June 2, 2004

Dad and me, 1968. "You were perfect," he'd say. "Not a blemish on you."

I remember how loud silence can be.

The night "it" happened, I was lounging on my parents' sofa - the same sofa they had held onto from my childhood in Indiana but had had reupholstered. It now competed for living space with a hospital bed, oxygen machine and catheter.

My two sisters and I worked in shifts, helping my Mom care for Dad after his body had betrayed him. He had Parkinson's Disease and diabetes - a cruel combination considering he'd honorably served in both the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. Where was the justice? Still, I never once heard him complain about his illnesses. I know he often suffered in silence.

Dad could no longer walk and required 'round-the-clock care. Just months before, we had made the grueling decision for him to be looked after at a rehabilitation facility, a nursing home. After a short time there, he pleaded to return home. Home was where my mother could tend to him. Heaven to him was anywhere she was. He'd often tell me - as if telling a secret - that the nursing home was "a completely different place at night." The wailing, mournful voices of dementia echoed in the hallways, found their way into his room, kept him up all night. It was hell.

"The Devil Wears Prada." That's the book I was reading the night of June 2, 2004, when I noticed the hissing of the oxygen machine had stopped. It was like the sudden, eerie quiet that arrives after a power outage. Mom was taking a bath; I could hear the occasional splash of wet washcloth on skin.

I bolted to my father's bedside. He was completely still. I could tell by his bluish-white pallor he couldn't breathe. His lips were slightly pursed, letting out a low hiss that soon became a low, horrifying moan. How long had it been? Oh my god.

"Mom!" I cried out, before scrambling for the telephone. The 911 operator asked me a few questions. I can't remember what they were. I hung up and ran back to Dad, administering CPR, blowing with all my might into his mouth. His lips were incredibly dry, his breath wreaked of vomit. This and the adrenaline made me gag.

The paramedics arrived. It seemed like an army storming a fort, death the enemy they were hard focused on destroying.  A swirl of uniforms, equipment, emotionally detached focus, Mom pacing back and forth, pleading, hysterical. "He's going to be OK, right?! Right?!"

Dad being Dad. And me enjoying every minute of it.

"Does he have a health care directive?" the medic in charge asked me after trying to console my mother. "Yes," I told him. "He wishes to be resuscitated if possible." Then out came the defibrillator and paddles, the familiar apparatus from all the medical dramas on TV - the ones I now never watch.

"Clear!" I looked over at Dad as his body succumbed to the powerful jolt, the swarm of medics gathered around him searching for signs of life. He now had a long plastic tube protruding from his mouth. When had they put that in? How did I miss that?

The chief medic told us there was a small pulse, but they needed to rush him to the emergency room. Mom and I jumped into her car to follow the ambulance. We didn't talk. My legs shook so much it was amazing that I even got us to the hospital. Once there, we were escorted into a private waiting room. I don't think there were any windows. It felt like a tomb. It was dimly lit. Just the kind of room we really didn't need to be in. But what kind of room would give us comfort at the time?

I sat and waited, holding Mom's hand. I can't remember who else was in the room. Maybe a bereavement counselor? I don't know but a doctor soon emerged from nowhere. He didn't have to say anything.

"You are welcome to come see him one last time," he told us.

I called my partner. I called my sisters and brothers. I called Aunt Patty, my father's only living sibling.

My sisters, who lived an hour away, arrived as soon as they could. We were allowed to go in, one at a time, into the emergency room, where beyond a curtain and under painfully bright lights lay my father's still body, the plastic throat tube still inserted, his eyes partially opened, a look of disbelief washed over them. I didn't want that to be our final memory of him, but it often is. I curse myself to this day for not demanding they remove the tube.

My father's passing will always weigh heavily on my conscience, but I've learned to embrace it, accepting that the dark moment will revisit me whether I welcome it or not. I often question why was it me, out of all six children, who had to witness his departure. Perhaps it would have been much easier to cope with his death if I weren't there. Then at other times, I feel honored that I was sort of the chosen one.

