This post was an unpublished draft from August 2017, titled "Six Months In."

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.]

I'm okay. It's okay.

It's like a silent panic. Like I'm underwater, and any struggle on my part is only going to hurt me. I feel very alone.

I do have both parents, living (for now). They got divorced when I was 6, and communicated solely out of necessity through written letters. I do have a sibling. He is a half-brother, on my dad's side, 20 years my senior. He is turning 46 in two months, and our dad may not be alive to wish him a happy birthday. I do have aunts and uncles and cousins on my dad's side of the family. My dad removed himself from them 22 years ago, when Uncle June--his older brother--pulled the plug on my comatose grandmother. "You killed our mother," Dad said. "For that, I will never forgive you." 

In those 22 years, his older sister (Aunt Jannie), his older brother (Uncle June), and one of his nephews (cousin Tom--uncle June's youngest son) passed away. All from cancer. Jannie's was brain tumors. June's was esophageal, and later, lung. Tom's was pancreatic. 

Dad's is liver.

I do have friends around to help me, too. Friends who will link arms with me as I walk through our family's go-to funeral home to plan out my dad's cremation. Friends who will refer me to family lawyers upon me realizing that dad doesn't have a living will. Friends who will walk me through the legalese of death and the dying: durable power of attorney, Medicare coverage of in-home hospice care, acquiring death certificates to close accounts. Friends who will come by my dad's house to fix our internet so I can work from his house as I stay with him for the remainder of his days. 

Yet I have never felt so alone. My brother is somewhere not in this country, and I can only communicate with him via email and sporadic texting. My remaining aunt and uncle--dad's younger sister and brother--are too wary of coming to see my dad, given their vicious separation 22 years ago. My mom doesn't know any more than I do about the logistics of death; she can't help me any more than I can help myself. Dad has no friends; he has managed to push away every single person in his life, except for me. Because, ironically, I am like him. I am stubborn. I will not be pushed away. 

I feel so much more alone each time a phone call to a friend goes unanswered. I feel so much more alone when I ask someone a question about lawyers and wills and hospice care and they simply say, "I don't know." I feel so much more alone now that it's the holidays and lawyers need breaks, too, so they're not picking up my calls, even if I somehow got a direct line to their personal number. I feel so much more alone when my brother responds twelve hours later to a question I ended up figuring out the answer to ten hours beforehand.

But I can't imagine how lonely my dad must feel. 

I have many amazing friends. I am very fortunate. I am, in fact, not alone. This is just something I have to do on my own, I guess. I just wish there was a mom or sibling or close friend of his to also share this emotional (and legal) burden with. But I'm okay. 

It's unsettling to see your own dad cry. Your dad, who used to frighten you with his loud voice and drunken slurs and hurtful hands. "There's nothing to be scared of anymore," Mom said. I stopped being scared of him years ago, I assured her. He is but a frail shell of the man he used to be. At 90 pounds, with hair falling out, missing a toe, sporting a bloated belly from gastrointestinal problems, barely able to sit and stand on his own, there's nothing to be scared of--except his mortality. It all became apparent when he started crying in front of me today. And in that moment, he was just a little boy to me. Not the intimidating, cold person I had resigned to accepting as my father, but a scared little boy. He apologized to me. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I was a bad person. I'm sorry you missed out on a father's love. I'm sorry I was such a bad father. I'm sorry," he sniffled. I kept my tears in, by some miraculous effort on my part. 

My dad shouldn't die believing he was a bad person and that nobody loves him. He was good to me in his own way. Or at least, he tried his hardest. For that, I love him. He just never could get ahold of his temper and anger. Broken people are like that, I suppose. And if it wasn't for the way he raised me, I wouldn't be the independent, self-motivated person that I am today. I have my flaws, but I like who I am for the most part, and it's because of him. Yes, my dad was temperamental and easily-infuriated and emotionally stunted and was an alcoholic, but I know he loves me and wishes he could have done more, or so I'd like to believe He was highly misunderstood and very, very particular about how things should go and how people should behave. Listening to his apology made my heart ache for him. I don't want him to die like this. Not like this. "That's not true," I said. "You were good to me. Look! I'm happy and I'm healthy. I grew up well. Don't be sorry to me. I'm okay," I smiled. "It's okay."

He looked at me and wiped away his tears. "Really?" He asked, like a child looking for reassurance that things will be okay. "I've still wronged your brother. Your mother. Your brother's mother. Everyone..." I think he notices as much as I do that nobody is by his side as he dies, other than myself.

