Today I did something that I didn’t think I would have done. I broke down and I couldn’t control it.

It was during my meeting with my supervisor, Dawn. We have a weekly meeting to go over the things that I plan on tackling in the week. That usually takes about a minute or two, nothing to much. Knowing that my father passed away, she asks how I am doing. I just tell her that I’m just thinking about many things; about my future, my past, what happened, just a flood of things. It got to the point about the direction I want to take my life, my future. I told her that I plan on leaving the company soon, that it is something I must do to get to the place I want to be, the place I moved down to LA for.

I lost it. I cracked, floods of emotions starts to ooze out and I couldn’t control it. I moved down to LA to pursue a dream, and I haven’t even come close, not a millimeter in the direction I want to go. I moved away from my family, my father to accomplish this dream, and I am no closer to it. I couldn’t keep the emotions in anymore.

Dawn kindly enough moved our meeting into her office, behind closed doors, and everything just came out.

My guilt in my father’s death.

I caused his death. Even though Dawn said that it wasn’t so, I still don’t believe her. I caused my father’s death because I left. I keep thinking this will never happen if I didn’t leave. He would never have taken that second job if I haven’t left. He wouldn’t feel lonely, or out of place as a father, as a provider if I didn’t leave.

You see, he was the man of the house, the provider. Even though he makes less than my mom, he’s the provider, the patriarch. He keeps the family intact. I left, and I guess there might be a sense of empty nest. Even though my mother is home and my brother, he probably didn’t feel like he’s doing anything. He has no one to provide for.

My parents paid my and my brother’s way through college. Now that we’ve graduated, he doesn’t need to do that any more. We both got jobs, independent and on our own. We do not need our parent’s assistance anymore. I guess with that burden lifted, there is a void missing where that use to be. He doesn’t feel like a father anymore, he doesn’t feel like a provider anymore, so he takes on another responsibility, another job. The poor stubborn man worked himself to death, and I blame myself. If only I didn’t leave. Things would get have turned out differently.

Going home was difficult for me, cause I didn’t know how I should feel. All my thoughts that were going through my head were selfish ones. What do I do now? Should I move back? I don’t want to move back, but you have to because your mom needs you? What should I do? Are these thoughts normal? Such selfishness I felt, such indulgence in myself. All I could think about was myself. I didn’t want to go through that cause I know if I went back I will have to deal with it. Also I know my family would be there to offer consoling words that I do not deserve.

My father loved me, I know. He calls me every week just to say ‘Hi’ and to see how I’m doing. But to hear my cousins say that I was his favorite, that he always smiled while I was in the room, or that I made him proud; I couldn’t take it. I didn’t deserve to hear those words, not in a million years. I didn’t deserve it because I wasn’t there. I left him and my family behind to pursue a dream that I have no way of reaching. I just left him. So take those words back, cause I can’t bear to take those consolations. They don’t belong to me, they belong to my brother.

He’s there at home. He has a good career, doing something that he likes, something that makes my parents proud. Unlike me the bastard, ungrateful son who left to pursue an unreachable dream. They didn’t know that a main reason for me to move down was to get away from my parents. He never knew that. My brother should hear those consoling words, cause they belong to him more.

So I’m home, crying, hearing these words, and I’m crying more cause they are lies. They are words that I do not want to hear. Please take them back.

Most of the week before the funeral, I couldn’t sleep. I keep thinking about many things. My future, the past, and about my father and what a great man he was. I wrote an email to my friend Stephanie telling her what emotions I’m feeling. Here is what I wrote cause I don’t think I can write these words again:

Hey Steph,

How are you doing? I hope you are doing fine.

I wanted to thank you again for calling and talking with me. I really
appreciate it. Thank you.

I just wanted to let you know that I am fine, and so is my family. My
brother took care of most of the paperwork with the life insurance, and the
rest of my family (my uncles and cousins) are helping out with the
arrangements and everything. They are so great for being there for us.
Everything is all good to go. The service is going to be this Saturday.
All we do now is wait till the rest of my uncles and aunt get here from out
of town and stuff.

My brother got everything planned out and knows what he needs to do
financially and everything. We just have to transfer everything to my mom’s
name and we’ll do that next week. I have to say that I never thought that
my brother was so strong, holding together like this. I’m here for my mom,
taking care of her, getting her what she needs, and my brother is taking
care of everything else. I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it the way
that he did…maybe now, but not when I got home.

My mother is doing fine. She’s holding strong, but like me, she breaks down
once in a while. She’s a strong woman. Hearing her talk to my aunts and
hearing how she blames herself, it just kills me. What if she went into the
bedroom sooner, what if she made him go see the doctor when he said that his
chest was hurting? instead of just letting him be. He said that he was fine
and she left it at that.

My father is a stubborn man. I guess that’s where I get my stubborness
from. As much as I get compared to my father; i look like him, i’m
respectful to everyone like he was to others; i’m not like him at all. I’m
not a good man like he was, like he is. I don’t think I’ll ever be.

