By Sarah D. Park

I have this idea for a book that I’ve been sitting on for some time. It’s inspired by my father and is in part, a dream of mine to publish some day, and in part, an attempt to develop empathy for my father.

After 27 years of redirecting mail with the United States Postal Service, my father retired — to a life of watching Korean dramas with noise-cancelling headphones. He slipped into a depression. He tried flipping houses and learned several lessons of the trade the hard way. Depression again. And then one day, he announced that he was going to attend seminary to become a pastor.

I do not know if God has truly called him to this, as my dad says. I’ve already declined an offer to lead a Bible study for this future church he will lead, and my mother has no intention of becoming a pastor’s wife. My parents are separately praying to God to change the other’s mind. His decision has been taxing on the entire family. As a daughter, how am I to support my father in this endeavor? We are all waiting with bated breath until he graduates, when decisions will come to a head.

But I do know that for 27 years, my dreamer of a dad, a dad who loves to laugh and unwittingly speak poetry, is happy in a way I’ve never seen him before. Learning Greek and studying hermeneutics is not easy for a man well into his 60s, but it is so priceless to him; in his words, “there is no preciousness alone because we may not gaze at the glittering without the darkness.”

In similar fashion, when I think about the connotations that come with being a Korean dad in America, it is too easy for me to point out the darkness and vividly pull non-fictional accounts from memory. Patriarchy. Stubbornness. An unwillingness to listen or be open to being wrong. That which glitters about Korean dads requires real imagination — fiction that can call out truth from what is unseen — to not only fill in the blanks and also reinterpret what is so familiar. My hope is that in writing this book, in naming both the fiction and non-fiction from the stories of my upbringing, I might learn to feel empathy for my father, that my brother and his peers will be able to name what is good and strong from being a Korean man, and that my dad may see that he already has a legacy.

In the meantime, I continue to edit his theological papers. I troubleshoot his tech issues. I recently sent him a happy birthday email, celebrating that he finally gets to enjoy something he has chosen for himself. He is happy. How many Korean fathers living in America can claim that? I cannot name many. My dad dreamed for 27 years for my sake, that I might live out mine, and this simple cliche has become a complex, aching thing as I find myself on the other end of it. How I hope to love him back in kind.

Sarah D. Park is a story producer and a freelance writer. To her delight, most of the time, these positions are conduits for her to press an exposed nerve in the status quo.