dear, dad
you were always there until you weren’t.
In February 2022, you broke the news to me that you were diagnosed with lung cancer. Throughout the year that followed, I refused to believe you would someday no longer be here, or rather, I refused to believe you would leave so soon.
At first, your doctors tried treating the tumour in your lungs with drugs, and for a time, it yielded results which made me hopeful. I moved back that summer break after finishing my third year to spend more time with you, but nevertheless, I did not feel the urgency I now wish I had. I went on with my days as always, acting normal, as if nothing had changed. I didn’t feel the need to talk to you every day, see you after we both finished work or show you as often as I could that I cared about you. I took our time for granted and naively thought that maybe you would be the lucky survivor of this lethal disease.
It only took a few months to change everything. The drugs had stopped working and the cancer had spread. You began chemotherapy, and again, it initially seemed to work, so I regained hope and tricked myself into believing you would at least see spring bloom once more.
But by winter, you were as emaciated as the trees outside, unable to eat, a regular in the emergency room, and tired beyond recognition. In all the years you worked to support our family, to support me on your own, I never saw you this exhausted. You were drained of life — you looked defeated and frustrated. Yet, despite the miserable state of subsistence you were in, you still had your eyes on me. You kept telling me to follow the path that I’ve set for myself. You told me that circumstances, such as yours, were just facts of life, that these things happen, that there was nothing I could do about it and that I should look to the future because the past would only hold me down… if only it was that easy.
I quit my internship early in December to spend more time with you — I was too late. On January 24, 2023, at 3:05 pm, you passed away; in fact, you underwent euthanasia to leave a couple of days sooner. I might’ve been angry at your decision, but in your last two weeks, your proud demeanour had been brought to its knees; your intelligence and wisdom were buried beneath a landslide of painkillers that kept you asleep for most of the day and left you confused when awake; and your dependable hands — that once held mine — had lost all their vigour and power. Your strong eyes pleaded for the suffering to just end, and so it did.
After you closed your eyes for the last time, unfamiliar with any other lifestyle, I tried following your advice and kept to the road that has worked for me all my life. I moved to Toronto that summer for my final year with a friend from uni, did a research course, and found another internship. I visited Grandma every weekend, socialized with my supervisors and colleagues, and spent evenings enjoying a meal with my roommate. For a stretch, life got better — a ray of sunshine before the storm.
But as September approached, my friendships at work and school fell apart like the autumn leaves. I began to feel distant with my roommate — the one good friend I had — and ruminated over the little time I thought I had left before Grandma would leave for China — time that was being used up by family conflict. I had to listen as she and my aunt bickered, or rather, I wish they had, but instead, they were just silent and ignored each other. I watched as suspicion and jealousy replaced your stability. I observed as vultures blackened the sky as they flew in around me. All the while, the days were becoming cold and gloomy, as if it was not clear already that winter was coming — again.
We do not starve by skipping one meal, nor are we alone when one relationship is severed. For twenty-two years, no matter who walked out of my life, you were always there for me, so I never knew what it was to be alone. And, for twenty-two years, I lived without knowing how much you meant to me; how I would give everything back just to see you driving up in your red pickup again; how I would get on my knees and beg just to hold your hand once more. No, for twenty-two long years, I never knew just how precious you were to me because you were always there until you weren’t.
I started to cry again. Night after night, I broke down and wept, until the pain made my chest reel and strain. At times, it felt like the agony would last forever. In those moments, being conscious was unbearable. So, I let myself go, and found relief in the thought that it could all be over soon, that I could disappear just like my friends and family. There in that tiny room, hidden inside the concrete jungle, with no sun in sight and no one by my side, I learned what it was to be alone.
With no one else around, I cried out helplessly for you. I replayed, over and over, the memory of you lying on the hospital bed at night, unable to speak, looking with those suffering eyes and gesturing for me to hold your hand, and I remembered holding it so tight, feeling your strength and love, and hoping you would come back to save me. I couldn’t let go. I didn’t dare to — you were my lifeline.
Of course, I did not forget what you told me as you hovered between life and death: to look to the future instead of getting stuck in the past. No, I did not forget, but this time, I refused to move on from you because I felt like an idiot and the regret was simply too much. I had already let go of you once without saying what I had meant to and I could not live with the guilt if I had done it again; not after I realized what you had meant to me.
However, no matter how many times I replayed our memories, it didn’t change the fact that you were gone. What I was holding onto was not you, but the image I had of you. You… you are not here anymore, and that means I just have to settle for the love you stitched inside me, the love that will always be there, as steady as you were.
Still, I wish I had more than just your love. I wish I still had you. I wish as a kid, I hadn’t yelled at you so often. I wish I had spent more time with you. I wish I had told you how incredible you were in my eyes, as a person and as a father. I wish I had shown how much I admired you. I wish I had gotten to know your vulnerable side and I wish I had shown you mine. I wish I had told you I loved you.
But even more than saying those words, I wish I had saved you. I wish I urged you to ask for a CT scan when I woke up to the sound of your coughs. I wish I had challenged your explanations about how it was just allergies. I wish I didn’t just watch you die and claim an inheritance, and what’s worse is that no one blames me, but why? I should’ve been better. I am the prodigious child. I should’ve known better. I should’ve saved you. Me, the most “capable” in the family; you would’ve listened to me, and yet I said nothing. Everyone tells me it’s normal for people my age to focus on their careers; my family says it was my stepmother’s duty to look out for you; and some even say that it was nobody’s fault. But no, they are wrong. It was my fault. I know I could’ve done more. If I knew how much you mattered to me, I would have done more. I don’t know if it would have changed anything, but in my mind, I could’ve tried harder. In my mind, if I had tried as hard as I did in school and work, you would still be alive today, but no, instead I toiled away like a fool as I missed my last chance with you.
Dad, I miss you so much. I have felt many times since you’ve left that there is nothing here for me without you. I’ve spent most of my life focused on school and work, telling myself it would be worth it in the end, but that’s a lie because by then everyone I love will be gone. Those things can wait, my friends and family cannot. I want to make dumplings and celebrate festivals with family instead of staring into a screen and clacking away; ruin my sleep pouring my heart out to friends instead of attending morning lectures; and send my kids to school instead of rushing to a corporate job. At the very least, I know I cannot stick my head in books and slave away at a career as I had when you were still alive. Not when I have finally realized that it is the people we love that matter most.
Dad, I don’t want to miss my chance with anyone else ever again, so don’t worry, I will take care of Grandma like how I should’ve taken care of you. I will be there for my little brother and the rest of our family. I will cherish my friends and help them grow. I will tell stories of you to your grandchildren, to show them how much you mattered to me. I will gladly shed these tears for you until the day I die, and I will never forget the happy memories we made when we were both alive. And, I wish I had told you then, but at least, I will say it now:
Dear Dad, I love you.
