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What Lies Within: A Memoir
"There is only one type of story in the world – your story." – Ray Bradbury
Teaser
The cursor just flashes hard against white. It flashes, flashes, flashes hard against the white of the screen that sends out a warm mechanical glow over the darkness of my room. The soft hum of the computer sedates me, lulls me. It pulls me into a void, where the cursor just flashes, echoes and aches against the white. And I don’t know what to write; I don’t know what to think. What do I write?
Someday, somewhere, somehow, someway - just not here, not now.
Other people have a past; other people have a memory, but not me, not now. Not ever. Other people have a history, but not me, not now. Not ever. I want to hide it, I want to forget it, just forget it. I want to keep it to myself. I want. It’s my memory. Not yours, it’s mine.
So leave me alone.
Why now? is the question I ask myself as I look into the mirror, combing my fingers through my short but disheveled beard. My brow furrows slightly as I take off my glasses, squint into the bathroom mirror a bit and turn the taps on. Water flows into the porcelain sink in front of me. The sound is steady and concurrent with my empty thoughts as I wait a moment – still searching the depths of my eyes staring back at me in the mirror. Finally I snap out of the haze I’m in, and wet my hands to slap some water onto my dry empty face.
I am only 27, but so close to 28.
The water scalds me for being bold, for not thinking. The hot and cold should have mixed to become only warm, but today, like so many other days, the hot has taken over and I have to adjust in hopes of finding a steadily warm, unscalding temperature. Even the adjusting annoys me as I have to turn the hot right off, but still no discernable decrease in the temperature occurs.
Fuck.
I turn the taps off and begin to strip the clothes off of my body; maybe there is better luck to be found in the shower. I walk over to the tub and bracing my left hand against the tiled wall, I lean over and turn the single tap on half way between hot and cold and then down a bit towards the cold. Yes, luck seems to always be with me in the shower as it decides to flow warm and not scalding hot like the precipitous sink.
I stand up straight and look back into the mirror, searching my eyes, just letting the water flow, dribble and speck the shower walls as it collects into the tub, flowing towards the drain and beyond reality, vision and thought. Standing contrapposto I wonder how I’d let myself go? It’s not that I ever was or even am a horror to look at, but like – like so many things I could look sharper if only I had a little more -– I sigh and step into liquid.
I rub myself down thoroughly with zest and a small cloth. Beginning with my waist, my crotch, my penis and testicles, my rear, and then down my right thigh, scrubbing my leg and then bending over, to scrub my lower leg, and my feet, and then to my left leg, my left thigh, and then back to my rear again I do my lower back and buttocks next and then moving to the front I scrub my chest, my arms and my neck. I do it all very quickly but thoroughly too – one has to be fast as there is always just too much to do and too often it feels as if you just waste too much time in the shower as it is. Or you waste too much time on the john or standing in the mirror, brushing your teeth or doing your hair, that you often find yourself thinking if only – and wow, how the daily intricacies of life so often remove us from more important things.
Next the shampoo squirts into my right palm and I rub my hands together and then up through my hair, thoroughly and then I do my beard too before squirting a smaller amount of shampoo into my hand to lather up my pubes and the hair on my chest and legs. I then rinse thoroughly, my body entire, and after this final, longer rinse I shut the water off and grab a towel to dry myself off.
Lately, my mind flashes to the future when someday a task so seemingly simple as washing and drying myself could become one of the greatest challenges of my short existence. I can’t forget images of my mother struggling to help my aged father to shower, dress, eat and live. Once so agile and able to do everything on his own. Once able to do these seemingly simple things that I myself am doing right now. Even with strong steel handles bolted to the tiled wall of their master bedroom shower, even with a strong plastic, hospital style seat with metal legs, it was such a challenge, both physically and mentally for her and for him, as well as for me. I could see it in her eyes. The frustration, sadness, anger, love, compassion and confusion were all there for anyone to see. No matter how hard she tried hiding it. The tears, the sense of loss and the sense of anguish were all there. It was all there, in her eyes, and still is from time to time. The sense of loss never leaves, no matter how strong you are. A friend of mine once reminded me to remember that my Dad was the man she married, that this was the love of her life becoming old, dying before her, approaching the end of life before her.
