The following (indented text) is what I wrote on August 3, 2017. I never published it, but I think I'll publish it today, a year and ten months after the main event that this post is about.
Today makes it half a year already since my dad died, after just over a year of me being his "caretaker." I don't know who I expect to read this, but I just had to purge it somewhere, and forgive me, this is a SUPER LONG post with MANY thoughts--about death, alcoholism/addiction, abuse, my dad, being a caretaker, grief, and loneliness.
I've never felt more alone and confused than I have in these six months. Six months since I asked him if he was afraid to die, and, to my surprise, he shook his head. Six months since I last really sang and played piano for anybody other than a gig. Six months since I last said, "아빠? Dad?" and he was able to respond by looking over at me one last time with sleepy eyes. Six months of talking out loud to him when I'm alone, hoping my dad can hear me somehow. Seven months since I last heard him speak or saw him walk, as he had gotten intubated and paralyzed from the waist down after he fell into a coma. Seven months since our last big fight over him drinking too much.
This might be morbid, but it's amazing how much we can attach someone's "personhood" to their physical and mental being. With his ashes in my closet now, I wonder if that's still really "my dad" in the box, and I'm met with a sense of existential crisis. When he woke up from his coma at 60-80% of his brainpower, was I to understand that he was only 60-80% my dad? When he died, I was...confused. How can someone just stop existing? It's in despairing thoughts like this that I feel a compulsion to believe--in an afterlife, in a higher being, in souls and spirits, in "meeting again."
I'm gonna get really personal. My dad was a broken man. For most of my life, I had only known him as my abuser, as someone who terrorized my home and used fists where words failed him and broke my heart so many times. He was an angry man, and he was an alcoholic (but as I like to say, aren't most Korean men these days?). His father before him was the same. I see the same kind of anger in myself and my brother as well. My therapist tells me this is something called "repetition compulsion"--we have a compulsion to repeat trauma, either by inflicting it on others or trying to re-live it. I don't want to end up like my dad, pushing people away, being vindictive and holding grudges, depriving myself of intimacy, exploding in my temper to the people closest to me. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm already headed down that path. I felt bitter towards people I invited to my dad's funeral who ended up flaking with no excuse. I felt jilted by friends who never asked how I was doing in the aftermath. I've been mean to those closest to me. But I'm trying very hard not to end up like my dad, with therapy and the support of loved ones, and with an attitude of gratitude. Positive and proactive thinking is truly changing me for the better.
I understand why my dad was that way (and, subsequently, why I am this way as well). He "learned" it, by way of observation, from his father (who most likely just become a very angry person after the Korean War. What is it good for?--Absolutely nothing). I learned from my own father. I know plenty of people who simply aren't capable of the anger that I am, and I envy them. I guess I'm imploring parents to really understand how your behavior can affect your children. I'm not blaming it entirely on my dad, of course. I can and will do better; I control my own actions. It's been since last November that I started seeing a therapist again for my temper issues. My dad's legacy will not be the anger that I learned from him.
Understand that my dad wasn't completely a terrible man. No one is 100% evil nor good. My dad was the one who really got me into music and my interest in crabbing and marine biology. He's the one that taught me to love rainfall. He was my first Valentine, and he tried to raise me the best he could. He used to play stupid little games with me, like letting me step on his shadow and pretending he got hurt. He quit smoking after I asked him to do so for my birthday. He loved playing his guitar and harmonica, and he always encouraged me to sing, and always complimented my artwork. I didn't really get to know him until the last couple months of his life. It takes two to maintain a relationship, and he didn't hold up his end of the bargain for most of my life, so there's nothing for me personally to regret; it is simply a regretful situation.
My dad died, ultimately, from alcohol poisoning. Prior to, his kidneys and liver were failing steadily in his coma, and he had hepatic encephalopathy. He weighed 87 pounds, skin and bones. He was severely undernourished to where he developed pressure sores within a day of being in the hospital bed (google them if you dare). He lost about two quarts of blood. He had esophageal varices--enlarged blood vessels from too much drinking that made it dangerous for him to even cough too hard or yell too loud. I watched him pretty much deteriorate in front of my eyes in the last year of his life. If you have a serious problem now with alcohol, please seek help. You are not invincible, even if you may feel like it in the arrogance of youth. To people on the flipside: you cannot help somebody who is not receptive to it. You can't help somebody who doesn't want it.
