In the backseat of my father's car

This is something that I started writing in 2014 and never really stopped adding bits and pieces to it. It's my dad's birthday tomorrow, and we have a couple of seas and a pandemic between us - so I wanted to put this out there for one of my favourite people in the world.

Happy birthday Pappa Heng 🐲🐲🐲

In the backseat of my father's car

In the backseat of my father's car, I am 8, in food stained clothes that my mother will lecture me about when we get home. I was taught first, to only get into cars of people that I know very well, and second, to always sit in the passenger seat - because the person driving was not a taxi driver (unless of course, they were - a taxi driver, that is). My father is the exception to this rule. The second I approach the door to the passenger seat, he will wave me away with a disapproving nod. Even when it feels silly to do so, even when it’s just the two of us, I will climb into the seat behind him and watch the world fly past the back of his head. He doesn't tell me why, and I don't ask. As with many other things in my life at this time (like not reading my books when we're eating or not drinking water when there is soup on the table), sitting in the backseat is one of my father's unquestionable rules.

 

In the backseat of my father's car, I am 13, being driven to a tennis lesson that I am determined not to go to.

We are arguing about things that I not longer remember, while my younger

(but infinitely wiser) sister remains quiet, watching me try to fight a battle that has already been lost.

My mother always said that we fight so often because we are too similar:

too stubborn, too hot-headed, too unyielding.

As with most things, she is probably right, but both my father and I agree to completely ignore this.

Heat collects behind my eyes, and I fold my arms, look out the window and mutter arguments beneath my breath.

In my head, I am a conscientious objector, a martyr holding herself in the dignity of silence,

but even I can't shake the shame of feeling like a child put in her place.

And the rest of the trip is silent.

 

In the backseat of my father's car,

I am 16, being driven to a date.

The date is in a shopping mall, which is mortifying enough in itself without having to ask my father to drive me to it.

The past week was spent deciding if I should lie to my parents, to spare myself the stress,

to save them from ideas of hand-holding, lip locking,

or whatever teenagers are meant to do when on dates in shopping malls.

They find out (like they always do), and go through a checklist, a verbal form that I fill up and sign at the bottom:

what do his parents do

how many A's did he get in his exams

what are his intentions

are you going to be kidnapped and have your organs harvested.

Back in the car, it is quiet, it is tense, it is unbelievably awkward.

My father spurts out: "Look. Just friends OK?"

I mumble something that along the lines of yes in response,

and make a mental note to let me kids date at whatever age they want.

 

In the backseat of my father's car,

I am still 17, (the memories accumulate as I get older),

We are driving back from our hometown, which is not (and never will be) the same since my great-grandmother passed away.

My sister is asleep next to me and I am slumped over,

headphones in but expounding silence,

watching the rest of the world zoom past in the gap between the driver and passenger seat.

I hear my father speak in a voice softer than I'd ever heard, telling my mother about how his grandmother raised him.

The same breakfast she used to buy for him everyday before he went to school, 

how she spoiled him for being the only son in the family.

My father is not a sentimental man, these words aren't crafted or thought out,

they tumble out of him like water, and my mother just listens.

It is all he needs and wants. 

I realize, for the first time in my dramatic, messy youth that people would die for this kind of simple.

 

In the backseat of my father's car,

I am 20, being driven to the airport.

I'm being taken away from a home I've rediscovered for the first time at 90 km/hour,

(though obviously, my father doesn't stick to the speed limit. No one else does, so why should he?)

I have a shovel ready, prepared to dig out these freshly grown roots for replanting yet again,

though before long I will find a way to nurture them in myself.

Without a word, he puts on an old Cantonese song,

the same one our family sings along to on long drives home,

constantly mispronouncing words and phrases at the top of our lungs.

We never listen to it unless all four of us are there,

which recently, is a rare occasion that always slips away too soon.

I get the feeling that he's been waiting for the right moment to do it,

I wonder what makes him decide that this very one, is it.

 

I am 22, being driven along the Scottish countryside,

I am about to graduate and in a persistent state of not-at-home-and-maybe-never-will-be.

My father and I are arguing about directions, whether to take a left on this road or the next one,

and somewhere in the back of my mind I realize with a start, 

that I've been sitting in the passenger seat for two hours,

and that I am in the process of winning an argument with my dad. 

There is a moment where I wonder if this is adulthood:

Achieving petty teenage dreams like defeating your parents,

without the fanfare that you imagined – the parade or the hormone-fuelled sense of justice.

Or if it's just that time has worn down my father's rougher edges,

such that they do not rub against mine quite so violently any more.

 

But the truth, I think, is much simpler, holding no fundamental truths

about the passage of time or age.

I think that maybe for the first time, we are seeing each other as people,

not just as a daughter to protect from failure and stress,

and boys and universities that aren't good enough for me.

Not just as a grumpy old man who has his after-golf-good-moods

that I watch and wait for before asking for permission.

But the people that are left over after we've outgrown the only roles we’ve ever played for each other.

 

My father is not a sentimental man, but he is a fully-fleshed person

with fully-fleshed memories, anger and sadness that ebbs and pulses,

with fully-fleshed stories that I'm hearing about every day,

(the time he saw Fleetwood Mac live in concert,

or when he lived above his uncle's Fish & Chip shop in London),

and a fully-fleshed life that existed before me, without me

(and sometimes, despite me).

He is not a sentimental man, 

but he wakes up at 6:30 a.m. to make sure that our gas tanks are always full,

and buys me and my sister breakfast before any of our exams,

he sends me a text every goddamn time there is a sale at Esprit in One Utama, 

as if I’m waiting for him at home, instead of half the world away.

Ends every phone call with "text us if anything's wrong or if you feel unsafe".

Tells me to call my mom whenever she is lonely or upset.

Watching – quiet as he always is,

Sometimes unable to find the right words, but always showing with his actions – my father, and me in the backseat of his car.