Still standing naked, only dryer now, I wrap the towel around my waist. I am again at the sink before the mirror and I pull my toothbrush from a drawer and lace it with paste that quickly forms foam as I use it to scrub my teeth. As I brush I turn the taps back on, the cold first, and then the hot ever so slightly, and test it with my hands between scrubs. It’s treating me better this time, but still the hot is strong. I have to keep it barely on to ensure that it doesn’t take over and scald my mouth when I go to rinse this foamy paste from my mouth.
Next I trim my beard, and the hum of the electric trimmer fills the room. It’s easy to do and much faster than anything else in my routine and soon I’m walking into my room, my towel still draped around my waste. The door closes behind me as the towel drops to my feet and I walk to my dresser to pull out the clothes I will wear for the day. This is no dream from which I awake to find that I really haven’t showered or even readied for the day; this is not another dream from which I find myself lying naked in a shambled mess of sheets, squinting at the sunlight peering into my room. This is no mistake of memory. But what I really want to do is just sit down and draw for awhile, and as I dress I glance at the drawing board that sits in the corner of my room, with a mountain forming on the eighteen by twenty-four tanned stock paper and it’s so inviting, so refreshing. Parts of the drawing appear rough and uneven but parts of it also sparkle with a harmonious perfection that is Mother Nature. But still, it sits, untouched and unfinished. I just don’t have the time. A few trees nestled in the foreground; rise up out of the tanned emptiness that forms a mist that is actually the page itself. Paper turning into its origins.
There are days when I have just sat down and drawn, and for a time those days would turn into nights and I’d get nothing else done. I’d call in sick and lose another day’s pay and lose out on another chance to pay back debt. And yet, those days when I would just sit and draw, this was only a few years ago – a time when I was more carefree and young, more daring and free spirited. Free willed. But free doesn’t pay down debt, and the car, it beckons me. I have to leave, I have to work and I have to learn. For these are the things that shape my future, and it is only then that I will be able to draw, only then when I will be free.
Act One
The photos I’m taking aren’t turning out that well and I know it. It frustrates me that I haven’t really had time to learn how to use all the digital still picture features of my new digital video camera. I haven’t learned how to use the electronic features that control the amount of light going in through the lens and it’s causing the photos to be grainy inside and too bright outside. I’ve learned a lot about the video features, which is the main reason why I bought this device, but I haven’t learned much about the digital still features. I’m tired, but interested. I want this to turn out well. I want the video and the pictures to look amazing. It’s my friend’s wedding; it’s the happiest day of her young life. It’s the first wedding I’ve ever attended. Many friends are here. Many co-workers. Many strangers.
I am 26.
She wanted me to take photos of her wedding for a while now. Everyday at work she’d ask me to come and help take some pictures. I told her I’d be better equipped to video the event as opposed to taking pictures, but that I could do a bit of both. She was always fine with this, so fine with it. She’s so nice, so easy going, so happy. She has troubles too, who doesn’t? But she’s happy. You can see it in her eyes, when she smiles and talks about her fiancé, when she talks about her future. It may sound cliché, but her eyes go wide and you can’t help but feel a tinge of excitement when she talks about her future. She has this amazing aura of goodwill that flows from her and permeates us all.
I get to the site early. It’s August 23, 2003 to be exact. It’s a warm Saturday morning that’s making way for a hot Saturday afternoon. It’s a white church nestled within a small but enchanting garden. Its borderline cliché, as I never suspected this to be where it is; I’d often driven past but never realized this was here. No one else is here, not even the curator of this undiscovered place. It’s just after nine-thirty in the morning, and being I’m the only one here I decide to venture out into traffic to go to London Drugs, by the Richmond Center mall. I drop eighty bucks on a new, larger memory card, to supplement the ridiculously small one that came with my fancy digital video camera. If I’m going to take pictures today, I want to do it right; I want them to be of the highest resolution for the best possible processing later. But I’m still not one hundred percent confident in using the still photography functions of this camera that’s been made for primarily recording videos.
I arrive back at the site; it’s about six minutes past ten o’clock in the morning. I’m dressed in my suit, which I hardly ever get to wear. There is still no one here, so I go over my equipment again. My old Pentax K-1000 hasn’t been used in years, but I look it over, and load it up with the film she gave me. I take a few quick shots of nothing, rotating the film advance lever in-between each shot, in hopes of feeding the film through the camera to get it ready for its performance. With this old bulky monster, I always worry about whether the film caught or not. I worry whether the film will capture the life of day passing by when I click, or whether it will capture a hazy, blurry nothingness. A slight pull on the film rewind knob after my second shot tells me that the film has probably caught and that everything should be ok. I push down and secure the rewind knob and look through the viewfinder. With this camera I can see everything as the camera sees it, and this gives me comfort. Nothing in the reality I shoot is being distorted when I shoot it. I hold the camera up to my face, sitting up straight in my parent’s SUV, holding the base of the camera in my left hand, the thumb and index finger of my right hand pulling the view into focus as I look out through the camera. I pan from side to side, ever so slowly, letting the world in through the prism of this old camera.
