Desert Rose

Remembering her father, translated…

My father had a ton of boxes his whole life, his life was collected, inside the Russian dolls. I’d opened it, once, in a long while, feared, that his scent will, become dilute and get lost in the air. In the end, I wouldn’t even, have anything of his left………

There are, thirteen ways that a black bird can observe this world, and, everybody has her/his own way of grieving for the loss.

As the desert rose on my lanai finally bloomed, that, was the very thought that, sprung into my mind.

My father is a retired servicemen, a floater from across the straights, and, overall, he’s one who’d floated over the Taiwanese Strait back in 1948. But, I’d never actually known, what month he’d come to Taiwan. Was it in December of 1948? Or, January of 1950? Because, we’d never, talked about how he’d come over here, when he’d come here. Actually, I’d never even, called him “father”, just “dad”. Not “daddy”, just a simplified, “Dad”.

The army retirement village I grew up in, wasn’t like the ones in the television shows, with the picket fence, with the petunias wrapped around the fences; there was, a huge red door, next to the red door were, two stone poles, extended to the left and right, two red brick walls that extended into the distance, there was, a small mansion with a small garden. And, those houses, the kids all knew, belonged to those who were ranked higher in the army. And every time we’d passed through this Japanese style residence in the neighboring village, we’d all known, that the place belonged to a government official. The army retirement village I grew up in, was set up by Madam Chiang, a newer style, a four-story apartment, with two families per floor, with the grayed pebble external walls. Although, inside where we lived, there was, NO garden with roses like that huge house, but there’s a patch in front of every family, with the thyme as the fences. I lived on the first floor, so my dad naturally, treated the small space as his own special garden, and all the neighbors didn’t mind one bit. Every once in a while, the styles in the garden would change, the chili’s replaced the herbs, or, there was, an extra sitting place, for the moms to rest a bit after grocery shopping. In my memories, outside my bedroom window was, the turn station for gossips.

what a potted desert rose looks like…

My dad was a retired serviceman without any other jobs, someone once tried getting him to work in security. All the uncles in the retired army villages shared the similar kinds of occupations, mostly worked as security guards, and there were also, sailors too, and those who’d worked on the mid-sized ships. But, sitting still in the security guard office for hours on end and doing nothing, that, wasn’t something my dad wanted, so, ever since I could remember, my dad stayed at home. My mom became, the allowance giver, and the three of us, lived off of the retirement pensions my father earned as a retired officer. As I was in the lower grades of the elementary school years, I’d gotten to known, that “families became factories”. Don’t know where my mother got those, nylon flowers, in an assortment of colors, with the various sizes of beads, for the handicrafts. Later on, she’d started working at the electronic parts manufacturing plants, welded a small, brown plate onto a plate that had a pole on it. Dad and I would help steady the parts onto this plate with holes. Then my mother would, welded the parts on, and afterwards, dad and I would then, pull the parts off, and, it’d be done. Mostly, we’d watched television as we’d worked on this. They’d talked about what’s playing on the soaps, engaged in discussions, and that, is my memories of the best time we’d had as a whole family.

My dad wasn’t talkative one bit, didn’t like visiting people, there were, rarely any visitors to our home, and I’d never even, gone with him, to visit someone either. Every now and then, there would be the wedding invitations from another village, there were only, two, or three. I’m not sure if he was happy, or displeased, when he’d received these, he’d told me, so-and-so sent this notice to him, that they weren’t in touch anymore. Slowly, we’d stopped, receiving the wedding notices from his fellow servicemates. And the days still passed by quietly, with the pages of the calendar torn off, each and every day. Toward the end of the year, we’d had to be, very careful when we tore off the pages, because if we used too much strength, we would, tear off those last days too, and, we’d gotten, several days, stolen from us, and that would be, no good.

growing in such adverse conditions..not my artwork.

He was very quiet, but showed how much he cared in his own ways, like how he’d looked over, tended to his garden of flowers. That was, a habitual thing.

One of the phrase I’d learned to say in his dialect was “meal time”. Meal time was, something major, that everybody must all sit down together. And, as all the foods were, brought to the table, he’d always hollered out, “Eat”. And, if there were the spicy chickens, the stewed carp, or chicken soups, then, it would be a bonus day at the house, he probably gotten the withdrawal of interest from his accounts. And normally, we’d had the vegetable varieties of bean sprouts, and stir-fried cabbage. I’d left home to study in Taipei, and every time I’d gone home, he’d shouldered up the shopping at the market place, either that he’d, added more dishes, or that he’d bought a ton of already prepared stewed items from the market. And, as I was about to leave for Taipei, he’d always, managed to evade my mother, and stuffed two thousand dollars into my pocket, without saying a single word to me. And, the words that he’d spoken that stayed with me was when I’d gotten accepted into grad school, he’d told me, “that way, you’ll live on much easier”. I’d not known what made him say those heart aching words, could it be, that he’d felt he wasn’t blessed enough for this life?

