My father who I hardly know.

My youngest sister spoke of my kind and gentle dad who took her to the movies, and was excited when a boy called to ask her out on a date. I was in disbelief. Is this the same man who made me log all my phone calls during high school and frowned upon my hanging out with my friends? That's when I realized that I missed out alot. I don't know the man who went to the market with my mom on weekends to buy groceries. The person I know reads paper while my mom is grocery shopping. My only recollection of my carefree dad was him playing classical music on weekends from the phonograph.

My older sisters have always been jealous of my stature as the youngest child. They don't realize that I didn't have things handed to me. To me, my parents were always stressed, worrying about how our family would thrive in this new land. As a result, they were largely absent from my memories. My parents never made it to any of my choir performances, and missed my high school graduation. I long for my father who I once thought had gone to America because I was a bad girl. 26 years later, I now know that work made him go to a foreign land, and circumstances caused our long sojourn.

Who knew what would have happened if we stayed in Taiwan? Would I have gotten to know my father then? Would we have stayed a family of six instead of all of us drifting away from each other?

All I know is that we are never the same after the move. As we moved for the supposed better future, our family fell apart, only reunite once annually. Is this a better outcome? I really don't know.