Next I setup my digital video camera. I struggle to open the new memory card; the hard cased plastic container that it is in is hard to break open without scissors or a knife. I somehow manage to open it with my keys and soon I’m inserting the new card into the camera with ease. I sit for a while, watching the building. There’s movement now, someone must have come in through another entrance or simply came in when I wasn’t looking. The morning is moving on and people start arriving. I clean up the front seat, from the paper and plastic that litters it as a result of opening film and the card and from loading the cameras. The London Drugs bag becomes a garbage receptacle.
Eventually everyone is there and we are all inside, preparing for the service. I would like to be at the front, facing the ceremony to film the wedding up-close, but I have to settle for off right, near the back. It’s not the best view, but it’s where I’ve been told I’ll be allowed to film. I guess they weren’t planning on me taking video.
It’s a small chapel like building, with wood grained walls and floors, and old sturdy pews. I talk briefly with the few people I know, wandering around with my camera. I snap a few shots with both of my cameras and take a bit of video too. Soon the ceremony starts and I videotape the proceedings. All is going well, and before you know it, the ceremony is over with. My once single friend and co-worker has now joined the ranks of the married. We move outside to take more pictures. There are photographers there with fancier cameras than my Pentax, taking numerous shots of the couple and their parents. I take some photos with the Pentax and more with the digital still capabilities of my video camera. Having not really learned the functions of the camera, I can only hope that these pictures turn out.
As I snap pictures, images of my own parent’s wedding come to mind. It took place in a small log cabin, nestled deep in the interior of British Columbia. The pictures that rest in an old album show exchanging vows, signing a registry, laughing, smiling and just enjoying the moment. My Mother, in a light green dress holds an autumn display of colors permeating from her bouquet. She’s happy and content, full of joy. It’s 1976. My Father is dressed in a suit, not a tuxedo. He’s a forty-something respectable Korean doctor, who has found the most beautiful, strong and charming young Caucasian woman in the world. She’s in her twenties, and today they are getting married. They found each other in Williams Lake, British Columbia, and on their wedding day they’d already been acquainted for at least a good ten years, and just by looking at the photos you know that they respect, trust and love each other very much. You could say they both met while escaping something else, while searching for something else. And the small log cabin, where their ceremony is taking place, just outside Rose Lake, seems a fitting place to begin something new by putting an end to an old loneliness.
My mind snaps back to the present and I find that we’re leaving for the reception, which is taking place many blocks away. In my SUV I follow a number of others who claim to know the way. Soon we arrive and there are more pictures, as well as a lot of eats and talk. I’m feeling tired. I don’t remember being up that late the night before but I’m clearly out of it. Eventually the reception too is over, and we are leaving. I remember saying goodbye to a close friend. I had hoped she’d come to hang out with me for the day; I’d even take her back to Surrey, where she lives, instead of heading downtown. But in the end, we head our separate ways. Traffic is ferocious, long and unforgiving. I’m heading over the Arthur Lange and along Granville towards downtown but it’s taking forever. I feel myself drowsy at midday, and it’s not even two thirty in the afternoon. I just want to go home, nap for a while and then look at the footage I took and maybe start editing it all together into something nice for my friend.
Part of me wants to just pull over. I’m at Granville and 70th. The 7-Eleven is inviting, I could pull over, get a big gulp or some other ice cold drink and even rest for a while. But my want to be at home overrides the idea of resting – I know I can make it home ok, I just know it. I still think I can make it even when I scare myself a bit, veering to the side of the road toward a row of parked cars I slap myself awake, roll the windows down and turn the radio up loud. I think I’m doing fine, I’m making it closer and closer but it’s taking longer and longer. The traffic is so slow, at times, almost deadlocked. At times it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. I’m at a ridiculously slow, crawling pace. I probably could walk faster. And I just want to go home. I just want to be safe and away from all this right now. I want to say hello to my Mom and Dad, I want to be in the comfort of my room, near the comfort of Kikko, my family’s little black Maltese-poodle dog, no more than ten pounds, full of love, full of energy, full of joy. I dose a bit.
