“I hope that someday you can share your father with others through your writing. He has a story to tell and who better to tell his story than his daughter.”—Mary Gluck
I’m not religious but I’m choosing to believe there’s a heaven. I don’t know any other way to “accept” that my Number 1 man is gone.
I remember a time when I was a child and I had the worst nightmare. I woke up screaming and my mother immediately rushed into my room and asked me what happened. I told her I dreamt that my father had died.
She assured me he was alive and carried me to their room to prove it. A persistent young me shook my father until he woke up. He was crabby by the middle-of-the-night wake-up call and my mother was amused.
For the next few weeks I slept in my parents’ bedroom so that I could be guaranteed that my father would live through the nights. It became a bit obsessive to the point where my parents purchased a twin-sized bed for me in their room.
Family members have always said my relationship with my father was special. It was apparent from the things he did—from the countless number of Barbies he spoiled me with to the fluffy, big wontons he cooked for me to collecting clips of every article I wrote.
The things I’d do/give to “wake up” to those moments with my father again.
My father would’ve been 62 Wednesday but he passed away on May 27. And going to his bedside that night to learn that I couldn’t wake him up this time was the worse reality. I cry every day over the lost of one great man.
But I am hopeful there’s a heaven—a place where my father can live peacefully and painlessly, and where he can sleep through the night without disturbance.
RIP, Bà. I love you and I miss you so much.