My Dad and his Injury (v-log #2)
I remember the stern grip of my mom’s hand as we walked through the busy hospital hallways. I remember her voice as she articulated each word as precisely as she could.
“I am looking for Ted Kim. I am his wife. I got a phone call that he got into an accident. His hand is hurt. He should be in the ER.”
I remember the receptionists’ dismissive tone as she told us that my father could not be found at this hospital for the eighth time.
“Could you try Taeyun Kim? That’s T-A-E-”
I remember driving from hospital to hospital, flinching every time we saw an ambulance on the road, wondering if that could be my dad.
It was the first day of winter break in 2010 when we received the phone call from my dad’s boss. My mom had just made the newest baked good she was obsessed with that month. It was a girls’ day, just my mom and me. We had driven my older brother to his swimming lesson and had a couple of hours to ourselves. I still remember that feeling of pure bliss. The type of peace and excitement for the world you can only feel until a certain age or a particular experience.
Last Christmas break would have been ten years since my dad, a carpenter, injured his hand. While table sawing a thin piece of wood, the platform split in half, driving my dad’s hand to get caught between the blades.
“We may need to amputate his middle finger and fuse his index and pointer fingers,” the doctor explained.
I remember my mom looking up the word amputate.
“Amp-u-tate,” she repeated in her own time.
My dad had been a carpenter for ten years by that point. His hands were not only vital for his quality of life but for providing for his family too. I saw my dad cry for the first time in my life as the doctor slowly unveiled his bandaged hand post-surgery. I’m unsure of how to explain how I felt at that moment when I saw my dads’ hands. You cannot see the pain behind a wound before seeing a loved one who has been wounded. Until then, you see a wound, and it is objective. You can attach words to describe this wound. It is sickening and graphic, and you would instead not look. But when you confront the wounds of a person you love, you see pain — you feel pain. You cannot look away, and words do not fill in space, leaving you wide open.
My brother’s words, to this day, still ring in my ears.
“This injury will follow dad for his entire life,” he whispered to me privately one afternoon.
I remember feeling angry that that’s what he would be upset about. As if he insinuated even a slight sense of embarrassment towards my dads’ hands. Now I understand how scared he must have been, knowing more about the world than the naive child I was. He saw an additional impairment for my dad, what he would have to carry living in an already unfavourable society for immigrants like himself.
I’m ending this story unfinished. The truth is, I’ve never been ready to write about this. I always felt like if I do write about it, that it shouldn’t be something I write about lightly. Perhaps I’ll revisit this in the future, or continue another day. For now, as always, thank you for reading ❤
-Vic
psst. if you missed my other blogs check them out here.