Why does it take so long?
Why?
I dose a bit and the next thing I know I’m 28 again.
Act Two
A little more than a year later I’m in the hospital visiting my Dad after coming back downtown from school. He’s been admitted to the hospital again, this time after collapsing in the bathroom. I remember the call from my Mother. I was at a new-student orientation helping out when the call came in on my cell. My Mother is on edge, she explains to me how he turned white, and fell to the ground while brushing his teeth. It took every ounce of my Mom’s strength to get him up off the floor and onto the toilet at which point he had begun to vomit. She called 9-1-1. They came and took him to the hospital. She should have called them right away but what do you know when you’ve seen him have trouble balancing before. But you’ve not seen him go this pale before. You try to do your best, you try to help the one you love the best you can. Even though the doctors and even he has said not to hurt your back anymore, not to try lifting him when he falls or has trouble balancing. She tells me not too worry, but they are just words. And part of me doesn’t worry, as part of me has seen this before, experienced this before. He’s been in the hospital many times before over the last two years, and he’s always come home. And I know that this time, he will come home again.
So, I’m sitting at his bedside, he’s sitting propped up by the mechanical bed in St. Paul’s Hospital, overlooking the city, out towards the general location of my parent’s apartment. But you can’t actually see this place that they worked so hard to earn. It was an amazingly nice apartment, one that had given them the freedom to finally enjoy life, to travel and see the world, to be free. I hold his hand awhile. I can imagine him home in a few weeks, back to an old routine of sorts. Sure, it’ll never be the same routine, as he’ll still need help and assistance with bathing and all those little things that I take for granted and do every morning with little thought and a lot of ease. It seems only a few months ago, or is it only a few years, that he was still driving, that he was still going out on his daily walk that took him up to the bank and down Robson Street for lunch at one the restaurants he frequented. Only a few years ago he was getting up before six o’clock in the morning, to read the newspapers and watch business television, to trade and make his money work as hard as he had worked to earn it for so many years in Williams Lake as a practicing physician and surgeon. And now he’s here, so tired, so aged, and I’m holding his hand.
He’s just finished dinner and he’d managed to get himself partially back into bed from his chair, but with a lot of effort on his own part. There is some food spilt on the floor, and some juice, or some urine perhaps. I don’t want to ask; I know they will take care of it. I’m sure they will, help, that’s why they’re there. But for now, I’ve helped him back into bed, so that he’s sitting up right and we’re talking; we’re talking like we always do. The conversation is never anything too deep; it’s never anything too explorative. He wants me to do well in life, he has hopes and dreams for me, his only living son. He wants me to succeed. And I want to succeed for him, while he’s still here, so that he’ll know I’ll be ok. I tell him that I want him to come out next year, in the early summer to see me graduate with my Associate of Arts degree. I tell him I want him to be there to see me get it. I tell him about the cap and gown I’d wear, and I told him how each time I earned another piece of paper I was entitled to attend convocation. I’d always regretted that I never attended convocation back in 2002 after I earned my Marketing Management Diploma. I wish I had, if only for his sake, to let him see me on stage, receiving the diploma that would get me one-step closer to my Bachelors.
He asks again about my BA, and I tell him I’m going to earn my BBA. He doesn’t quite understand anymore, so I tell him a BBA is still a Bachelor’s, only it’s not in the arts, it’s a Bachelors in business administration. I told him I’ve already completed my Marketing diploma and soon will have completed an Associate of Arts degree, which is the first two years of a Bachelor of Arts degree. I tell him and try to reassure him that I’m going to succeed, that I will find my way into film production and while I’m doing that I may even work towards an Executive MBA. He wants me to work towards the MBA, as he sees that as being so important. My Dad comes from a culture that was driven to succeed. You had to succeed, to make it above where you were.
I could never understand it, but at the same time I could. To come from a culture suppressed that has been ravaged by war, both external and internal. My Father was born in February 1924, in what is now part of North Korea. His parents owned an orchard; a very large one that, that in the 1990s my Father learned housed some kind of government airport. I remember stories of vague remembrance that my Dad told me earlier year after his younger brother passed away. One night, in the months leading up to his brother’s death, I heard my Dad sobbing. He was writing him a letter, coming to grips with the fact that he would probably never again see him alive, and in this letter he was telling him how much he loved him.
