95 percent of our meals.

When I visited her last weekend, she pulled out some 1990 photos, including this one taken when my brother graduated from pharmacy school at the University of Southern California.

My brother was smart but wayward, so when he applied to pharmacy school, my mom called the school admissions office and befriended a staffer to make sure that her son had submitted all his materials on time. The glee you see is partly relief.

Mom looked at the photo and said, “We were young and beautiful!”

She’s still gorgeous, especially when she’s doing what she enjoys — cooking. A snippet from her kitchen when I visited last weekend:

What was all the daikon for? Get all the details, her driving tips (!) plus my observations and assessment on aging in this Pass the Fish Sauce newsletter dispatch. (Subscribe to never miss a beat.)

Some recipes and know-how from my mom:

• Cha gio deep-frying tips
• Candied kumquats
• Banh gio rice and pork pyramid dumplings