One Gentle Nod.

After a late night party, my half-drunk dad insisted on driving home by himself.

Weeks before he went to the party, he decided to remove all the air bags from the car, with the intention to show how cool he was. That night proved that it is not cool to drive without air bags.

The car hit the edge of the bridge, totaled, leaving my dad unconscious for days. Doctors and brain surgeons came and talked to mom after seeing my dad’s injury. They told Mom that even if they managed to save his life, there was still a great chance that he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life. The surgeon asked mom whether she would agree to do the surgery or not. While holding a half-asleep, two-year-old daughter, Mom spoke no words, slowly nodded her head and signed the agreement form.

It was because of that gentle nod that I got to enjoy father’s love in my childhood life. Throughout my childhood, my dad was always my best playmate. We played all kinds of puzzle games together, to a point where my classmates would be amazed by my skills on those games. I also noticed that our house had more puzzle games than anyone else in my class. Most of the time we play games at home, but sometimes we move the location to the hospital. It wasn’t until much later that I realized dad was at that time doing what they called physiotherapy and rehabilitation. Those games are not just there to stimulate my brain growth, but to help my dad’s brain to recover from the injury.

Lego became our favorite game. No matter what it says in the instruction, our goal was to “build a house.” From the color of the wall, the location of the bedroom, to the kinds of facilities we should put in our kitchen, dad and I are the planners and the makers of our dream house. Not sure if that gives a clue of my later studies in the design field, but being able to build a dream house with dad for sure was one of the happiest moments in my childhood.

It seems at first nothing really changed after the car accident and the serious injury. But it would be a fairy tale to say so. Dad had to quit his wonderful career as a French chef, and his coordination and sensitivity after the surgery disallowed him to do certain tasks with potential danger, such as cutting food and carrying heavy ingredients in the kitchen. A period of frustration hit my family soon after he finished physiotherapy, and my dad refused to play Lego with me.

After years of adjusting to dad’s mental and physical health, mom became the one who goes out to work, and dad stays home take care of the cleaning, grocery shopping and cooking. Mom always tells people that we have a five-star chef at our house cooking every single day. Family roles changed, but the laughter continues.

Twenty years later, I sit in a Japanese restaurant, spending my first summer job paycheck to celebrate my dad’s 50^th birthday. Not used to having his own daughter buying him dinner, dad gives a timid smile and says, “thank you,” in a gentle tone. I look at dad, thinking this is the man who has shown nothing but love to me over the past twenty years, and I have almost missed his love.

I still don’t know how much courage it would take to agree to an operation when there’s a good chance of facing a non-responsive man for the rest of your life, but what I can realize is this: parental love is to be willing to take any risk to preserve the love that their child needs.