We have never been an affectionate family. At least, not past my early childhood. I remember him doing very loving things. Always taking me crabbing and to the aquarium and to kings dominion. Singing "Oh My Darling Clementine" and "사랑은..." to me. Letting me play a game with him where I would step on his shadow and he would yell "ouch!" and pretend to be hurt. But at some point, every "merry Christmas," "happy birthday," and "I love you" to him started to be answered with a stiff and slightly embarrassed "okay." But I know that's his way of saying, "You too." It's okay. 

Close friends, as I leak the news, are asking how I'm doing, that they are sorry. 

I'm okay. It's okay. 

Rest In Peace, 'Donger.'

You wouldn't think that when you hold your baby as he takes his first breath, you would one day be holding him as he takes his last breath. It's not something I've ever considered, at least.

It was my college graduation day--May 11, 2012--when my mom told me that cousin Tom has cancer. What kind? I asked, as if there were any good kind of cancer I could hope for. She didn't know how to translate it from Korean into English. 췌장암, she said.

Pancreatic cancer.

When I returned back home from school, I started visiting Tom every weekend I could. Sometimes just to watch Nats and Redskins games with him, sometimes just to play with his dog, and sometimes to eat some good old seafood with him. Why did it have to take cancer to bring us closer together? Nonetheless, I'm glad he got to taste some Hot N Juicy and Chasin' Tails cajun seafood before he went, and that I also got to bring him some live catch of my own.

"He's in a better place now," people tell me. Where is he? And how is it better? As someone who doesn't believe in a heaven nor hell nor nirvana nor any other sort of life after life, this consolation means almost nothing to me, but I wish it did. It's times like this that I wish I believed.

"You were so good to him," Aunt Kathy tells me--the youngest aunt in the Park family. "I know you were." I felt like I didn't do enough, though. And I know there were others who did more for him. I could have taken him to a Nationals or Redskins game. I could have taken him with me to my crabbing and fishing trips. I could have done a Marvel movie marathon with him and watched some stand-up comedy with him. But I didn't. When his mom and Aunt Kathy and others tell me that I was "good to him," I feel like I am being commended in a way a helpless child could be commended for chipping in loose change to help pay a mortgage.

He is 19 years my senior; most of the Park cousins are considerably older than me and had grown up together, and I was the baby. My very first memory of Tom is when I went over to his house to visit my aunt and uncle with my mom, just a little after my parents had divorced. He walked over to me and stuck his foot in my face and then laughed when I got scared; I thought that he was going to smother me with it. Always the jokester. He continued making us laugh even after he was gone. As we were going through his things, one of the very first things we found were two very--let's say, explicit--DVDs in his top drawer. James handed them to me before I knew what they were and said, "Do you want these?" Also, I myself have been known to steal stupid things--giant stuffed toys from Kings Dominion, dinnerware from my campus dining halls, souvenirs from vacation spots. Imagine my amusement when we were going through his things, and I saw two green fold-up chairs in his closet and room that very clearly said "Patriot Center" on them--from his alma mater, George Mason University. I also found a sketchbook with drawings by his 14-year old self. They were actually pretty decent. He and I are more similar than I thought. On the paddle he got from his fraternity, which was placed on his casket, I learned that his nickname was 'Donger.' I'm not sure why, but it somehow seems appropriate.

While he was battling his illness, there were a good amount of times when we thought he was reaching his end. Whether he was particularly beat up from chemotherapy, or when his stent had a blockage and he vomited everything he tried to keep down, or occasions when he got delusional and unaware of his surroundings. But each time, he somehow pulled through, and the next time I would see him, he would be his usual snarky self, laying on the couch watching TV with his dog while his brother James cooked some spicy pork outside on the grill. He was invincible. I got used to thinking that no matter how horrible his condition got, he would recover. I foolishly thought there would always be more time. Only, last week, he decided he couldn't fight anymore. He was done. He got to play one last round of poker with our cousins and his friends. He got to have a proper farewell with a lot of people. He requested that "Amazing Grace" be sung at his viewing, and I hope I did it justice--although I'm sure if he were alive to witness it, he would have told me that I sucked and booed me off the stage.

I was afraid of asking him out of the fear of offending him, but I finally did, because others have wondered the same thing when I tell them about him: "Why have you been fighting for so long? What makes you want to keep living?" He had no wife, no kids, and I guess for some people, if you don't have those things, then you don't really have anything to live for. Of course, they would be wrong. He had his cousins, his brother, his adorable niece Alexis. He had his mother, who was holding his hand in her sleep when she awoke to his grip loosening as he passed away; she wailed "my baby, my baby" over his body through the morning. He had his father, who collapsed on the front porch as he watched the coroners cart the body away. He had his friends, his Alpha Chi Rho fraternity brothers, his job. He had all the people that showed up to his viewing, funeral, and burial ceremonies. Indeed, when I asked him why he was holding on, he responded by saying, "Alexis. I was fighting for her. But I can't do it anymore." It's damn near miraculous that he made it over two years with pancreatic cancer, and I am in awe of his resilience.