I feel like I failed him as a daughter and as a caretaker. He never knew that I sing and play piano as a side gig. He never knew I graduated from Virginia Tech with 3 bachelor's degrees. He never knew any of my boyfriends (until the current one, actually). I feel like I didn't do enough for him. Should I have lived with him longer and just put up with his abuse? In the moment, I felt that I couldn't. And I don't necessarily regret my decision to stop living with him after a short 3 months. I needed to look out for me, too. My friendships were falling by the wayside, as was my happiness. I was gaining a lot of weight, and I became short and impatient with people. I stopped seeing my mom as much, and I had to temporarily give up Hambone (my dog) as well. As Reddit likes to say, I couldn't keep setting myself on fire to keep somebody else warm. It was a tough lesson to learn, because I thought I was being so self-centered and so selfish, especially when my dad asked me to move in again a few months later and I said no. Self-care is not a bad thing. Self-preservation is not a bad thing. It's very good, actually. I need to better care for myself so I can better care for others in my life.
I now burst into tears whenever I hear his ringtone; it reminds me I won't be able to contact him anymore. I panic every time I see or hear an ambulance, because it reminds me of when I intercepted his ambulance at Fair Oaks and saw him carted out, not breathing on his own. I cry at the weddings I perform at where fathers walk their daughters down the aisle, knowing I'll never have my dad do that for me. Every time I go crabbing, I think of him. Every time I am even in Centreville or Annandale, I think of him. Every time I order my favorite Korean dishes--which also happen to be his favorites--I think of him. Whenever I see a bottle of 참이슬 or 처음처럼 (chamisul or chum churum soju), I get sad as I think about the last big fight where we threw fists at each other as I tried to grab his bottle away from him. I now realize that his drinking was really a slow way of killing himself, as he had deprived himself from having anything to live for.
I think, above all, loneliness is one of the most despairing things to experience. I felt so alone in being someone who took care of my own former abuser; I experienced so many conflicting emotions I didn't know how to articulate. He's my parent, yet I was the one wiping his bum and literally helping him use the bathroom, and I changed his sheets and gown for him. I felt so alone almost every day for the past six months when the urge to cry would hit me so randomly--while driving, while teaching a Paint Nite, while showering, while eating dinner with friends, while sitting at my desk. I felt alone as my own sibling didn't come to the funeral (for reasons I disagree with but respect). I felt so alone in my experience of being a caretaker to someone who ended up dying before my eyes, with nobody else beside me when it happened. I beat myself up over it. My job was to make sure he didn't die, and he did. But it was Jessica who reminded me that it's because of me he actually lived as long as he did. It was David who helped me get through the logistics of the insult to injury afterwards of executing my dad's will/estate and doing administrative/legal matters, having lost his own dad a few months before. It was Jasmine who gave me meaningful words of comfort, having lost her own mother two years ago. It was Justin, Ann, Alex, and Stephanie who came to sign off as witnesses on my dad's will and Power of Attorney. It was Jacob who reached out to me about the very real struggles of alcoholism and achieving sobriety. It was Laura who reached out to me to specifically make sure I knew I was, indeed, not alone. It was Tracey who treated me to a spa day. It was Irene who came over that day and gave me flowers, having lost her own dad in high school. It was Jen that had the sense to buy and send me two books on how to deal with the grief and logistics of the passing of a loved one. It was Skyler who took care of Hambone for me while I was at the hospital, who's seen me randomly cry in our living room and comforted me. It was Huy, Jan, Michelle, Daniel, Liz, Razel, Min, Drew, Jessica, Connor, Luc, James, Michael, Chau, Christopher, Gigi, Alex, Stephanie, and Sarah that visited me and dad in the hospital. It was Nikki who linked me to her dad to give me some legal insight on cleaning up dad's estate. It was Scott who took me out to dinner to share his experiences with me of losing his mother. It was Monica that I called during my first panic attack, after sudden flashbacks to my dad's death. It was my mom who came to see her former abuser and ex-husband just to support me, even though she was terrified after 20+ years. It was James who found a pastor to officiate my dad's ceremony. It was Mason who brought me my keyboard from my apartment so I could sing for the first--and last--time for my dad, Mason who has loved me through everything I've been through.
I am not alone, and I'll never have to be, as long as I keep the right people in my life. I will do everything you guys have done for me for pretty much anyone in my life. I will return the compassion you have shown me.
[If you weren't mentioned, don't take that to mean I don't appreciate having you in my life. These are just the people directly involved in the events and days surrounding my dad's passing. I'm also adding names as I remember them lol. I remember absolutely everyone who reached out to me and/or came to the funeral. I am blessed to have the people I have.]
