I don’t remember much about my biological father; what little I know about him are gathered from old childhood photos hidden away in a dusty Rubbermaid bin and from whatever search results come up when I type in his name. My parents split when I was two due to a defective long-distance relationship. I saw my father a few times over the years up until I was seven. On a cold, wintery night in Nanjing, snuggled in my blue Gymboree wool-knit coat, accessorized with a tight blue daisy headband, and held together with a mid-height ponytail, my last interaction with him was memorialized through a simple photograph.
The photograph paints a perfect, playful picture. With a wide, gleaming smile, he feeds 7-year-old me the perfectly-seasoned sweet and spicy chicken foot—my favorite—with his 49-year-old bare, pudgy hands, catching the bones and cartilage from my saliva-covered mouth. With a wide, gleaming smile, he looks at me with a father’s love, like I’m the center of his universe.
And I, with a wide, gleaming smile, jubilantly bite into the perfectly-seasoned sweet and spicy chicken foot, savouring the juicy, tender meat and dropping the leftover bones and cartilage into his open palm. With a wide, gleaming smile, I look at him with a daughter’s love, like he’s the center of my universe. To the rest of the world, we were mirror images of each other, and this was the perfect father-daughter relationship.
I, barely tall enough to put my arm on the table, use one of my small pudgy hands to support my weight on the hard wooden-finish of the desk. I am dressed for any normal visit to my working father, but I am painfully unaware of the purpose of the visit. You see, I failed to mention that while this photograph seemed perfect and playful, my last memory with him was peevish and almost pitiful.
I can imagine him sitting back in his crocodile-leather chair, drinking the bitter green tea from his jade-green mug. As I stare at the photograph, I am overcome with an onslaught of questions—seemingly unanswerable questions. Did he know that I had eagerly skipped to the waiting car with my freshly-bought sweet and spicy chicken feet, imagining in my 7-year-old head scenario after scenario of everything we would do together? As he was feeding me the chicken feet and watching me draw in his notebook, did he know that I had brought the food for him to eat (and was consequently devastated when he said he was too full)? As he hugged me and waved goodbye, did he know that this would be the last time I would see him? Did he know that seven years later I would spend every waking moment thinking about what it would be like to have not just a father, but a dad?
GettyImages shows him with greying hair, black-rimmed glasses, and a bright blue blazer, but all I can see is the smiling dark-haired man with the rimless glasses feeding the oblivious seven-year-old girl chicken feet. BBC News describes him as a “wily chain-smoking deal-maker,” South China Morning Post calls him a “flamboyant entrepreneur,” and Financial Times cites a retired foreign diplomat who describes him as “very forthcoming, very open.” But how would I describe him? Truthfully, I can’t remember. My sparse recollection of him is barely held together by the loose tangle of unanswered questions and the memory of the neglected chicken feet. When trying to recall his personality and any other memories I have with him, all I can see is a blurry figure shrouded behind a veil of mystery.
How do I spend so much time thinking of a man who was probably in my life for less than a year? I can’t even imagine having spent 365 days with him. I can remember every moment I’ve spent with my mom—every laugh, every fight, every tear, every “I love you”—yet I can barely remember this moment captured in the photograph. I don’t even remember who was behind the camera; for all I know, it could have been anyone from his assistant to my mom.
I often joke about my “daddy issues,” but behind every joke, every smile, and every laugh is the face of the little seven-year-old girl who misses her dad. I joke about my “daddy issues” to mask my pain, my loneliness, and my feeling of abandonment, wondering how different my life might have been with an actual father figure in the house. As other girls get picked up by their dads, bake with their dads, and watch sports with their dads, I’m left wondering who will fill the empty void left by mine. As I grow older, my memories of him increasingly fade, yet the void he leaves behind only expands, its impact infecting every inch and corner of my life, like a slow-crawling plague engulfing me from the inside out. To the outside world, I’ve moved on, without a care in the world for his existence. Yet I spend nearly every waking moment wondering what he’s doing right now and pondering whether I should confide in him my troubles and hope he swoops in to save the day, whether I should update him on my current life and future plans, or whether I should text him ‘I miss you.’ Do I even miss him?
They say photographs are supposed to capture the reality of the moment, but the reality of this moment was the opposite of its depiction. The disappointment I felt when he said he had to
leave for a meeting only 20 minutes after my arrival was not captured in this perfect, playful photograph. The disbelief I felt when he refused to eat the perfectly-seasoned sweet and spicy chicken feet was not captured in this perfect, playful photograph. The dismay I felt when I realized he wasn’t coming home with me was not captured in this perfect, playful photograph.
Perhaps we were truly happy in that moment, and our wide, gleaming smiles exuded genuine love for each other. I only wish I had known then what I know now and cherished those 20 minutes like it was the last time I would see him. But then again, would anything have changed had I known that that would be the last time?
Or perhaps it was not those 20 minutes I should have cherished; perhaps it was those few years of blissful oblivion and naivety that I should have cherished, before the void started growing—the dark void left by the fading shadow of his blurry figure.
Description
This was a piece I wrote for a high school creative writing assignment, in which we wrote a memoir based on a childhood photo. This piece tells the harsh truth behind a seemingly happy photo of a loving father with his young daughter. In many Asian immigrant families, one parent—often the dad—stays in the home country to work while the other—often the mom—stays with the child in the host country. This piece sheds light on what it feels like to grow up without a father due to these defective long-distance relationships and its lasting impact on the child.
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