I’ve been blessed in my life where death didn’t come knocking on my family’s door until three years ago when my dad passed away from lung cancer. I lived thirty-seven years without having to face the reality of the finality of life and what that final breath felt like. Cold. Lingering. Ultimate.

Even during the pandemic, my family was lucky to escape anyone passing away from the disease or any serious medical conditions. Just the opposite, my family witnessed the miracle of life as my brother and his partner welcomed a new baby girl into the family. Even so, my heart goes out to all those who’ve lost someone during these trying times.

When someone passes away, the rare opportunity also fades away to speak the words you wished you would have spoken. The questions you’ve always wanted to ask to linger without closure. The proud moments you’ve wanted to share but didn’t. Their stories you’ve craved to hear now buried deep within their souls never to be heard.

I longed to know my dad more than I did. I longed for that relationship where we could talk about anything and everything ever since he abandoned our family when I was fifteen when my parents divorced. I experienced hurt, disappointment, and anger for years trying to find solace for the pain someone else caused me. 

We each have a story to share and I did not get to know my dad’s. I wish I could turn back time and have a few moments before he took his last breath to understand why. Why he could not be the dad I wanted in my life? Why could he leave his family so easily? Why he never really said I love you?

Many times in life, we are left with more questions than answers. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is accept the unknown. When we accept, we let go. We are no longer strong reactors to someone else’s decision which we had no control over.

As I started to re-work writing my memoir, my dad wasn’t initially a part of the story. I wonder if I purposely blocked him out of my mind because he purposely blocked me out of his life. When I started to explore themes for the memoir, my last memories of my dad became front and center. I remembered a letter I wrote to him that I never shared with him but I wish I had. 

I share it here today to connect with those who have lost someone they’ve loved recently. As a reminder to savor the time we have with one another because life is so unpredictable. Be vulnerable with each other and share our stories because it may be the only chance we get. 

January 15, 2017

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry you’re fighting cancer out to destroy your body, mind, and soul. Every moment here, you’re in a constant battle just to breathe, just to live. In the rare moments of triumph where you seem to be getting better, hesitant smiles fill the room.

Like during the hospital visit when you were strong enough to play Vietnamese chess with your oldest son, jokingly telling him to take it easy on you. Your eyes lit up as you contemplate your next move and then ultimately beat him.

Like during the visit when you were still sharp enough to fill in all the empty boxes of my three-star Sudoku puzzle I could not finish. Each number you confidently wrote out in pen.

Like during the visit when you were vulnerable enough to shed tears of joy as your youngest son stepped into the room. After twenty years of not seeing each other, he came and you cried.

In the past, he refused your once-a-year visits around Christmas time but gladly accepted the gifts of money you sent to him. He held a deep grudge and animosity towards you for abandoning us when we were still young at a time when we needed a father the most after you and mom divorced.

He has always harbored resentment towards you for the man you didn’t become, for the man he wished you did. Even with these lingering feelings, he came to visit you when he found out you developed cancer. 

You confidently stated you would fight cancer and beat it to live many more years. You wanted to just go outside and walk again. You wanted to visit your family back in Vietnam especially to see your mom who was still strong at ninety years old. As weeks went by, the adverse reactions to the cancer treatment worsened, sending you back to the hospital time and time again. 

Your body diminished slowly into a fragile, thin shell of bones not meant to hold any man. Your hair escaped the withering case as soon as it could. Your hatred towards hunger rose to a desire you couldn’t satisfy with the loss of your once hearty appetite.

You craved all kinds of Vietnamese food, especially Bun Bo Hue the spicy, flavorful beef noodle soup, but had to settle for the bland hospital chicken noodle soup instead. Soon, it wasn’t an option to eat anything at all when a feeding tube was stuck into your body to pump in the nutrients you could no longer take in yourself.

Your body fell into a state of uncontrollable vomiting, diarrhea, shakiness, and exhaustion. The nurses took care of you like a newborn baby unable to do more than lay eyes onto a new, unfamiliar world. The chilling moments continued when you gave consent to refuse the use of a defibrillator if your heart stopped knowing one shock could crush your delicate bones and cause unnecessary suffering.