I’d never seen my Father cry before.
Act Three
I’m jolted awake suddenly by a large noise and my body is thrown forward quickly, tightly. It’s this jarring movement that has brought me back to consciousness; it was this horrific loud bang that brought me back to consciousness. It’s Saturday, August 23, 2003. It’s Saturday and my camera bags and belongings have been thrown to the floor of the passenger seat. I look up from the floor and see a plethora of glass sparkled along the edge of my windshield. Tiny shards of glass from something, but not my windshield, my windshield is fine. Next I see the blue hood of my parent’s SUV, crumpled up, the large piece of metal crushed up, folded in on upon itself. My head hurts, I’m dazed, I’m confused and I’m a bit blurry. There’s another SUV, a beige SUV and its back window is obliterated. Its back is crumpled up and from my open window I can hear the buzz of cars going by and now the sound of a child screaming comes into sharp focus. It’s loud, but murmured at the same time, this screaming and crying, this screaming and crying. I hear a Mother coming to terms with what happened, trying to calm the child, I hear how it’s all right, it’s all right to the child as finally what has happened hits me hard in the gut. And it’s been less than twenty seconds since it did happen as the horror of it hits me, shocks me into depression. The community police officer in me is trying to come out, that person in me that takes charge in a situation like this, to help, to assist and give aid. But this is not something I ever dealt with when I volunteered with Community Policing. This was something more menacing. Community Policing dealt with other people’s problems, it never dealt with your own.
I’m getting out of my car, hoping that maybe things are ok, that maybe I can still drive home after all of this, that maybe things will be all right. I climb down out of my 1994 Nissan Pathfinder, an SUV that still looked like an SUV that you could still take off-roading without worrying about getting a scratch here or there or worry about getting mud on the leather seats. As I assess the situation, I find it briefly ironic that I hit another Nissan manufactured SUV, an Infiniti SUV, complete with leather seats. I survey the extent of the damage, my passenger tire has completely been blown, and the front is destroyed. I’m very shaky on my feet as I walk, my voice is quivering, my right hand is shaking, images of saving private ryan come to mind, flash in my mind, captain miller’s hand comes to my mind and disappears as I hear the rage of the Mother as she gets out of the car, shouting and screaming what were you thinking? Are you crazy? What the hell were you thinking? are all the words I hear as I start to cry.
A rage comes up from within me, a rage mixed with fear, anger and pain that shouts inwardly at my own stupidity. I scream, cry and somehow manage to take my suit jacket off and throw it into my car towards the passengers seat, slamming the driver’s side door shut. The jacket lands, crumpled in a heap. I’m shaking and I collapse to my knees, crying and sobbing loudly, it’s so hard to breathe. I’m curling up in on myself, as traffic moves on by, heading southbound and away from me and I just can’t breathe. I’m moaning to myself, crying and dry heaving, the only words coming from my mouth - I’m so sorry, I want to die, I’m so sorry, oh my god, oh my god, I’m so sorry, I don’t deserve, I don’t deserve to live, god I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I just want to die. It whispers from my lips, it echoes out into the world around me, barely audible, barely audible in my mind to those around me, but the crying and the heaving continues.
A gentleman’s stopped to help, he’s helped me get up and he’s walked me to the curb, and he tells me not to worry. He goes to assist the others. I can’t stop crying, I can’t stop from trying to get air inside me. I look past the SUV and see that the SUV isn’t the only car that was hit. She had stopped right behind the car that was in front of her, which itself had stopped right in front of the car that was in front of it, which had also stopped just before the car that was in front of it and now they were all crushed and stuck together, simply because they had been too close together as the force that destroyed my passenger side tire rammed through the other cars until it eventually dissipated to a point where it could do no more harm.
And I’m still sobbing, still moaning the same words.
The man asks me if I have a cell phone, if I knew anyone to call, but I don’t have a cell. He asks me if there is anyone he can call on his own cell, and I tell him my parents but god I don’t want to call my parents, I don’t want them to know about this, I don’t want them to worry, maybe this can all be fixed, maybe it can all just go away and they’ll never know. Maybe I’ll be thrown in jail and I’ll never have to face the world again. Maybe I’ll just die. He gently insists that we should call them, let them know what has happened, and somehow I tell him the number as I hear sirens coming from the distance. I can hear commotion as I somehow tell my Mother about the accident and she tells me it’s alright, that it’s alright but I can’t talk, I can’t think, I can only moan out I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry but no, it’s the man who tells her that there’s been an accident, it’s the man who tells her everything is going to be all right.