I think of all the could-have-been's. Having been a bachelor all his life, would he have found love and settled down if it wasn't for the cancer? Would he have liked Kevin Hart and Louis C.K.? If he ever did meet any boyfriend of mine, would he really have given them a "beat down," as he always threatened to do whenever he thought I was dating somebody? "He better treat you right, or we'll give him a beat down."

They simplified his life so much in the funeral program. August 27, 1971: born in Korea. 1977: immigrated to the United States. Elementary/Middle/High school. George Mason University (English Major). Work at a bank. Work at a mortgage company. August 28, 2014: deceased at 5:20am. There was so much more to him than that (as there is to anybody, of course). The district, regional, and state wrestling championships he participated in and won. The countless people he helped out that were in trouble by giving them all sorts of money and resources without expecting anything in return--myself included. The Treasurer and Vice President positions he held with Alpha Chi Rho. The crass dick jokes. The amazing shrimp barbie recipes. The surprising secret artistic abilities. So many other things that I myself will never get to know about him firsthand.

At his viewing, his mother wept at his casket while his father repeated, "It should have been me, I should have gone first." It will take an eternity for me to forget my aunt's cries of "my baby, my poor son" over his body.

The day I found out from James that Tom's condition was rapidly deteriorating, it had been almost two months since I had last seen him. You always think there would be more time. How did I let almost two months go by? I am a fool. I am a coward.

Last Tuesday, August 26, I went to his house as soon as I got the word from James. "Good to see you," Tom greeted me while he was drinking some soup. I tried to contain my shock at his 80-pound frame. He looked like a skeleton with skin stretched over his bones. I kept him company in his room while we watched the Nats game, and that's when he started to lose it.

"Hey, is the game on?" he asked, his eyes closed. I was confused, and didn't realize what was happening to his mental state..
"Yes...? We're watching it right now," I replied, worried. He stayed silent.
Then, a few moments later: "Oh, man, do you need anything? Are you okay?" he said, his eyes half-open.
"What?" I laughed. "Do you need anything? You're the one with cancer, man."
He paused and then chuckled. "Wait, sorry. I thought you were in labor just now. Must be hallucinating," he mumbled. More silence. Suddenly, he started rambling on in gibberish and groaning, and I cried openly in front of him, knowing he wasn't aware of it and thusly couldn't make fun of me like he had in the past when I cried for him. I caught the words "plastic Indian" and "sing sang sung steam," but didn't make sense of much else--not that those phrases in themselves make any sense.

I couldn't stay to watch him anymore, but he was slowly regaining his coherence. I walked over to him and told him I would be back the next day, and that we would watch some Louis C.K., as he had never heard of him before. He groaned in agreement--I think. Then, something I had never said to him before--something I rarely say to people in general, but especially anybody in the Park family, because they (we) all think lovey-dovey stuff is cringe-worthy: "I love you." Gratifyingly enough, I got an "I love you, too," in return.

The next day, Wednesday, August 27, I went to his house. It was his 43rd birthday. He was bedridden for most of the day. I went to his room, sat down next to him, and placed a hand on his sharp hip bone. His hand slowly reached over to meet mine, and though he couldn't speak, the gesture spoke volumes. Later, while I was in his living room with his parents and friends and brother, we heard him hop out of bed. He appeared in the hallway right outside of his room, saw us, and said, "What's going on?" We looked at each other in surprise.
"It's your birthday! This is your party!" we exclaimed. He grinned like a little kid, then went back into his room. Seeing him in the hallway was a harrowing view; with no shirt on, we could count each rib, each vertebrae.

Thursday, August 28. I woke up to a voicemail from James. "My brother has passed away. My mom says he went around 5:10, 5:20." I will never forget how cold Tom's skin felt on my lips as I kissed his forehead before his body was taken away.

I will live twice as hard for him. I don't have room for fear or apprehension or awkwardness or anxiety anymore. And there will always be room for tomfoolery (how apt of a word!).

If there is a heaven, I would like to think he's feeling "aw shucks"-abashed at how many people are mourning his death and how many people cried at his funeral. There's probably unlimited cajun seafood up there, with lots of steak and cigars and football and wrestling and fishing and poker.