He was my father and friend - a gentle giant of a man who tucked me in at night, gave amazing back scratches, fought tooth and nail to put food on our table, remained devoted to my mother for 53 years, and who loved me just the way I am. Thank you for everything, Dad. I love you and miss you more than words can say.

Little Black No-No

Deirdre arrived exactly 45 minutes late to the memorial service. The clock on her mobile phone told her so as she entered the small pentagonal building, nervous, head slightly bent, a knockout in the black jersey wrap dress that clung to the contours of her body—in all the right places.

A coat could have tamed her “va-va-va-voom look,” one more suited to a night on the town than for a 90-degree summer afternoon at her lover’s father’s wake. A breezy heat intensified the perfume of a striking wisteria that cascaded down the walls and from an overhang under which Deirdre parked her Lexus. Bees by the hundreds feasted on the nectar of the vine’s divine show of panicled, pale lavender blooms. Their collective buzzing seemed to echo Deirdre’s urgency to get herself inside the building—now!

Her stiletto heels clop-clopped on the entryway’s parquet flooring, like a horse’s hooves on a cobblestone street, as she attempted to tiptoe quietly to a vacant tweed-covered seat in the back row. The clang of the double metal-framed doors upon entry made less noise than her shoes, even when she mistakenly pushed the handles a few times before realizing she needed to pull them. Ugh.

Funeral perfect, no?

Undistracted by Deirdre’s arrival, a man she didn’t recognize stood before a gathering of about 50 family and friends. He would be the last to come forth and publicly share his condolences. “I will miss our Sunday morning chats,” he lamented before stepping out from behind a walnut podium.

From the first row, Seth was the first to peer toward the door upon Deirdre’s arrival. His eyes briefly met hers, which were heavily mascaraed (“Another no-no,” he could already his mother saying). Sitting to her right, he glanced over at his mother, half expecting her to budge in response to the latecomer’s commotion if not to meet his own gaze. But it was as if grief sharpened her focus, compelled her to look in only one direction. Forward.

Her inaction reminded him of how he and his younger brother, Nathan, who sat to his mother’s right, used to marvel at her ability to monitor their every move when they were children. Without even having to look at them, she knew right well when her boys were being ornery. As a youngster, Nathan made a proclamation that would be revived at several family gatherings through the years. “She has eyes on the back AND the sides of her head!” Seth could sense Mom’s “super vision” had been kick-started the moment Deirdre set foot in the room.

Still gazing undetected at his mother, he noticed that the sunglasses she wore sat slightly crooked on her nose. The long, printed skirt she chose (his father’s favorite, by the way) slightly overwhelmed her tiny frame, but a matching blazer of crisp navy-blue linen balanced the proportion. In her left hand she clutched a handkerchief with tattered crochet trim and an embroidered daffodil bloom and bumble bee in one corner. Seth had given it to her as a Mother’s Day gift several years ago. Daffodils were her favorite. She loved that the bulbs multiplied and magically sent up new shoots every March along the stretch of path leading to the front door of their Craftsman home. As a toddler, Seth’s parents let him drop bulbs by the handful into the holes they’d first dug in the rich, loamy soil of their garden some 50 years ago.

To his mother, Deirdre was no daffodil. He could already hear the words he knew would be uttered later from the lips of the first love of his life—words that worked only to dim the thoughts of a future with this disrespectful bombshell. “She has some nerve dressing like that! It’s your father’s funeral for heaven’s sake!” Seth thought she may as well have called Deirdre a whore.

Before he could ponder his mother’s stinging words and merciless power over him any further, the din of the room suddenly changed, shaking him from his quasi nightmare of a daydream. Folks exchanged pleasantries, gave hugs, shook their heads, and bee-lined to a banquet table topped with an enormous punchbowl and several platters piled high with finger foods.

