Remembering pops...

Well, it's almost a year since my father passed away from his eight month struggle with lung cancer. I've been thinking about him a lot these past couple of months. I even had a dream about him... a good dream. He was younger and healthy. For those of you that don't know, my father was an avid fisherman. He absolutely loved to fish. Every week he was in Oakley fishing in the Delta. Sometimes he would go two to three times a week, depending on my mother's mood... lol. His favorite fish to catch was bass. I dreamt that my father and I were going on a fishing trip and we were in the car driving. My father was never a huge conversationalist but we got by with the normal pleasantries and such. Perhaps, he thought I was a bit too out there for his liking... I wouldn't doubt that. I'm the odd one of the family and proud of it. Dear old dad was also a jokester and loved to laugh. I loved to make him laugh. Well, getting back to the dream... I remembered saying to him that I would love to catch some guppies. He scoffed at the idea and said that there was no fun in catching guppies. He said this in an amusing fashion. Typical dad response... priceless. After having the dream, I felt compelled to look at old photos of dad. He was so dapper when he was young. Hard to imagine since he was a contractor and was very rough looking... hard labor took its toll on him over the years. Well, that's how I remember him because he became a contractor when I was very young. I have to upload a few pics later on. I'm too tired to dig for them right now and I'm in writing mode.

There are so many memories of my father. Some of which are amusing to me now, but not when I was a child. I remember my father giving me a haircut. I was five or six. It was the day before picture day at school and he decided to give me a boy cut. My mom dressed me up in a sailor outfit. I cried bad! I think my parents wanted boys. The day I was born, my mother said that my father was at work and had called wanting to know if I were a boy. When he found out I was a girl, he didn't even come to the hospital! Typical Chinese male... oh well... what can you do?... lol.

The first most pleasant memory was of the time when I was starting the eighth grade. Growing up, my family was on the lower income side. My father never had a lot of money and whatever money my father had always went to my mom, so I thought. I guess, my dad had won at the track one day and decided to take me on an adventure. It was a couple weeks before school was starting and he took me to a clothing store called Clothestime (it's non-existent now. I'm old... lol) He told me to pick out whatever I wanted and that he would be back in an hour to pay for whatever items I had picked out. I was flabbergasted! I never had brand new clothes and fashionable ones to boot. My mom always had hand-me-downs for me. Old hand-me-downs even... I was wearing 70s clothes in the 80s. That was an adventure I would never forget. I didn't even mind sneaking the clothes bag into the house so that my mom didn't see. : )

Oh... and I can't leave out the drum he made me out of frog skin. My father loved to catch other things other than fish. He caught frogs for dinner... disgusting things. I couldn't stand eating frogs. He always had to cook them with the rice so that the rice had frog flavor in it. Ick, ick, ick! One day, he had the brilliant idea of making a drum for me and my brother out of the skin of frogs. He would skin the frogs and drape them over an old margarine tub and let them dry. In about a day or so, voila... a frog-skin drum. He was so proud of himself. I guess there weren't too many toys for him when he was little in China. It was the smelliest toy we ever had... lol.

My mom was the one that really pushed us in academics and religion. She was the one that had high expectations for us. My father just brought home the paychecks and sat back. When I became older, however, he was my voice. My mom absolutely hated my life choices. "No, you can't date him... he isn't a good Catholic Chinese boy." or "No, he is crazy looking. Why are you always dating these crazy freaks?" It was my father... the man of few words... that stepped in and said to my mom to lay off me. He said to her, "As long as she is happy, that is all that matters." It shocked me that my father, who hardly spoke about these types of things, spoke up for me. I saw my father in a completely new light. He was my savior from the wicked preaching church lady!

My father's final days were both funny and sour. I remember visiting him in the hospital the night before he passed and thought he was in great spirits. He started telling us some stories that had us all laughing. He told us that he was a kung-fu master when he was in China. My brother and I looked at him in confusion and asked why he didn't teach us if he really was a kung-fu master. He responded that he wanted to spare his children from all the pain and suffering involved in intense training. My mom laughed out loud and said that the morphine was playing tricks on his mind, but he was adamant that he was indeed a kung-fu master. It was quite amusing. We had a good laugh. It wasn't funny to him though... poor pops. I guess we'll never really know if papa was a Bruce Lee protege. My father passed the day before mother's day. He was hoping to be discharged from the hospital that mother's day morning (which he was supposed to be) to celebrate with my mom. He wanted so much to take her out to brunch on mother's day. My mom visited him every day at the hospital. So, when my mom didn't show up first thing in the morning on Saturday, he called my mom wondering where she was. The doctor later called back and told my mom that he didn't have much time left and that his vitals were slowing down. My mom rushed to the hospital to find my father sitting upright on the side of the bed with his head on his arm on the sliding bedside table/desk. He had refused to lay in bed until my mother had gotten there. He was waiting for her. When I got there, he was already heavily sedated on morphine. I never really had a chance to say goodbye. In Chinese culture, it's not good to say bad things... it's like you're wishing a bad omen if you word it. He was so young when he passed. He was only in his 60s. In a way, I was relieved for him when he passed. He was no longer in any more pain. He was in grueling pain for over eight months. Life wasn't life to him anymore... it wasn't pleasurable. I loved my dad very much and I miss him every day. I'll always have my memories...