I remember the ambulance pulling up, I remember the attendants, they’re asking me questions, they’ve brought oxygen, and they’ve brought assistance. In spite of my shaky appearance I’m still able to answer their questions, I still know that it’s Saturday, that I was at a wedding, that I was tired and that I should have pulled over, that I was so stupid, that I was so crazy, that I didn’t deserve to live, that I couldn’t stop crying, that I couldn’t stop dry heaving. They’ve brought a stretcher and they’re asking me to climb onto it, they’re telling me not too worry, they’ve helped me onto it and they’re strapping me in, it’s restricting me, it’s closing in on me, I’m feeling nauseous, I can’t think about what happened, I can’t think about it. This can’t have happened. Just don’t let me think about it, because it can’t be happening, it just can’t be happening.
I hear talking, I hear them talking, I’m not sure where my glasses are, I know that much, I don’t remember where they are, they were on me, they must have been but I’m sobbing too much to think about it, I’m sobbing and I feel them pulling me up, I’ve never been on a stretcher before, not outside, not in public, not when they’ve had to pull it up and push it back into a vehicle. But I don’t want to lose my glasses. I keep worrying about the glasses now, because they should be on me but where are they. Oh god, I’ve seen others on this, I’ve seen my father strapped to a stretcher. I know now what others have experienced. But I’m a coward; I’m just keeping my eyes closed, still crying, tears forming in my eyes on top of my eyelids, I’m still dry heaving, still coughing, still crying, with tears streaming down my face.
How stupid have I been, how stupid, oh god, so stupid.
The doors of the ambulance slam shut and we start to move. I am only 26.
Act Four
I close the door of our apartment, and leaning up with my back against it, I start crying uncontrollably. I’ve not cried like this in months, I’ve not cried like this in more than a year. I know that’s it, he’s never coming back this time. He was home for a few weeks but now, that was it, now he’s gone. It feels like forever that I’m standing there crying and eventually I pull forward to look into my apartment and down to find our little dog looking up at me, her eyes wide with fear too, and I just lean over and pick her up. I’m still crying, oh My God Kikko, Daddy’s never coming home Kikko, he’s not coming home this time, he’s not coming home.
Up to this point, the morning had been like any other morning. I’d gotten home late the night before and so I didn’t get a chance to say good night to my Dad. I had thought about coming home early to put on a movie, either Over Canada or Winged Migration, two DVDs I’d picked up recently that I thought my parents would enjoy, that I thought my Dad would really enjoy. But instead I had stayed on campus working on ads for an upcoming show. I remember thinking about leaving, as I tried setting my laptop up to print directly to the school’s copier. The movies could wait, I had to get the ads done. I had to get to school early that day to start promoting the show in earnest.
So that morning, I was getting ready in the washroom, my Mom hadn’t taken Kikko out yet, but she was puttering around and had the kettle on to make tea. I was in the washroom and we also had our housekeeper coming that day, which my Mom was getting ready for. The nurses would also be coming soon, to help Dad with his daily routine. Bath, exercise, a bit of watching TV, maybe even out for a walk around the block and out to lunch on Robson. Hell, I even thought about going into school later just to go with them as they took Dad out for a walk, but instead, things took a different turn. I walked back into my room as I crossed paths with my Mother in the hallway as she was going into my Dad’s room to help get him up, and ready for the Nurses. At that point the only thing I heard was “oh my God Han, Han, Han!” coming from my Mom, and she yelled at me to get in here.
My Dad’s white as a ghost, he’s foaming at the mouth. His eyes are wide and he’s staring out into space. His left leg is sitting out of the bed, it’s stiff, it won’t move, we think he’s dead. But he’s not, but before my Mom can ask I find that I’m already on my phone to 911, asking for an ambulance as soon as I hear them answer, before they can even ask police, fire or ambulance? “Ambulance!” I shout and they transfer me, and I tell them what has happened, that it looks like he’s had a stroke, and that my Mom is trying to get some kind of response from him, but nothing, just labored breathing, she’s crying, she’s in pain, she’s in torment, she’s afraid to be alone, she wants him to live another five or ten years, she wants him to live as long as he can –
Act Five
The ambulance pulls into Vancouver General Hospital. They open the doors and pull me out and I can see light again through the soaking eyelids that I refuse to open. The ride seemed to take forever, but now we are here. Where do we go now? Where do I go from here? Why did I let them take me from the car, am I that stupid are the only thoughts running through my mind.
