He’s Not Dead Yet

He’s not dead yet.

My dad. He’s not dead yet.

But I mourn him. I have been mourning him for a while now.

On Monday, my mom told me that my dad’s nephrologist recommended him for an Alzheimer’s workup. The nephrologist is fairly certain that my dad has Alzheimer’s, but she can’t officially diagnose it—she’s a kidney specialist, after all.

This news wasn’t shocking. My dad has been showing signs of dementia for the past two years, maybe longer, but my mom didn’t push to get him formally assessed. In the past few months, though, she says things have gotten worse. He can’t be trusted to take his medications or manage his meals anymore. He can’t figure out his insulin dosing, something he used to handle on his own. When they went to his three-year follow-up after his kidney transplant, my mom voiced her concerns.

No one was surprised.

Several months ago, my mom invited me to join her, my dad, my brother, and his fiancée for lunch. We didn’t have any plans, so Tionne and I packed up the kids and headed over. When we arrived, they had already ordered, a family-style spread laid out in front of them. We sat down, and the conversation began—mundane, casual, the usual catching up. But soon, it became clear that my dad wasn’t really “there.”

He asked me questions about things from my childhood as if those were current events. He kept confusing my daughter, Kaiyida, for me, addressing her like she was a younger version of myself. Isaiah and Tionne? He didn’t even acknowledge their presence, as if they were invisible.

We brushed it off. We laughed, glossed over the weirdness.

It was what it was.

That night, after we put the kids to bed, Tionne joined me in my office like he does almost every night for our usual debrief. We talked about the day, about everything and nothing. Then, softly, tentatively, he asked, “How are you, Kornika?”

I broke down.

“He’s gone, Tionne,” I sobbed. “My dad is gone.”

He held me, let me cry, and asked if I wanted to talk. I didn’t. He said he’d be ready when I was. I sniffled, wiped away the tears, and we moved on, the way you do when life demands you keep going, even as you feel yourself crumbling inside.

And then Monday—or maybe it was Tuesday, I can’t remember, it’s all a blur—this news came, solidifying what I had already been mourning.

You see, when I told Tionne that my dad was gone, it wasn’t sadness I felt. It was anger. A deep, fiery, consuming rage that I’ve been carrying for as long as I can remember. I’ve hated him, on some level, since at least eighth grade, when I was in a court-mandated inpatient intervention program. We were supposed to have family therapy every week. Only my mom ever showed up.

But really, the roots of my anger stretch further back.

I think it started during my sixth- and seventh-grade soccer and volleyball games. He would stand on the sidelines and yell at me. Things like, “You suck,” or “Why are you even playing?” or “Of course, you missed,” usually in Khmer. Looking back, I think he believed he was pushing me to be better, but it never felt like that. It felt like I was worthless to him, no matter how hard I tried.

And I tried. I tried so hard.

I lived my life as if his voice was a measuring stick. Every accomplishment, every victory, was to prove him wrong. To show him that I was good enough, worthy of praise. Sometimes, even now, I still hear that voice in my head telling me I’m not enough. It doesn’t shout as loud these days—therapy helped with that—but it’s still there. Quiet, lingering.

The final blow came in 2000 when I found myself in crisis, pregnant and scared. Instead of support, he disowned me. That was it for me. I knew I wasn’t ready to care for a child, so I made the hardest decision of my life and placed my first-born baby for adoption. And in doing so, I walked away from not just my father, but my mom and my brother too.

I put as much distance between myself and him as possible—physically, emotionally, mentally. I packed up my life, drove over a thousand miles away, and lived out of my car for months until I could get on my feet. I joined the Navy, finished college, and rebuilt myself from the ground up.

In 2005, after five years of silence, I called my mom to tell her about my graduation. I wasn’t sure she’d come, but she did. When we hugged, she said, “Your father says he’s sorry.”

That was all.

I returned home eventually, to visit my mom and brother, though my dad was always there, lingering like a ghost of the past we never spoke about. We pretended those five years didn’t exist. That he had never disowned me, that I hadn’t given up my child. I shoved all my emotions deep down, choosing peace for the sake of my mom and brother, and saved the rest for therapy.

But the anger never left. The sadness, the disappointment, the hatred—it’s all still there. And I don’t know what to do with it.

He’s never said sorry to me. Never shown remorse. He acts like I owe him—love, affection, respect—but he broke me. I had to learn how to mend myself.

Don’t get me wrong. He taught me things, too. How to change a tire, change my oil, cut a perfect miter joint. He taught me about acoustics, about CAD, how to splice wires. I can fix just about anything, though none of it would ever meet his standards. He gave me resilience, survival skills. I owe much of my strength to him.

But it’s all so complicated, so tangled in darkness.

And now? Now I’m mourning a man who no longer exists. I mourn the apology I’ll never get, the closure that’s forever out of reach. I’m angry at a ghost, bitter toward someone who’s fading, disappearing, slipping further away each day.

It’s so unfair.

I know I need to forgive him. Not for him, but for me. To release this weight, this poison that’s eating me up inside. But I’m not there yet. I’m still angry. I’m still grieving. Grieving for the father who hurt me, and for the man who will eventually leave this world without ever making it right.

And, quietly, I’m terrified. What if his parting gift to me is Alzheimer’s, too? What if I end up like him, forgetting the ones I love, lost in memories that no longer make sense?

—Originally posted October 24, 2024, on Facebook.