Father

It doesn’t happen often –very rarely in fact—but there are days when I miss my father. Strangely enough, missing him isn’t at all like missing friends or other loved ones. I don’t sit around thinking dreamily about how great it would be if those guys were here. We’d be arguing about this and making fun of that. Oh, what fun. 

I don’t have such day dreamy thoughts about my father. I can’t even imagine him in this cramped little room of a flat where my mother and I now live. When I’m blogging and my mother is watching her Korean dramas, what would he be doing? Having passed about six years ago, he just doesn’t seem to fit into this new world where neighbors aren’t good friends and people read the news online.  He used to struggle desperately with a cell phone and only agreed to carry one so he could send me text messages.  I knew he found it very hard to use because his messages were always in caps and sometimes preceded by a couple of blank messages, failed attempts at typing in some text apparently. 

My father probably had to go.   And he went indeed with more pain than we’d hope but what are you going to do? That’s life. Or more accurately, that’s death.

The passing of my father was not at all difficult to accept.   He was in such pain in the last days of his life I almost did not recognize him. His strength was gone along with his patience and reason.  The grieving process was easier than I thought as well. Immediately after his death, there were so many who genuinely mourned his passing that I was sort of preoccupied by their grief, a bit curious and somewhat surprised.  People I’ve never seen in my life cried in my living room, shoved money into my palms and offered me and my mother words of condolence.  I’d be like, “Who was that?” And she’d be like, “No idea.”

For many who knew him, my father was a jolly fellow, the kind of person whom you would always be happy to see and invite over for a meal.  

For my mother, he was a companion, an occasional headache and the kind of husband who would insist on buying chocolate cake for her birthday even when times were hard and she would rather not spend on luxuries like cake. 

For me, he was the guy who shined my shoes in morning, made my meals, took me to the dentist, fixed my broken things, sent me money and picked me up having come from God knows where.  He taught me how to watercolor (although I never really got that), lent me the first ultra thick novel I ever read (entitled “The Eight”), and yeheyed with me when after eons, I was finally done.  He was my father and his greatest gift to me was being present to raise me.

And I miss him these days.  I feel like an aching hole in my chest is being stretched open by feelings of regret, guilt, frustration, need, loss and disappointment all fighting to come out.  Oh, but what’s done is done and that’s a scary place to get into.  At the end of the day, I will manage.

Just once in a while though, I get this need to be with the person who taught me how to cross the street just so I could glance back one more time and ask if I should take a step forward already. Am I going to be all right?  All I need to do next is to trust that answer and with full confidence, soldier on.