I am uncomfortable with silence. Especially your silence, the silence of the dead. You quit talking to me five years ago when you died. And when you did, I was overwrought. I couldn’t cope with you dying because of all those things left unsaid. All those broken parts we didn’t patch up. Together.
Is it so awful to hope that we could have made up before you died?
We are complicated. You are my father and you made me. Physically. Emotionally, you shaped me.
Yesterday, I went to your grave with my sisters and my brother and my mother. Five years. So much has happened, but not so much. I watch it in slow motion. I watch my son growing in slow motion. I watch my mother becoming golden in slow motion. Your dying set her free. But did it do the same for me?
For five years, I thought so.
I was standing near your grave five years ago and the only word that I kept on chanting was, “wormfood.” When you died, I just discarded my religion. I found a way to describe my state of (dis)belief and I was a new atheist. I don’t believe in God, never did really. And when you died, I didn’t know where I was. Religiously. I was confused. What am I going to believe now? I know you are nothing but wormfood. But. You still live somehow. Not in a spiritual way. Because I don’t believe in that anymore. But something, something is still lurking beneath the surface.
Driving home with my spouse (who you despised because he is not Chinese), I stumbled into my truth.
You made me. You shaped me. Physically. Emotionally. And these are the only traces of you that I have. The emotional thunderstorm that was you I inherited. Well, some parts. I am trying to get better. I am recovering from my relapse. I will forever recover. Thanks to your legacy, I am tainted. I blame you, but I don’t hate you now. I did. I hated you so, so much when I was younger. I remember wishing you dead. Honestly, when you died, I also thought, “Good riddance.” But now that I am older I realize reality is so much more complex than that.
“I hate you, I love you” so the song says. I got the traits you passed on to me. You were often emotionally unpredictable. You seesawed from being happy to being angry to being depressed. You were moody. And I was with you most of my life. I tried to escape you, but you were home. You were my family more than my mother (who was with my other siblings more). I went home to you and you bullied me. You controlled me. You snooped around, didn’t respect my privacy. You cursed me and rewarded me at your whim. There was no logic to it. I went crazy.
Anorexic crazy.
I still picking up the broken pieces at 36. But I am better at it. I went into psychology. Dammit. I am a Psychologist! But I can’t deny you. You are still there.
My mother and my siblings and my nephew and my husband and my children eating, laughing, talking, relaxing at lunch. After visiting your wake. And I can’t eat. I am a recovering anorexic. I plan my meals. I make sure I have enough caloric intake for the day. It is all well computed, weighed and verified by a dietician. I don’t do intuitive eating. I can’t yet. I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust my appetites. I am scared to death of my emotions. I am scared because I might explode or collapse under the weight of my emotions. Just like you.
Is it inherited? I look at my siblings and ask myself “are they normal?” Well. Yes. Professionally, I can say yes. But there are hints of maladjustment. There are undercurrents. These are your dying legacy, Father. I blame you for bring us up like this. Blame. But resentment? No. Everybody has maladaptive traits. Nobody has a “perfect” family. We are on the norm. We are normal. But there are many things that we have to fix. If we want better relationships with our spouses. If we want great, communicative, warm and loving ties with our children.
I forgave you sometime ago. I called you up a few days before you died and I told you I admired you because you went through so much hardship bring us up. You are a responsible father. You were the best father you tried to be. You gave us what you could. Bad mood and all. It was your best. I accept it. It wasn’t perfect for me, but I accept it. Fate. The randomness of it. I accept it. I will keep on discovering what is it precisely that you gave me. What emotional lessons. What unconscious buttons. And I will broadcast it to the world. I will keep on probing, and in turn I will change course. I will be better. I will share with all who would care to listen how I got better. I can turn this legacy of lead (and dread) into gold.
The featured image on this blog was AI-generated by me using free tools, namely ChatGPT, Canva, and Leonardo AI. I use these images to support my written content creatively and cost-effectively.