They take me into the ER, the trauma ward, they are undressing me, taking my pulse, they have stuff stuck to me, wires and I’m breathing through an oxygen mask. I’m dry heaving still, still coughing, still muttering nonsense, but still able to answer whatever questions they ask. I feel like they’ve given me something, I feel as if maybe I’m calming down. I’m not sure. Part of me wants to stay here, to never leave.
What do I do?
They’re telling me I’m ok, that everything’s going to be ok. But how can I believe them? They tell me to calm down, to take it easy and not to worry. I’m squinting now, surveying who is there. A beautiful young, blonde nurse is assisting me. A man is asking questions. There are a lot of people here, and I see a police officer in the corner, so stern looking, so large and bigger than life. I close my eyes; I feel the remnants of tears running down my cheeks.
They talk about me for a while, I’m very shaken up, but still cognoscente of my surroundings, where I am and about what has happened. I’m experiencing some kind of break down, some kind of mental release, some kind of shell shock. The police officer leaves. I’m so scared they will throw the book at me, stop me from driving, help ruin my life more than I already have. Eventually I stop crying, eventually I am breathing more normally, eventually the normalness of life is sinking back into me. Soon, I talk to my Mom, and eventually I’m in a cab ride that is taking me to where the accident took place. I remember trying to call my friend, the one who I’d talked to before leaving, the one who I had wanted to spend the day with. She isn’t home. I want to talk to her. I need to talk to her. I need her. She doesn’t need me. I leave a message.
I venture out of the hospital, and into the light of day. Things are normal and calm, as if the accident never happened. Life goes on. I climb into the waiting cab. I know the general area of where they’ve taken the car, even if the cab driver does not. We eventually find the place; it’s late on Saturday afternoon, almost five o’clock. The gates are closed, the lot is large and there is an old building on it. And the remains of cars lie here.
A buzzer opens the gates and I go in, the cab driver walking behind me. I’ve come to retrieve stuff from the car. I’m not sure where it is. There is a tall set of stairs leading up to this portable trailer, from which a man appears. He walks down these steps, this is like a dream I had once, a premonition of the future I had once while sleeping. We walk past cars, and I immediately recognize the SUV I hit. It had a bike rack that was sticking out from the twisted metal and shattered glass of its back door, there is a crumpled up bike thrown into the back of the vehicle, it sits mangled in the wreckage for all to view. I look ahead and see my car, which amazingly looks normal from the back; I hope it’s repairable. The front is awful looking. It hurts to look at her. This car, which I’d, spent so much of my life in, driving to and from school, to and from work. This car, where I’d gone on my first date in, where I’d lost my virginity. I open the door and take out my suit jacket, put it back on. I open the back of it, the familiar release of air as it pushes up and open. There is a blue bin that I use to collect everything I can from the car. All the papers, the books from school, my camera equipment, the bag of garbage. There is a lot of stuff. The cab driver takes some stuff and starts heading back to the cab. He’s so going beyond the call of duty today. I’m still looking, trying to find everything I can. I don’t want to leave anything behind. But I can’t find my glasses. They’re not here. I say goodbye, and the cab driver drives me back to Granville and 16th, where the accident happened. My glasses are nowhere to be seen, not mangled or smashed to bits in the middle of the road, not lost on the side of the road. I don’t know where they are. It’s so sunny and so bright now; the sun feels warm on my skin as I search quickly over the area where only a few hours before I was so messed up. They’ve just disappeared, gone forever from my life as if they were never there.
The cab driver takes me home.
Finale
Flash forward a little more than a year later. It’s early October, and I’m at my Father’s deathbed. He’s in the ER, but they’re moving him upstairs to die. He’s had a massive stroke, but they still haven’t found out it was a stroke per-se. The scans haven’t picked anything up yet; they’re going to put him in for more scans. But they will show he had a blood clot that went to his brain, early that morning in late September 2004. It went to the right side of his brain and completely shut down the left side of his body, even if he recovers, he will never regain full control over that side of his body again. He will never come home. He may never talk again either; it’s also affected the ability to make speech, to make the mouth move. But my Mom swears he said Steven, he asked for me, when I was finding parking outside St-Paul’s. He can look out and see things, I am sure he knows we are here, I am sure he can hear us. I tell him to hang on, to be strong and do whatever he can to get well. That no matter what, we were here with him, he was not alone.
