The Man I Knew

YuBin Sol
October 12, 2009
Portrait RD2

“The Man I Knew”

I stood at the podium, in front of people that I didn’t know. I didn’t want to be there. But I had to. I was supposed to speak about this man. Did they even know him? No, not at all. I was supposed to talk about him, his life. But I couldn’t speak. I was choked up with eyes full of brimming tears that dared to spill over. Two poster-sized portraits of this man flanked either side of the podium, with thick maile leis around them. And I started…

My father. He was a man of medium build and bushy, thick eyebrows. They used to say that I had his eyebrows. He grew up in South Korea, with those strong Korean values instilled in him, and was a reserved man. But he had a hearty laugh that bellowed out. They say I had his laugh too.

When he came to America with my mother, they lived in New Jersey and he worked as a janitor on a naval ship. From New Jersey, he took my mom and the three girls to Hawai’i because his father was sick with lung cancer. Living in Mililani in a small apartment, which was all he could afford, he supported our family with his own refrigeration and air conditioning business. The youngest of five, he looked after his father and mother. He never said much to his parents. They were as reserved as he was. He never shed a single tear when either of his parents passed away.

He usually had gold double-bridge glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, with sweat beading on his face from hauling his tools from his white Ford van in the sun. The van smelled of metal from all the various tools and screws and bolts in small plastic compartments individualized and shelved for easy picking. His large hands were rough with calluses from gripping his wrenches or screwdrivers. He took pride in building things with his own hands, like the bookshelf that he built more than seventeen years ago and is still in my room till this day.
My father hardly spoke. But I used to follow him everywhere. He would take me walking with him to the gas station down the road from our Mililani apartment when he ran out of cigarettes, and he would treat me to a soda because we never had any at home. He always held my hand, and made sure he was on the side closest to the street and I was on the inside. He used to make me his Korean spicy ramen with kimchee and egg. It was the best because we both liked our noodles soft and our eggs scrambled in the soup. On the weekends he would take me with him when he visited friends, played cards with them and made a little extra money from winning. He would always take me to the grocery store after and buy me a bag of peanut M&M’s because they were my favorite.

At home, he only spoke Korean. It was his way of teaching us how to speak properly and instilling the Korean culture in us. When I was five, my sisters and I were enrolled in Korean language class, which was held every Saturday morning at the Korean Presbyterian Church on Ke’eaumoku Street. I struggled with waking up early every Saturday morning when we were younger because just the drive to town felt so long, but he no matter what, he took us there every weekend.

After the oldest twin girls graduated from high school, he moved my mother and me to a different apartment in town. It was an easier commute for my mother. I was a sophomore in high school, and we moved in the middle of the school year. I knew he felt bad that I couldn’t graduate at the same school as my best friends, so for the rest of the school year he drove me every morning from Waikiki to Mililani every morning and picked me up after school every afternoon.

Every night at dinner, there was no television allowed. Everyone was to be seated before anyone could start eating. Dinner was for the most part silent. On occasion, he would explain to me the importance of getting straight A’s in high school and scoring high on the SAT exam. He stressed the need of being active and a leader in community service clubs. These were the things that colleges looked at. Even though he hoped for an Ivy League school, I didn’t want to go to college. But I went anyway.

One day, in the middle of my second semester of college, I knew something was wrong with him when one day he complained of stomach pains. My mom forced him to go to the hospital. He had stomach cancer, the same type of cancer his mother had. I couldn’t believe it.

My father was the kind of man that even when he found out his cancer was so advanced that it was beyond any treatment, he still was the same person he always was. He still drove me to school, and picked me up when I needed him to. He still walked to the gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes, except at this point it was in Waikiki. He still made me his Korean spicy ramen with kimchee and egg. He still wore those gold double bridge glasses and still drove that white Ford van with all his tools. He still lectured me that I needed to be a prominent lawyer or doctor, even though I knew he would be proud of me whatever I chose to do.

But then he got thin. And he got frail. And he couldn’t stomach solid foods anymore. And then he was bedridden. And shortly after that, he was gone.

My father wasn’t a prominent lawyer, or doctor or even a savvy businessman. But he was singlehandedly the most important person in my life. A man of few words, but a lot of action. He instilled in me family values, my Korean heritage, the importance of an education, the satisfaction of building something with your own hands. We hardly exchanged any words, but they were still nevertheless happy times. I am, after all, daddy’s little girl.