father's day

father's day has always been something of a mystery to me.

my first memory of father's day is in the kindergarten because school is where one acculturates to holidays when you come from an immigrant family. my parents had just separated and mom & us kids had moved to the mainland from honolulu before the school year started to be closer to my maternal grandparents and motley aunties, uncles, cousins, malteses, zebra finches & seahorses crammed into a three-bedroom across the street. mom was working in a factory job. i played store with food stamps. i had hot cocoa for the first time and burnt my tongue. and i think my dad was going to visit us that summer. my teacher was Mrs. Alexander and at that time, single mothers were still very uncommon. for father's day Ms. Alexander had us twist two strands of yarn around a wire hanger to make a padded hanger for our fathers. well, i chose green & black. camouflage colors. for the jungle. because my dad was in the army. and a whole lot of jumbled things about international politics, smuggled black & white documentaries, war, patriotism, and sacrifice that my 6-year-old brain could wrap itself around. i vaguely remember explaining this to Mrs. Alexander and her assistant. i also faintly remember Mrs. Alexander coming to a home visit with mom though the timing isn't clear and me having some trepidation about it as i played on rusty-nail planks in the backyard of our first apartment on Reynard Way. i know that since that time it was verboten to mention my father for various reasons. i didn't stay long at that school.

i don't know what happened to that hanger. our inheritance consisted of abstruse heartaches and a couple of briefcases of scattered contents that we siblings have secretly pilfered over the years. my brother has the flag; my sister the passport; myself the news clippings. i remember seeing only one token of father's day in there. a construction paper card from my sister that resembled a button-up shirt & tie--the quintessential symbol of a white white-collar father. i guess elementary school indoctrinates kids to be upwardly mobile (teleology of the nation-state blah blah). our father went bare-chested, he wore aloha shirts, tight butterfly blue-collars, formal khaki guayaberas, bộ áo bà ba đen with hierarchically-knotted keffiyeh, and camouflage.

so since my dad was an ocean away, father's day has been rather disconnected and enigmatic to me though i did learn rather quickly and shrewdly how the refugee-single-mom-absentee-dad thing garnered lots of sympathy partic when i flaked on some homework (see bright but does not apply herself for more on that.) my friend's fathers and their relationship to them were all intimidating, baffling, and inexplicable to me.

of course, i make an effort on father's day for my stepdad; at least, i have since i stopped being angry at the world for my laissez faire-latch key childhood and angsty adolesence, ceased being resentful that he wasn't my real father, and finally accepted the unconditional love he always gave us kids (i'm probably the only person who got all misty-eyed when phillip "he's not my father"stepfather became a zombie in Shaun of the Dead. that scene gets me everytime.) still, it is an effort, not burdensome mind you, but something that doesn't come easily to me, like a favored ballad that i can only hum and sing the chorus and occasional odd word or lyric. perhaps i still take him for granted.

so this father's day is the first that i have felt freed of all those past memories, forgotten memories, and lack of memories. the first that i have felt the simple gratitude and love that makes this a holiday. and all for my daughter's father. it is said that having children is healing; through them you remember the magical wonder in Life and through them you re-live your past hurts and hopefully learn, and forgive, and heal. and so, this is the first father's day that i know what it is to feel gratitude for a father, to have a loving, engaged, and present father. one who stays up til the wee hours cooking & cleaning that i may be with our child.

thank you, my love.