on the way home from work, i found out my dad, who's been in the hospital for the past 10 days or so, has had his cancer spread to his intestines. i spoke to his doctor, and he flat out came out and said it's very bad. this is sudden and i am kind of in shock right now. we knew they'd found traces of cancer cells last week, but the doctors said it was such an early stage of whatever that they thought a low dose of chemo once a week would be enough of a treament. it's weird, because i had a bad feeling about this whole thing. like i said in sunday's post, that even though the doctors were saying the prognosis was good, i didn't want to discuss it then. now i have to discuss it because that prognosis has been reversed, taken back, negated, nullified, zapped into oblivion, and with it the little hope i had that my father would be back to his old self--maybe not a normal self, but back to the HEALTHY jesus freak people loving daughter doting dad i've grown accustomed to over the years. now he's just a jesus freak people loving daughter doting dad.

as soon as i found out, i called my boss and told her i wouldn't be coming in to work tomorrow. i hung up with her and broke down in tears at 75mph southbound on the tristate. i called the only person i could stand crying to at the moment, my best friend josh who recently transplanted himself to new york. josh answered the phone and i cried. i don't cry often, and when i do i try to make sure no one knows about it, but today i needed to cry for my father, my mother, my brother, myself, and i needed to cry for my best friend who i have been missing since he changed time zones 2 weeks ago.

my dad has always loved me adoringly for as long as i can remember. this is probably the greatest gift i've known in my life. i remember when i was little i used to follow him everywhere. i have tape recordings of him seranading me with lullabyes and holding conversations with me when i was just a wee baby, with my brother insisting in the background that my dad was wasting his time because i was too young to understand what he was saying. i remember my dad teaching me to read and write korean before we immigrated to the u.s. because i was too young to have attended school, and he wanted me to know how to read and write my first language. i remember my dad teaching me short division and how to do square roots by hand and the binary system (he was a computer programmer for over 20 years). i remember the stories he would tell of growing up in a 3rd world, war ravaged country, going from riches to rags because of the war, how he loved mountain climbing and that the first date he ever took my mother on was to seoul national university's alpinist club meeting. he told me about being a newspaper reporter in korea, about how he used to drink and get into brawls and how he got his fake front tooth courtesy of our local officer friendly during one such brawl. i love the pictures of him in europe when he went to a ski school in the alps, especially the picture of him in a french beret with his red ski sweater in front of the eiffel tower. the only thing typically asian about him in that picture is the camera slung around his neck. he told me again and again about the avalanche his climbing team was in when 10 of them died, and how my mother was pregnant at the time and frantic but that he insisted on staying with the rescue operations to cover the story for the newspaper and i'm sure out of loyalty to his friends. he also told me how he almost died because of kidney failure and that while he was in the hospital he read the bible out of boredom and came face to face with the god he'd been running away from for years and years, and how his life has never been the same. this part he hasn't had to tell me because i've seen it with my own eyes. my dad loves jesus. he is a bona fide jesus freak. yet when i told him 3 months ago that i was leaving the church and that i didn't know what i believed, he didn't condemn me or freak out or tell me i was going to hell. he told me he knew i'd be okay and that he wasn't worried about me. he's the reason i didn't run away to california, not just because of his health, but also because of his love and acceptance. my dad is jesus to me as far as i'm concerned, and that's why i will continue to search for truth for myself, because i have seen the effect of the gospel on my dad's life and being a witness to that for the past twentysomething years has made an indelible mark of the cross on my heart, whether i like it or not. i know that christian parents or zealously religious parents in general have hurt scores and scores of their young. my dad wasn't perfect either. he really hurt my brother, and there were times when i felt neglected because of all the time he spent doing god stuff. but the miracle of the kind of faith that my father has been living out is that he confesses his weaknesses to even his children and reconciles with us and so we heal. he has been far from the perfect dad and an even less perfect husband. but it's okay because he knows it and doesn't pretend to be perfect. i wouldn't want the perfect dad anyway. that would be like way too much pressure because then he'd have an excuse for expecting more from me because he lives up to it himself. with my dad, i know i can be incorrigibly flawed and a downright wretched little wench, and he will still love me as his own. because that's who i am, his own. for this i am eternally grateful because that is just what may save me someday.

"the sun shines, leaves blow and my hope like autumn is turning brown
i know it seems like i am always falling down
but it does not matter to me although it seems like it should
it's because i know i am understood
when i hear him say, 'rest in me little david and dry all your tears
you can lay down your armor and have no fear
'cause i'm always here when you're tired of running
i'm all the strength that you need'

it's up hill both ways, tomorrow i swear i won't act this way
i know it seems like that is what i always say
but it does not matter to me although it seems like it should
it's because i know i am understood
when i hear Him say, 'rest in me little david and dry all your tears
you can lay down your armor and have no fear
'cause i'm always here when you're tired of running
i'm all the strength that you need'

you know i want to be like jesus
but it seems so very far away
when will i learn to obey, obey" ~ lullaby by pedro the lion (david bazan)

today's soundrack:
in light of what has happened, my musical choices for today seem trivial. all i will say is that as soon as i get in the car to drive to the hospital, i will be listening to pedro the lion and denison witmer.

peace--