Deirdre approached him quietly from behind. “Seth, I’m so sorry that I’m late. I can explain…” He slowly spun around, his mind spent from sorrowful thoughts of his late father suddenly replaced with imaginings of him fucking her.

She had straightened her naturally wavy jet-black hair. It fell to her shoulders, slightly brushing her open neckline. Deirdre had a habit of flipping her hair to one side and simultaneously pursing her lips, which today were coated with a pale pink gloss that smelled like a cosmopolitan. (He loved it when she did that!) Other than a light scattering of freckles on her nose, her complexion was smooth and flawless. Her cheeks were kissed with blush, the kind that gives you “a bee-stung look!” according to the Allure magazine she’d left at his apartment one weekend.

And that dress! Damn, she’s hot, he thought. And damn me for being such a mama’s boy! He knew it was seriously bad timing for such a fashion statement, one he wanted to quickly (or slowly) ease her out of.

“It’s OK. I’m glad you’re here,” Seth told her.

“You two should go have something to eat,” said his mother, who suddenly appeared, executing her polite way of interrupting a conversation. She held a small plate with a single spring roll, a small cucumber sandwich, and a dollop of spinach dip. He knew she wouldn’t eat any of it. All the grief had diminished any trace of an appetite.

Deirdre hugged her, expressing sorrow for our family’s loss, and profusely apologized for her lapse in etiquette (for being late not for wearing an inappropriate dress).

Seth and Deirdre sauntered slowly toward the line for the food. Had they quickly turned around they would have spied his mother walking off in the opposite direction, quite visibly shaking her head, and sighing loudly in disbelief.

Roots

Oh, these bones, how they keep me bound in this bed—a bed I once found so comforting and protective—a cocoon of cotton sheets, layers of quilts (sewn by my daughter), and pillows that comforted my sore neck following an afternoon crouched on the lawn, gazing down for too long as I extracted root after tender dandelion root from the earth.

If these bones didn’t ache so much, I’d be in the kitchen crushing garlic, chopping scallions, adding powder from fiery-red dried chilis (in pinches) to enhance the flavor of my harvest. “You eat those?!” the neighbor (hand on hip, the other clutching a fly swatter) spatted to my daughter-in-law one sticky afternoon, her arthritic finger pointing at me a safe distance away. This portly, wrinkly woman with crooked glasses, hair the color of snow, and too little clothing for someone her age (72?) was overwhelming to my eyes, but seemingly couldn’t spare an ounce of respect for those who hadn’t been forced down the beaten path in life that she did. I didn’t have to comprehend her twangy words: Her body language was enough to offend. I would have insisted the hag sit down to lunch with us in our sunny, air-conditioned kitchen. I envisioned my chilled and pickled dandelion roots with a bit of freshly steamed white rice would win her over—silence her ignorance and release her from the chains of unwillingness.

I’m no longer bitter nor am I hungry for the distinct taste of those pungent roots even though my fewer meals now consist mainly of flavorless broths—easier to swallow since I have less teeth these days, and free of salt that the fast-talking man with the oniony breath advises against—the same man who presses the cold metal disc against my back. I see him more often now—and way more often than I’d like to because all he feeds me is the same old lines: “breathe in….breathe out…good.”

The last time I saw this man, the young woman with the lovely olive skin and face as round as a full moon accompanied me. She’d done so on half a dozen occasions, gently holding my scaly, liver-spotted forearm as we inched at a snail’s pace to the drafty brick building with the funny smells and frowning people of all kinds. Who was it that told me this young lady, whose smile slants her eyes even further, is my granddaughter? Ridiculous, I think, because I worked alongside this woman in the fields, under the relentless late-summer Korean sun. Her fingers were as agile as mine at plucking and bundling scallions by the dozen. It’s remarkable how she doesn’t seem to have aged a day, despite her deeply suntanned skin. Not a wrinkle in sight! When she pays me a visit (which she often does), I tell her to stay out of the fields as much as she can for she is getting too dark and won’t be able to attract a husband. She stares at me, a somber look crosses her face, she replies with pursed lips and a barely visible nod. I tell her to wear longer skirts, too, not the too-short one made out of the blue-jean fabric. I also ask her to ask the man with the cold disc why I choke on the broth every time I take a spoonful, but I never get an answer. I don’t remember to seek an answer.