Sunday was a very emotional day for me. i couldn’t keep myself together and
my brother was cool as a cat. The consoling words that my cousins said, I
couldn’t take them. I didn’t want to hear them because I didn’t deserve
them. They said I made my father proud, that I was his favorite. I didn’t
make him proud. i haven’t done anything to make him proud. What have I
done for myself, what have i done for him or my family. nothing. I left
them and I’m just sitting on my ass wasting my life away. Yeah, that really
made my father proud. I cried and cried. now there are no more tears. but
i’m doing much better because of it. I’m moviing on, and focusing on the
things that needs to get done.

I haven’t seen my father yet. friday is the viewing. I’m gonna try and see
him when I am alone. I don’t think i can handle it with someone there.
someone consoling me. i don’t deserve that.

These past few days and nights, all i could do is think, think about what it
is like to be without him, and to be on my own. I don’t like it, i don’t
want it. what a lonely liife i live. He won’t be there when I get married.
He wouldn’t see my children, and my children wouldn’t get to know their
grandfather and what a great man he was.

All i think about is him and my life. how he had this glow on his face when
he first saw me when I got up here after my grandmother died, and how that
touched me. i will never see him happy again. I think about the last time
that we saw each other. He was leaving for work and I was packing up to
leave. He told me to take care. I didn’t give him a hug, or say I love
him. I just told him okay and told him to do the same. How cold am I? How
emotionally detached I am…to not be able to say I love you, or to give him
a hug. I’m a rotten son. Even now, I can’t even say these words to my mom.

What is wrong with me? Maybe I should be alone.

Well,certainly if you were having a great week, you aren’t having one now.
Sorry for it to be so depressing. I just need to get some of these things
out. If i didn’t, I wouldn’t know what i would do.

Anywho, have a good day, and take care.

Phong

My children, my marriage, all big events in my life that my father will never be a part of. I would never have imagined it. I have always believed that he would be there to share in my happiness, and it would make him more happy, but it will never come true. There’s an emptiness in my life now, and emptiness that will never be filled. He was a big part of my life. I am the man I am today because of him and I didn’t even get to say good bye or that I loved him.

I’ve always had a strange way of thinking about things. It started ever since I was younger, in highschool. I would always think that if I daydream about certain things; about getting that girl at school, or making it big someway, or becoming popular; that they would never come true. Cause I did that, I would daydream about silly things, stupid things, and sometimes morbid things; and they all would never come true. So being the morbid person that I am, a few weeks ago I thought about my father passing. What would I do if I would get a call like the one I got from my brother saying that my mom or my dad died? What would I have done? They were just foolish thoughts, and it will never happen, but it did. My father died because I thought of these thoughts. As foolish as it sounds, even as I’m writing it, it is true. I believe it. It happened a couple years ago with my grandmother. I told Dawn, when she was hiring me for a full time position, that my grandmother is very ill and might not make it. Sure enough two weeks later, she passed away.

I have a lethal mind. I didn’t mean to write this to break the somber tone, it isn’t for comedic relief, it is what truly happened. It is what I truly believe. I cause their deaths. It has to be. No son, no grandson, should be thinking about those thoughts period. I don’t care how imaginative you are, it is something he shouldn’t do, but I did and now they are dead.

Even when Dawn pointed out how foolish I was to believe in that, I still couldn’t believe her. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I need to find a reason, a meaning to his death. Why did he had to go, what have he done? Life is unfair.

Shit happens. That is my motto. I sort of live by it, but I never thought the shit would happen to me at this scale. I always thought if shit happen, it will happen to me alone; not to my parents or my family. I guess I’m wrong.

I’m just going through confused emotions that I just can’t sort out. I need to get them out; I need to get these thoughts out. I don’t want to think anymore, I don’t want to feel.

Sometimes I would think of stupid things I could do to numb the pain; drinking, cutting myself or worse. But are they the answers? I just don’t want to feel anymore. Why do I have to feel? Why can’t I just go about being heartless and cold, not capable of feeling emotions? Why can’t I? I did it a while ago. I moved down here right after college. I didn’t even spend extra time up there with my parents, I couldn’t wait to get away, and now I just want to take everything back so I can have him back.

So now I’m back here in LA, a jumbled mess, a roller coaster of emotions. Dawn said that it was the right move to come back down, to be by myself to sort things out, to think things through without the influences of family. I have to do this on my own. I have to deal with these emotions on my own, then make my decision. What I’m feeling, and how I’m thinking, this selfishness that is within me, is natural. All natural thoughts because we are wired to be selfish; it drives our existence. I just don’t believe it, it is just me who is being foolish and selfish.

I’m sure that for others they do not think about themselves but they think about their families. They think about being there for them, being strong and help get through the tough times. I didn’t do that. I just thought about myself. And here I am, abandoning my mother and my brother.

I hope these feelings go away with time. Dawn said it took her 10 years to get over her mother’s death. 10 years. For me it should take 100 for what I’ve done. I should never feel happiness again cause once I do, it will happen again. It is something I do not want to experience.

This is supposed to make me stronger, bolder, more confident. I don’t feel that way, I just feel guiltier, sadder, weaker.