Conversations I have with my dead father

It's complicated.

On what would have been the week of my dead father’s 78th birthday, I barely slept for three days in a row.

I don’t necessarily miss him.

But I can’t stop thinking about him.

Having conversations with him in my head.

Let me be perfectly clear: I did not have the greatest relationship with my father while he was alive. We barely spoke when I moved out of the house in my early twenties. When we did, it wasn’t more than a few sentences. 

“Are you hungry?”

“What time are you coming today?”

“Do you want this old laptop you left at the house?”

My thirties were barely any better. After my son was born, the conversations became about what my son would like to eat, or what my son would like to watch on TV, or when my son would be coming so my father could make sure he had a booster seat at the dinner table. 

I knew then that I was perfectly capable of opening up the floodgates of conversation if I’d tried. Simple questions that go beyond our food preferences would have been nice. It only took me until his death to realize that it was because I felt so hurt, the mere thought of having deeper talks with him would send my head and heart exploding. It wasn’t just the shame I felt — it was feelings of not being good enough that convinced me I didn’t deserve to have a relationship with him at all. 

For almost a year after my father died, I became obsessed with why I felt more free to talk about all the hurt and pain. The most honest answer I can say is that he can no longer respond, so I wasn’t as nervous about what he would or wouldn’t say.

At the suggestion of my therapist, I wrote a very (and I mean very) long letter detailing all the ways in which I abhorred our conversations. I wrote with such conviction that there are several parts of the paper I wrote on where there were holes from the pressure of the pen. 

After I wrote pages and pages. I cried when nobody was home (luckily the neighbors weren’t around because I’m sure I sounded like a cat fighting off 6,544 wolves). I left the letter on my desk as if it were some contagious disease. I wouldn’t go near my desk for two days. I only dared to go back because my laptop was there and I needed it for work.

So into the fire pit the letter went. I stared at the flames at what seemed like forever. The smoke came in droves, surrounding me. I didn’t move. The smoke came for my eyes and ripped my tear ducts wide open. 

I still didn’t move.

Two tears came. Then what felt like twenty. I stopped counting when the tears became too much where I could no longer see the fire pit in front of me.

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I don’t know exactly when things started to shift, but memories of the good times began to surface. 

There was the time my sister and I watched my dad struggle with the blender to make apple juice for us when we first moved into our townhouse in Canada, only for it to turn into applesauce. We strained the pulp and drank like it was the most precious nectar in the world. 

There was also the time when I was waiting for my dad to take my arm and walk me down the aisle, only for him to not notice I was there. In the midst of trying to get his attention in the most subtle of ways (shouting “psst” was out of the question), there was a brief second where I saw his eyes glitter, and the hint of a smile from the corners of his mouth.

None of these memories erased the bad ones. Rather, it shed a different light into my relationship with him. 

The times he insisted I never stop speaking Cantonese was his way of showing me who I am and where I came from was important. 

The moments when he held my newborn son like it was the most precious gift in the world, led him to open up stories of when he would change my diapers in the middle of the night all those years ago. 

The dinner when he asked my now husband what his Chinese zodiac sign was, was his way of making sure I was partnering up with the right person.

This shift opened my heart wide open, finally admitting how sorry I was that we never had the heart to heart I’d hoped for while he was still on this earth. That I was sad he won’t be able to see my son grow up (and maybe share his love of basketball). That the chopsticks stuck in the bowl of rice and not understanding the symbolism of it all sparked so much curiosity in me, I ended up reading books upon books about significant Chinese holidays and Taoist philosophies. What used to bring up feelings of embarrassment at not knowing my culture turned into morbid curiosity — what else don’t I know, and how can I fix that?

I’ve gotten mostly used to these one sided conversations.

The nighttime conversations on the week of his 78th birthday were more about the things I wanted to thank him for. It was because of him that I have been consistently learning Chinese. Although I am nowhere where I’d like to be skills-wise, I’m ok with that.  

He was the one who showed me how fun it was to create holiday-themed crafts with kids back when I didn’t want my own. Last week, my son and I made lanterns for the Mid-Autumn festival. It’s become somewhat of a fun tradition. Maybe when my son is in his 40s, he’ll have a funny memory about my attempt at constructing a bunny lantern which ended up looking like a mouse. 

I’ve come to appreciate that my dad tried his best, despite his trauma, his differing viewpoints, his struggles that come with being an immigrant in a foreign land. He wasn’t perfect, but he was my dad.

And that’s enough for me.