Today, I’m too tired to take my broth—and much too tired to cough. I also feel remarkably light despite this peculiar weight on my chest—like an overly fed cat crouched atop my sternum. Funny, but somehow I feel at peace—an inexplicable easiness washes over me. I nod off, but not for long it seems before opening my eyes to glimpse a shiny gold ring, scratched from years of living hard, just inches from my eyes. How did it get there? I don’t remember it feeling loose on my left finger, beckoning the reflexes of my right hand’s fingers to grasp it before being swallowed by the abyss of warm, sour-smelling sheets.

Sleepy, so impossibly sleepy, I manage to place the ring next to my heavy head, the pillow filling in as some sort of ring bearer’s cushy prop. I think—or dream?—that the ring will fit the delicate finger of the olive-skinned, moon-faced girl far better than mine.

Nicknames

During my adolescent years in rural Indiana, my parents called me “Mr. Perfect,” because unlike most teenagers (and my five siblings) I kept my cubbyhole of a room neat as a pin; my closet, organized by clothing color; my hair—heaven forbid—not a follicle out of place. For me everything had to be just so.

This meticulousness and order for which I have always strived for in my personal life worked its way into my professional life. My first full-time writing job—copy editor at a small daily—proved to be the perfect match. At the paper, my cohorts referred to me as “Eagle Eye,” for I could spot grammar behaving badly only seconds after glancing at a page proof. I have a joyful habit of spotting typos on menus, in books, and even (yikes!) in the New York Times. Words, I discovered, were much easier to keep in check than, say, my nervous habits: gnawing at a corner of my mouth, talking rapidly when conversing with strangers, picking at the dry skin around my cuticles.

My Dad used to pick at his cuticles, too. He also used to refer to me as his “Sugar Plum Bum.” Over the years, I learned to adore and appreciate this unique term of endearment for its cheeky connotation that I could be sweet AND mischievous; although when I think of the expression today, I’m swiftly transported back to my dad’s bedside as he took his final breath—and the torture of telling my mom of his passing shortly after she emerged from the tranquility of her evening bath.

Oh, the torture words can deliver. Name-calling in particular packs that cruel power, pummeling the wind out of you with its brutality. As an awkward prepubescent teen who felt more comfortable around females than males and preferred volleyball to baseball, my year-and-a-half younger brother Joe didn’t help matters much by calling me a “Fag!” whenever we quarreled—usually over something as silly as him borrowing one of my Izod polos without asking. Of course if he did ask, I’d say no.

Hostile or kind, these nicknames offer snapshots into my past that have all helped define who I am today. That is their magic. Meticulous, sweet and gay - that's me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Palpitation

“Oops,” my love nervously utters every time it happens. But before he says this, I can already tell his heart had just momentarily beat at a rapid, often terrifying pace. For the seconds that these cruel arrythmias pay him an unwelcome visit, he is frozen in place; his pallor goes pale; I can tell he's afraid and I grow weak with worry. I'm the sufferer on the outside looking in, helplessness confining me like the merciless stone strapped to the torso of an alleged Salem witch. I stumble with my “Are you OK?” I manage to squeak out. “Yeah,” he says, catching his breath, eager to reassure me while the color rushes back to his face--the face I first set eyes on (and grew smitten with) more than a decade ago. Another palpitation come and gone, then life, as we know it, carries on--until the next episode when the delicate threads of life momentarily succumb to the weight of the crosses we've been given to bear.

I've Been Exposed.

Check it out. I'm on page 184.

Once in awhile I Google my name to see what comes up. One time I discovered that I was cited in a photography book for a KoreAm Journal article I wrote about the artist Nikki S. Lee.