Tonight, I'm finishing this episode. It's been left too long unsaid.
Tonight, I want to write about my father. I can't write about all of him, not tonight, but I can write about something that's left an indelible mark on my life: his bedtime stories.
Right now, I'm finally at home, with my family, yet alone in my own room. Not my room though. My real room, I share with my younger sister. Tonight, I sleep in the room that I shared with my father for many years when I was much younger. When Yen was just a baby, huddled up against my mother in their own separate room.
This is the room where I would ask my Dad questions like, "Why is it that now the light is turned off, yet I still see sparks of light dancing and moving in the darkness?"
He would answer quickly, "Because your eyes are slowly adjusting. It's seeing a record of what was there. Don't worry. Give it a few more moments and you'll see the shapes that do exist."
Nighttime was when I'd get to learn about the world. I'd have all the time in the world to ask him all the questions I could possibly want. Until, well, until he would say that we ought to sleep so I could wake up early for school. :P
"How was your life like when you were a kid, Dad?"
"Why don't dogs and cats get along?"
"How is it that I would get a paper cut and then the next day, it starts to heal up?"
This is the room where I believed in my Dad as if he was the brightest thing in my world, in the darkness as he answered each question and told each story.
This is the room for the years when I loved him and loved him only. Haha, of course I loved my mother too. But not in the way that I loved him. I loved them both equally yet in different ways? Hm... how do I explain this?
With my mother, she was always taking care of me, kind to me, gentle. Her love consisted of constant check-ups and Ross trips and rice soup and waking up in the middle of the night to make sure I took my medicine and putting in a new VCR tape of the Monkey King. I felt both strong and a little fragile with her, as if "sure, I can do this on my own, but my mother can do this better" kind of love. With my father, it was a muscled kind of love. His love consisted of Vietnamese history lessons and math and the legacy of the Nguyen Khoa family and memorizing Buddhist prayers and new heavy yellow boots that were supposed to hurt if I kicked someone. I felt powerful with him, as if I was meant for great things. A little invincible.
I grew up falling asleep on the crook of my father's muscled arm for many many years. When it was wintry outside, he was the warmest and strongest thing in my world. This room was a fortress built on his wisdom, our nightly prayers, and life-- I lived in this room.
In the darkness of this room, he'd paint it with stories. Stories of his pilot-fighter days in the Vietnam War, how he felt flying the Cessna A-37B in the vastness of the sky, how he escaped the North Vietnamese prison labor camps through years of strategic planning, how weak of a boy he was growing up, how much he loved martial arts, how he came to the States with nothing but his mind and body, how much he misses Vietnam, how he fell for my mum --- god I could go on. I can. There's just too much history that I have with this man, so much history he has with himself. So much so that one day, I hope to write most of this in a book somewhere, anywhere. Recorded. His history a part of history.
It feels all too nostalgic to return to this room. My father is a huge figure of my life, often reminding me to succeed, to continue his legacy, his history. Applauding the loudest at each checkpoint in my life. So enthusiastic with any handheld camera that he'd slowly but persistently hobble forth on uneven feet, feet deformed by years of gout, to reach the front of the stage and make sure he has pictures of me to print out from Walgreens later. So proud of me and my sister that he'd make sure to slide in her name or my name and list off our "achievements" into every phone call he has with friends or relatives on a years-old flip phone that keeps failing him every 3 months. And persistent enough to make sure I have a flashlight everywhere I go, his reminders haunting me all the way through college: "Always, always have a flashlight Ngoc. You never ever know."
His love is encompassing. When he loves something, he feels it in all the fibers of his being. Despite his love, sometimes he can be harsh in what he feels. Any feeling he feels, he feels fiercely. He loves fiercely. He hates fiercely. He acts fiercely.
He's a gentle man too. Sometimes it's easy for me to forget how gentle he can be when almost every day of his life he's so... so tough about things? I honestly wish there can be less "masculine" language that I use when describing my own father. God. I mean, Buddha. But it's so culturally ingrained in Vietnamese culture for men to be this way-- but in all respects, despite his worst days, I know that he loves me. Even if it's really tough love. Even if it's harsh love. Even if it's the kind of love that hurts me a lot at times. That hurts my mother and sister sometimes. Ag.
Sometimes in the middle of the night, my sister would ask me, when we're both tucked in our bed, "Why don't you hate him, Ngoc? Can't you see??"
I would hesitate to answer but the answer would always be the same. Blood. I love him. Thinking about him, about his dark sides would only bring me to the times when there were light. When things were better, when things were warmer.
He's not a perfect man. Never was. Never is. Just, it was when I was a child, listening to his stories, shaped by his stories, that I saw him as a flawlessly all-knowing being. All of his attention was on me. Mine on him. We were a duo. I was his brave little girl. The little girl who'd do anything to impress her father. Who'd run lengths to be the best.
In all of this thought, despite his faults, I still have faith in him.
Yesterday, I came home, fresh out of college, on crutches, 5 weeks into my knee injury. Seeing my father see me as a physically and emotionally broken individual woke me up. I'm not his flawless little girl either.
Tonight, before I even began writing out this episode, he came into this very room, where all his stories began, and sat down by the head of my bed. I looked up at him. "Ngoc, good night con. I am glad you are home."
"Me too, Dad. Me too," I responded.
"This is the room, isn't it?" he asked nostalgically.
"Haha yes. This is the room where you'd tell me stories every night for many many years," I said as I wrapped my arms around his growing belly, my face against his chest.
I felt small again. Blood. I miss that. I miss that feeling.
In that moment, in that hug, I felt full of all the answers to answer my sister's questions about why, why I still love him despite all this time, despite everything that's ever happened.
I love him because I know his love for me is true. It is a sword, piercing any facade the world can hand me. It is fact and story and real.
His love for me runs like blood. In this vein... it makes sense that my blood, that my existence, runs too.
Because how can I not love the very blood running through my body?
I consider myself lucky that I have blood that I can love despite the past. Not everyone feels or is in the situation to feel as I feel about their own blood or blood kin, which is duly noted and I respect.
Ah gosh. My father is my blood. He's the roughness, the toughness in the heavy yellow boots he gave me that spring morning for first grade, "I want you to wear these and feel strong, Ngoc. Feel as if you can walk through anything."
I love you Ba.
Con Thương Ba.
Your daughter,
Ngoc
P.S.
There's more to this story, more to his story and mine that I cannot wait to share in the future.
Haha, and yes! I finally finished!!!! AH THERE ARE SO MANY DRAFTS IN MY BLOGGER FOLDER THAT I'VE YET TO FINISH OR DELETE. I FINALLY, FINALLY WROTE ONE. Gosh, it just kind of sucks that my father won't be able to read or understand this piece that I wrote about him. But really? I can just tell him, heh.
As for this actual blog and keeping up with it...
The truth is... I am afraid. I am afraid of writing something I won't like. And this fear has kept me off my blog for so long. I wish I can return to the more carefree days of this blog, back when all I did was update the world about the events of one single day or shared a link to an interesting place or a beautiful song on the internet.
Slowly, this blog has evolved into something like art? I love that. But, I wish I can go easy on myself too haha.
I'll do better with the role of this blog in my life. :)
Until then, I hope you enjoyed this imperfect episode. <3
Thank you for staying and supporting me this far.
Seriously.
