Once when it was my turn to bring my dad to school to talk about what he did for a living, I asked if I could bring my mom. I could, and I have to say that my classmates were hardly thrilled to have my mom talk about life as a school teacher. That night I asked her what my father had done for a living. She told me he’d been a professional magician and as near a professional gambler as he could be. I guess that meant that he would have wowed my class, but I didn’t tell my mom that.
There were no pictures of my father, displayed or in albums, my mother having burned them all immediately upon his leaving. As far as I could tell, he never physically hurt her, but whatever he’d done had obviously made a deeply negative impression on my mom.
I have never received a message from my father, no birthday card, no phone call, and aside from the fact that he possibly lives in the Wanhei area, I have no address.
So I’ve at best a hazy five-year-old’s notion of how my father might look, and only a vague idea about location. To make matters more difficult, our last name is Lee, the second most popular name in Korea. Looking for a particular Lee in Korea is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack, and his given name is Jong-soo, Romanized Chong-soo, which is another haystack all by itself.
* * * * *
Aloha #WriterSaturday, I hope you are coping well with sheltering in. Today’s #WritingPrompt is
dad
Use it to inspire a piece of writing, and then post your piece as a comment below. I would love to read it : )
Lanning Lee 