Dad

Time started: 02:42am

Place: My room (Wattle Park, Adelaide)

Weather: Cold

Mood: Melancholic

I just had a conversation with my uncle Fook Tow. I only got to know him a little in January/February during my trip in Malaysia. We had a long conversation about the importance of life, family, and my dad.

Bringing up the subject of my dad is always hard. I have so many mixed feelings towards him. There are parts of me who resent him for all the years of neglectful attitude towards me and the responsibilities and duties of being my father. There are parts of me where I'm embarrassed by him because he can never swallow his pride and he is a hard person to be around and deal with. But there's an even greater part of me that wants to reach out to him and provide him with the love and respect he has never received his entire life. I know that love and respect has to be earned, but no-one has ever given my dad a chance. It's no wonder he is such a bitter and defensive person. Growing up in a big family full of half-cast siblings of a different mother, being the only uneducated one out of him and his ten siblings, having severe dyslexia and never understanding why he can never progress, marrying a woman who's never loved him, and never get to see his only daughter who never really has much to say to him. He lives alone in a rented apartment in a village full of pensioners where he is surrounded by nothing but his collection of model cars. It never really dawned on me just how unhappy he really is.

I will never get to know the feeling of growing up with parents who love each other and have an unbroken marriage. I will never know the feeling of having a father who would teach me how to do things or point me in certain directions in life. I can ponder, wonder, and imagine all I like, but while I'm doing that, I have a father who is hurting more than anyone can see from the surface and probably needs his daughter's love more than anything in the world. I know I don't give him many chances or opportunities. I do try, but I know I don't try hard enough. If a little respect and love is all he needs to build him some self-esteem and happiness then I will provide him that because it's so much more simpler and so much more easier to forgive than remembering unhappy memories of the past and seeing the negatives.

I will give my dad a call tomorrow.

Time finished: 03:17