When my Dad was my age, or younger, in Korea, after the war that split the Country, he got very sick. Typhoid fever. His sister tended to him, but his wife at the time kept his children away from him. He was isolated, he was alone. My Dad came to Canada in 1952, with less than $5 in his pocket. He was educated; he was trained as a physician and surgeon. He was brilliant, he was the best. He was alone. He lived in Edmonton for a while; he had to upgrade his training to be able to practice in Canada. He ended up marrying a German woman, who wouldn’t go with him when he found work further up in Northern Alberta. He was told to go back home many times, not to try to practice in Canada; a Korean could never succeed in Canada. The white English doctors told him this. I’m told that one weekend he came home and found her in bed with another man.
He lived in Vancouver for many years I’m told, he met another woman and married her. I know her, for they had a child together. His friends at the time warned him not to marry her, she came from a broken home of sorts, she had a beautiful older sister but she was the ugly duckling of the family but was a very gifted and accomplished pianist. But for everything she gave to her art, she gave nothing to her personal sense of self or those around her. My Dad said he married her because he knew she wouldn’t leave him. But a marriage can’t work when only one is giving anything to it, and eventually, they too drifted apart. During this time of drifting, my Father met my Mother, apparently in the emergency room of the Williams Lake hospital. My Dad always said he saw her from across the room, and knew at that moment that she was the one. They were together for ten years before marrying. They would be together for another 27 years after I was born. Till death do they part. And on October 7, 2004 my Dad left.
I couldn’t cry after it happened, I wasn’t even there. I knew it was going to happen, they’d pumped more morphine into him than any horse could ever take but he still hung on for almost a week after the stroke. He was always so seemingly strong. I admired my Dad, more than anyone could ever know. I miss him dearly. I couldn’t cry though, after it happened although I told him every time I saw him that week, just how much I loved him, that I’d never ever forget him. A few hours after the stroke in the ER, I was looking into my Dad’s eyes, and I told him he was the best Father I could ever have, and I swear to god he squeezed my hand when I said that. It wouldn’t be until a memorial at the hospital, where they honour all those who passed on that year, that I would cry. I went up to take a flower from the front, during this ceremony, and I told the audience how amazingly strong and brilliant my Father had been, and I looked over and saw his picture and just started crying. There would be no eloquent words of remembrance tonight.
I look back now and I still face the same fears, I worry that maybe I’ve taken too long in my education, even though I am learning a lot and even though I am gaining a world of experience volunteering and working on the University College Board and with the Student Union. I know I will do well eventually, I know I will find my niche and succeed. I just always hoped he could have lived to see it. Later in October, after my Dad’s passing, a friend of my Dad’s called from the States and I answered the phone because my Mother was out with her friend who had come down from up North to be with her during that difficult time. My Dad’s friend had come up the month before in September when my Dad was in the hospital for the first time that month, after that day in the bathroom, and they had a very good visit.
On the phone, that afternoon, his friend told me how proud my Dad was of me, and of the things I was doing. He told me that my Dad had told him about the talent I had as an artist, as a writer, a drawer and a painter. And even though I never heard my Dad talk about me, and although I never even knew that he did talk about me, with pride and admiration; hearing his friend tell me made me feel a bit stronger inside that day, knowing that my Dad thought the world of me. Even though my Mother had always told me that my Dad always loved me, very much, it held a greater comfort hearing it come from someone outside of our immediate day-to-day circle of friends and family.
My Dad had seemed so disappointed after the accident that happened the year before, and that always worried me. I don’t like my parents to worry about me, even though I know they do from time to time, even though I know I worry about them. We’re fairly close-knit even when we think we’re not, we’d die for each other and that’s good, it’s a feeling and bond that I hope to one day pass on to my children. That and the fact that we will all go on, move on, strive, struggle, succeed, fail and try again. Move on. Strive. Struggle. Succeed. Fail and try again.
We live.
We persevere.
And the trees bleed back into paper again.
Paper fades back into earth.
(c) February 6, 2005, Steven H. Lee
This piece is also posted in The Writer's Corner at Epinions.com.
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