My father is coming home for four days in early September. My mom emailed me the info tonight, and I don’t know what to do with it. To top it off, his favorite sister just passed, and they aren’t sure when they are having the funeral. Which means that he will be raw from the grief when he returns. Which means I should try to be sympathetic and all that. Or something.
But, I don’t want to do that for him. More to the point, I am not sure I can do that for him.
When my mom came home, it was difficult because of all the shit between us. However, there is also love between us. I can now say that I know she loves me and wants what’s best for me, even if what she envisions as best for me is so far off the mark. I trust her to a certain extent (but not completely).
My father? No. I do not love him; he does not love me. I don’t trust him one bit, and I don’t know or care whether he wants what’s best for me.
I thought I was over my anger at him, but I discovered that wasn’t true when my mother was home. There are wells of fury hidden under my surface, but there are also layers of…other things.
He cannot physically harm me any longer, so I do not fear that. He is old and in bad health, and god, I do not want to touch him at all. I know I will have to hug him (have to as in feeling guilty if I don’t), and I am cringing already. I think I have related how when I was in my twenties, he liked to walk with his arm around me. When I informed him that I didn’t like it, that it made me feel more like his girlfriend than his daughter, he scoffed at me for being silly. He did quit doing it, though, so there is that.
I had the family reunion on my father’s side yesterday. My father, mother, brother, niece, and I took the bullet train to Taichung. It was pretty neat. My father’s second-oldest brother’s third and fourth sons picked us up (with their respective wives). The third brother had stayed in our house in MN before, so I remembered him. I didn’t remember meeting the fourth brother. We went directly to the restaurant, and I was wary because I remembered the first time I met my father’s family. Needless to say, it did not go well (the first time). However, as I rode with the third brother, I realized that he and I had more than a few things in common. Then, when we went to the restaurant, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. There were roughly fifty of us when it was all said and done, and there was only one moment of shame for me. It was when my father’s second sister came up to me and looked at me sternly. She made a sour face and then asked (in Taiwanese) if I could speak Taiwanese. My mother said no, and she made an even more sour face and looked at me like I was dirt on her feet. She said (in Taiwanese) that I should know how to speak Taiwanese (apparently, she didn’t know that I could understand some of it), and she clucked her tongue at me. Now, mind you, this was the same woman who, along with her older sister, told me I should speak Chinese the last time I saw them. At that time, I was in Taiwan to learn how to speak Chinese. A month later, when I met the two sisters again and began talking to them in Chinese, they switched to Taiwanese and said I should know how to speak Taiwanese.
I couldn’t sleep last night (surprise surprise). I got up in the middle of the night to do some online stuff before trying to sleep a bit more. When I finally got out of bed, it was eight-thirty. To my mild surprise, no brother barging into my room. Nothing. Fifteen minutes later, I heard a soft knock on my door. It’s my niece telling me it’s time to get up. So, right off the bat, things were different this morning.