My dad doesn’t write, he couldn’t write out that red corn that’s hung, under the roofs of his old home like the known writer, he couldn’t even write his own name in his own hand writing, he’d written his name like an elementary school kid would.

After China became opened, the uncles in the neighborhood all went back several times, my dad didn’t, not even once. And I’d not heard about that childhood sweetheart that’s, waited for him back home for so very long. My mother asked him why he’d not wanted to head back, he’d replied, “Why bother, I don’t know where she’d gone to?”

Is there, a home to return to? There’s, nobody he knew there now.

The times that made his eyes aglow, was at six o’clock on Sunday evening, the program hosted by Lu-Yang Hsiung, “The Treasures Found in China”, even as I’d wanted to watch Conan, I’d needed to, watch the sights of China, that I wasn’t the least bit interested in, that was, something we’d all known, back then, I’d not quite understood, the meanings of the feature for him, until I’d left home myself, then, I’d understood, that that was, the closest he’d ever gotten, to recalling his home back in China. He’d rarely, told me of his life back in China, other than when the show turned to Sichuan, or the Hmong in Yunnan, he’d spoken, in that thick Sichuan accent, “Look, it’s a woman in Hmong” and the songs that that Hmong girl sang, it’d, waken up some sort of a melody of his youth, called out that mountain inside his memories.

On the day he’d died, because I’m the teacher’s assistance, and I was, monitoring the freshmen’s English exams. On the days he was bedridden with illness, I was so afraid of my cell phone ringing, but I’d needed to, keep my eyes, on my cell. It was, a Wednesday, a summer afternoon in the mountains, I had on, a white vest on. Stared at my group of students, just, spacing out, then, there was a moment in time, when I was, reminded of, how my classmate had, lost her younger brother, I’d imagined how sad she must’ve felt. Later on, my cell phone started vibrating, but I’m half way into monitoring the exams, and knowing it was, from the hospitals, I couldn’t pick it up, I can only, turn my cell off. And, the frequency of that call had already told me, what’s happened. As I’d collected the exams, I’d bumped into my advising professor, she’d just wanted to discuss with me the progress of my thesis, I’d told her, stiffly, “My father just died, I need to go to the hospital.” That was, a truly, awkward scene; to this day, I still felt embarrassed for what I’d told my professor, that the words I’d opened up with, was so shocking to him.

Nobody’s prepared.

Up until now, I’m still not quite ready for loss. Psychologically, I’d just, treated him as not yet home, maybe, it’s like how his parents believed, that the children who’d left them will eventually, return home again.

I’d watched him get placed into the coffin, and acted responsibly, the way I should. As I returned home, I’d not wanted to, hang his photo up on the walls, I’d not wanted to use the words, “final shot”. I didn’t need this huge photograph, reminding me of, what I’d lost.

I’d not hung the photo, but started then, I’d started, tearing off the pages off the calendars, it’d become, a sort of a ritual. Ate, slept, lived on, normally, from day to day. Passing the days, waiting on someone who’s never coming home again. After all, he was just in the hospital for a stay, he will eventually, come out of the hospital. That, is what I believed, and, a decade flew by.

Awhile ago, the line “as I wake, the world had, changed”. But, this world didn’t change after you woke, all of a sudden, it’s changing, without you knowing it. As I rode on the MRT, used my cell phone, and moved into the newly built buildings from the army retirement villages, noted how the army village was, taken down, I saw how this home I lived in for more than thirty years was, nothing more than JUST a shell.

from the newspaper…

My father had so many boxes, and I’d imagined, writing a novel about it too, with the start: I knew a man, he’d packed everything, into his boxes, his watch, his tickets, his medals, inside that lunch box from his service days, and, there was the platoon number scraped off the lid. And this lunch box was left, at a certain point in time, inside this, backpack of his………I’d opened it all up once in a long while, fearing that his scent might be lost if I looked into it too often.

Death, is the smell of the hospitals, the curtains pulled up, to separate the hospital beds, a lot of forms to fill, and the items left behind. And these items left behind became, an extension of their owners. Dad left just a fake Rolex that you can buy at the night markets, at first, the watch still worked, and, it’d stopped, after the batteries had, died. And, the stopped second, minute, and hourhand became like that arm, placed, next to his body, not moving anymore. Gladly, I’d still kept all the potted plants he’d raised. Now that he’s gone, but the flowers still bloomed in the springtime, that, I guess, was a sort of a way, to continue living, I suppose.

So, from this, you can see, what made this man into who he was, he’d served in the army, and suffered through the losses in his life, and yet, he’d still, lived his life well, and that, is what it’s all about, being here, making use of the time we are giving, living our lives, in our own ways…