February 27, 2021 marks twenty years since my father passed away. Twenty years since that horrible night in the hospice room in Findlay Ohio, where my mother and I, holding each other for dear life, sobbing uncontrollably, telling my father that he can go in peace now, that we would take care of each other in his absence. Twenty years since I had to watch my father gasping for air, and then taking his last breaths on this earth. Twenty years.
We humans are sentimental animals, we feel that we must
commemorate anniversaries, marking times is important to keep memories alive,
those memories that matter the most to us.
Twenty years. So it is that I am writing this essay. I truly
don’t want to open twenty-year-old scars, exposing twenty-year-old wounds.
Except that I feel like I must. Not so much for the sake of posterity but for
my own memories and pent-up feelings.
So much has happened in those twenty years, and yet so much
has remained the same, at least in my mind. I still remember sleeping on the
couch of my father’s hospice room, dreading the day that would come inevitably,
listening to his labored breathing and talking to my father in his few lucid
moments. Except this wasn’t my father, it was the shell of the man that I loved
and admired, the aggressive cancer treatment had robbed him of the logic that
he so prized in himself, the humor that kept our family together, and the love
that bonded me forever to him.
I remember leaving the hospice after he had passed and getting
something to eat with my mother and my parent’s dearest friends in Findlay. Of
course, the dinner conversation was forced, and the mood subdued. I remember
going to my father’s little office in my parent’s condo and sitting up all
night, typing on his desktop, trying to come up with the words for his eulogy.
I remember trying to describe the many things he had done, the many adventures
that he had in China, in Taiwan, in Vietnam, in Honduras, in Bangladesh, in
Colorado, in Boston, and in Findlay. I don’t think I did much exaggerating
about his many escapades while working in war zones; I am pretty sure that I wrote that piece of
writing with pride. The actual text is lost to the world, as I am unable to
find it. It was not my finest piece of writing to be sure, but it was my most
heartfelt piece. It was also the hardest thing I had to write. Ever.
I remember going through the days in a daze as we awaited
the funeral service. I remember my mother insisting on an open casket at the
viewing, which upset me greatly, and then I remember her telling me to make
sure I took lots of pictures: that was the last thing I wanted. I remember
standing at the viewing and the funeral, numb, emotionally spent, and
physically ill. I had gone out and bought a CD of Satie’s Gymnopedies to
be played at the funeral, I still have that CD, twenty years later. I remember
seeing my friends Wendy and Warren walk in the door, they had driven to Findlay
from their home in Chicago, just to be there for my mom and I. I pretty much
lost it right there.
I remember reading my quickly written eulogy, hoping that I
had put all of my feelings into the piece of writing, trying very hard not to
lose my composure emotionally. I think I did break down a couple of times; but
mostly, I was numb.
We went to a local restaurant afterwards as people who were
at the funeral came to pay their respects. I remember seeing my father’s
business partners and customers coming from through out Ohio, Kentucky, and
other parts of the country. I remember talking to them and the awkwardness of
them needing to say something and not knowing what to say. I remember thinking
that I should probably tell them that there was no need, but was afraid that I
would hurt their feelings, because they made time to be there for us. I
remember my father’s barber coming up afterwards and telling me that he never
knew dad did all those things that I talked about. So at least one mission
accomplished. I also wanted to tell them all the things that he was to me, all
the sacrifices that he had made for me and for my mother, I wanted to share
with them all the wisdom that he had imparted to me, and all the lessons he had
taught me. There were too many to mention; but I didn’t have the time, nor did
they.
In the days, weeks, and months that ensued, mom managed to
sell off much of the things that they had accrued, we sold the condo in
Findlay, bought the condo in St. Louis; for that was the deal, the one who
lives will move to be with me. She had gotten a taste of living in my little
house in St. Louis after the funeral, it was a Chinese ritual that she had to
be away from the house for seven weeks, forty-nine days. She ended up spending
a lot of time with Heidi, my friend Santiago’s wife, she was living in my house
as she was in law school and Santiago had moved to Mississippi as a volleyball
coach at Southern Miss. The two women teamed up against me, they shake their
heads dramatically at my bachelor’s lifestyle and commiserate. Good times.
One thing I had not made it abundantly clear is the close
relationship I had with my father. I came late in his life, he had always
wanted a child, but my mother went through numerous miscarriages before I came
along; it wasn’t an easy pregnancy, she had to be bedridden for most of the
nine months in order to not trigger another miscarriage. My father was
overjoyed when I was born, he was going to dote and spoil me, and yet he knew
that he did not want to spoil me so much so that I become the stereotypical
only child: anti-social, arrogant, self-absorbed, and temperamental. My father
became my best friend as I grew up. To lessen the sting of leaving friends and
re-establishing friendships after our never-ending moves from place to place, my father consciously
ignored our formal Chinese cultural relationship between father and son and
deliberately became my friend. As I came of age in Colorado, my weekend nights
were spent, by and large, in the basement of our ranch house on Steele street
conversing with my father. This was where the foundation of who I am was laid
and set, brick by brick. The internal moral coding that is intrinsic to my
nature came from those conversations from long ago. This is why experiencing my
father ebbing away from the cancer and taking his last breath was so painful,
so devastating, so emotionally destructive.
In the intervening twenty years, I had accrued a list of observations regarding the process of losing a parent. I share those lessons with my
friends who are undergoing the same tragic experience so that I can give them
the benefit of my painfully learned observations and to maybe help them realize
these lessons without having to go through the tempering of time. One of the
things that became obvious to me was that I was in depression for a good number
of months, if not years, after his passing. I may not be able to diagnose
depression, but I know how I felt, I also know that one day I woke up from my
fog and realized that no matter how much I mourn the loss of my best friend,
life marches forward. While in my fog, I processed life as it came at me in a
catatonic state, I was able to maintain life but not able to drink in life or
thrive in my life because of my deep-seated sadness. No one was able to discern
my disconnection with the real world, I was good at faking connectedness. To
this day, there is a sadness in my mind all the time. It doesn’t rule my life
as much as it used to, but it will always be there.
Everything reminded me of my father, I could not bring
myself to erase the last voicemail message he left me, I broke down crying for
no reasons, and I collected notes, photos, and letters my father sent me. I had
a hard time parting with his things. I kept a lot of his library, his pens, his
shortwave radio, his technical reports to customers, and I worked very hard to
recall things that he had said to me. Over time, I realized that his wisdom had
stayed with me, I had internalized it and it is a part of my System 1 reaction,
I had proceduralized his wisdom. I am no longer seeking to recover my memories
of my Father and his wisdom, because I knew that those memories are hard wired
in me. I am able to deal with that part of what I cannot control.
Even though I have come to a resolution with what I cannot
control, there is a part of me that goes into deep mourning whenever February
27, my father’s birthday, and Father’s Day comes along. The same gut ripping
sadness overwhelms me one each of those days. I relive the scene in that
hospice room once again, and I experience the hole in my psyche once again. The
twentieth anniversary of my father’s passing is significant only in that it
marks another excruciating day in my life, even as I have become older. I will
not descend into the depression hell that I once experienced, I would not say
that I have become accustomed to the negative emotions, I would say that I have
learned to respond to it in a different way and I have matured.
