Fiduciary duty
I’ve been working on an email to my dad for his birthday. Turns out I’ve been accidentally rewriting one from years past. Somehow, I still think I can’t out-do this one.
This past year I read Ha Jin’s A Free Life. It has profoundly influenced how I view the period of my father’s immigration journey and his intellectual interests. Curiously, I find the seeds of these thoughts in this old letter, too.
Many things have changed since writing this, though I am ashamed to say that I still can’t write a proper letter in Chinese.
Dear Dad,
16 years ago today, I came to this country with two English words in my vocabulary ("ok" and "airport”, both of which I learned at the airport), puke on my shirt, and a deep craving for KFC. Oh, and also it was your birthday.
Do you recall the sensations and hopes and desires of your youth? Did leaving your native land armed with a college degree and a rudimentary multicultural education already under your belt fill you with a tentative thrill, a freedom that sent you dashing to the nearest goal?
Whatever the answer, I would wager a guess that my experience has been nothing like yours. Moving up here all over again and living and encountering post-grads in their various stages of life decisions and determination of will and responsibility (bodily, work, continuing education), I can't help but admit that I can't take credit for the life I lead. With your financial support, not only throughout college but also after graduation, you have given me the freedom of choice which was never quite afforded to you growing up. More and more I find it imperative to consider this money as an investment, not simply an expense, thus leaving me with an important fiduciary duty. I realize that money is buying me time – time to make a life here, build up a network, progress toward the makings of a future that truly challenges me and engages me. And it is precisely an awareness of this borrowed time that sets me apart. I intend to make the most of it.
Strangely, I feel closer to you and Mom more than ever now that I have truly moved out. It turns out that all along, Mom has taught me how to look into others, whereas you have taught me how to look into myself. You are the most patient person I know, the most contemplative. You are the reason for my passion for the arts, for literature and for a deep knowledge of all the frivolities that interest me. In the car, running errands on hot Sunday afternoons, you indulged me with my millions of questions. You never told me to put a book down, unless Borders was closing (forever, it seems).
Dad, I know we are unique people, and in some ways we lead rather strange, interesting little lives. And none of that would be possible without you. Ever since I was little (once when I was 8 I stayed up all night crying because I overheard you talk about the job you could've had in China – grandma got mad at me for being so overly sentimental) I understood just how much you sacrificed for me and Mom, and it still fills me with a profound sadness. I know you have your health and your strength and in a way it makes you youthful for your age, but in your face I still see an undeniable weariness, a testament to all these long years. I hope that whatever the outcome of the business idea, it's a positive change for your physical health, both body and mind.
Thank you for every single hot and delicious meal you have ever cooked, for watching endless documentaries with me, for sharing stories about your childhood and early school years, for killing the spiders in my bedroom (and cleaning my bathroom while you were at it, which was always embarrassingly filthy), for never leaving my side. For teaching me that it is perfectly alright to value intelligence, not looks, as a girl. For trusting me to take care of myself, even though I so often feel fragile and naive and breakable.
Happy birthday, Dad.
Love,
Soleliu
P.S. Someday this letter will be in Chinese.