My father was not exactly a friend to us/me when we were growing up. He was dedicated to his job and his education and we did not have time for usual father and son activities. As we turned professionals, we could not agree on a lot of things and he insisted on a lot of things like discipline and obedience, and manager to subordinate talk which I disliked (as all young idealist graduates do!)
But cancer struck him when he was only 56. And he was pitiful when he learned that he had cancer and that he had few months to live. As I read his diary, and he wrote daily what he felt and experienced, I felt differently for him; because he appeared before as strong and disciplinarian. And here he was emaciated and very sensitive.
He was confined in a hospital and since I had the capacity of declaring a leave for myself anytime, I was able to visit and stay with him in the hospital daily... And lo and behold, we quarreled daily! Maybe because he had so much self pity, he was so sensitive and he flared up on slightest provocation.
But despite that, as a dutiful son, (following the confucian paternal devotion). Then one day, as I bought antibiotics from Mercury Drugstore, I did not find anymore at his usual sick bed and and nurses told me they transferred him to the ICU. And he was comatose. He had a blood clot from his nose (he was dying from cancer of nasopharynx, I was told due to to smoking unfiltered cigarette) that went up his brain and clogged one of the blood vessel.
It posed another problem: what do we do in case he does not recover? What about the financial burden? Will our conscience bother us when we issue DNR (Do not Resuscitate request) or unplug the oxygen tube?
But a father as we was, took away that burden from me as the eldest son. His heart stopped beating on its own and we did not have to take that difficult decision. And then I had to take care of the memorial services details. And I was numb from lack of sleep, and had no emotion anymore for the lot of times we quarreled!
I remember that I cried when the casket was finally lowered, the band was playing the dirge and we were throwing soil on the casket. It meant, that I would take the responsibility of a father to my mother and my siblings.