The vivid moment when we were told by the doctor your weakened body could ultimately fail with another chemotherapy treatment. So all the treatments stopped. There would be no more medicine to help battle the cancer fighting inside of you.

There was a new fight now, one called time. Suddenly, all of the medical staff wanted to make you feel as “comfortable” as possible for the time remaining. A comfortable place where hope would no longer exist.  

Soon after, you were released from the hospital with the uncomforting thought the doctors could no longer help you. No one could help you. Your sturdy legs which once stood tall at every step now lay too frail to even hold you up. With her own two arms, your wife shouldered your weight to carry you up the stairs into your home.

Gently, she laid you down to let you rest in bed. Your blank gaze across the room catches dullness in the complete emptiness. You would try to sleep but the violent coughing spells flared uncontrollably. Each cough full of harshness, raspiness from within the deepest part of your burning lungs darkened red with hurt. 

You never believed you would get cancer. The almost lifetime of smoking cigarettes every day proved otherwise. The lung cancer progressed to stage four, the incurable type. The cancer grew into multiple tumors in your leg, neck, and other places invading the insides of your body. Killing anything good and breeding everything bad.

As one tumor improved with treatment, the others grew worse. All the cancer treatments could ever do was prolong your life with no certainty for how long. 

Confined to life in a small bed three feet by six feet is not how you imagined life would unfold during your last six months on this earth.

Confined to a life where stepping outside and simply inhaling a big breath of fresh air was no longer an option.

Confined to a life where the memories of beauty existing past your doorstep is better to be forgotten than to be remembered because these are places where you can no longer go. 

I feel guilty for witnessing beauty every day like the sun gracing my skin with warmth or the birds chirping with joy as you struggle to appreciate your next breath. I feel guilty for not constantly being by your side in Utah.

Even if I flew from California every weekend to be next to you, there would be little I could say or do to ease the pain, to provide you peace, or to make you believe everything will be okay. Because it’s not going to be okay. 

One day cancer will win. I hate it. I hate the fact cancer reopened the door once shut for your children to see you and you to be a part of your family again.

I hate the fact cancer twists lives into an emotional torment where pain traverses across bodies.
I hate the fact cancer controls how the story ends and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. I hate the fact cancer happened to you dad, even though throughout our lifetime, you’re barely someone who I know and who barely knows me. 

I’ve always longed for our relationship to be different. A relationship where I imagine conversations, memories, and arguments a dad and daughter should have together about love, life, and everything in between. For the last twenty years of my life, I grew up without a father.

You didn’t know that after you and mom divorced, I had to take on the financial responsibility to help our family survive day in and day out. You didn’t know I had to walk to work in the sun, rain, and snow when I was fifteen and continued to do so for years so I could pay the bills you did not pay. So I could put food on a table where you left it empty. 

You were not there when mom decided to pack up her bags and leave us behind as well. When she couldn’t take everyday life anymore and left for California without letting us know if she would ever come back.

When I was forced to take responsibility to care for my younger brother and myself while struggling to do well in high school. Unlike you, mom eventually realized her mistake after a few months and came back home. 

You were not there when I was the first in our family to graduate from college. When the struggles and sacrifices you made to immigrate to the United States to provide our family a better life started to become a reality.

You were not there when I fell in love for the first time with a wonderful man and eventually married him with dreams of building a future together. I had to decide between you and mom who to invite to the wedding and it was, unfortunately, an easy decision to make. 

You were not there when I struggled with my marriage, when my heart felt completely empty as I cried at nights in the middle of an isolated desert. I couldn’t take the sadness anymore and so like you, I thought divorce would be the best answer.

You were not there when I moved to San Diego to start over living alone, confused, and vulnerable. You were not there to see me transform into the daughter you would have been proud of — a brave, confident, and vibrant woman. The daughter you should have known throughout all of these years.

Through everything, all of your children took the burden of life on their own shoulders. We found direction, meaning, and success without you there.

Because we are smart like you.
Because we are strong like you.
Because we are a part of you.

As our time grows shorter, we will savor the moments together before everything turns not okay. We will be there as much as possible to provide you a sense of peace. Because being present for you at the time of your greatest need is what we’ve always wanted from you but never received. It’s what we’ll give to you because the future will soon be our past.

Despite it all, I love you dad.

– Nhung

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