# A Father's Heart: Every Day a Father's Day
For four years, I have wandered far from my children, my heart tethered to the Bay Area where they reside. I make deliberate pilgrimages home, hoping to weave myself back into their lives. These visits are rare, their busy lives leaving but a sliver of time for a shared meal or a hike. I carry a quiet wish for more, yet I hold close the simple gift of being near them, knowing proximity is sometimes all I can offer.
I reach out through texts and voicemails, uncertain of the etiquette that connects me to their generation. I wonder if the distance between us stems from my absence during moments that mattered most when the need for building and supporting their essential self worth—moments I cannot pinpoint exactly but feel deeply.
I grapple with the echoes of my own father’s upbringing, a blend of hands-off freedom and his sharp coaching wisdom in athletics. I did not want the chasm I felt growing up, yet I see it mirrored in my own story with my father: unanswered calls, no cards or wishes to bridge the gap. I know I was oblivious because I was not a father. He never complained, really.
This, I understand, is the karma of my youth, when I drifted from my own father. It is a subjective tale, heavy with sadness, yet punctuated by bursts of joy when a heartfelt connection had sparked between us. Too Few and too fleeting.
My children entered this world too soon—one at six weeks, the other at nine and a half weeks premature. Their fragile beginnings in the NICU, one for seven days, the other for over six weeks, marked my initiation into fatherhood. I recall the birth of my son, an hour away from me, delivered in our cramped apartment bedroom by Vernon, a firefighter, amidst a cadre of four other firemen and a messy bed, IV tubes, medical products for the Hazard bag were left for me to see when I arrived too late. By this time both were at the hospital.
My daughter’s arrival was no less harrowing, born through a traumatic C-section as I stood outside the operating room, shrouded in scrubs, surrounded by the chaos of bodily fluids and urgent cries by the OB: “We have two minutes to get this baby out!” Then, “One minute!” A few moments later the high-risk neonatal doctor emerged, his broad smile and firm handshake steadying my trembling heart: “She’s out, and they’re both fine.”
Now, at 31 and soon 28, my children are their own people. Each day, I carry the weight of not being the father I envisioned. The lessons from my father’s fathers, the pain and wisdom I gathered, often faded under the strain of raising them while reparenting myself. My ex-partner’s text on this Father’s Day:
“Happy Father’s Day to the dad of two wonderful children!”
It stirred both gratitude and an ache. I reject the notion of a single day to honor fatherhood. Who ordained this Hallmark ritual? My heart, soured by solitude and the sting of my shortcomings, finds no solace in these designated moments. Should we not celebrate our parents, our grandparents, daily—in the quiet rituals of a simple and short announcement of “I was thinking of you, I love you?”
They say a parent has, on average, one year of time with their children after they leave the nest. This truth pierces me. I dream of my children living close, perhaps under the same roof, with space to breathe yet bound by the wealth of shared emotions and support. My parents’ families lived this way, together until the end, their closeness a shield against life’s worries. In America, such unity is often frowned upon, our culture prizing individuality over connection. For me, this emphasis on independence became a stone wall, severing ties I longed to nurture.
Fatherhood is not confined to a June Sunday. It lives in every interaction, every hug, every “I love you,” every word of encouragement, compassion, or boundary offered with grace. It thrives in the forgiveness we extend, even when we feel on the periphery of their lives. I learned too late that my own father, Kenny Kim—professor, athlete, coach, a visionary of the 1960s stifled by his era—wanted to connect with me, but neither of us knew how to bridge that gap. He poured his love into educating others, into recreation and leisure, seeking pure joy and amusement in a world that often blocked his path to succeed and yet he did and then some.
To our Fathers:
Make every day a true Father’s Day.
Tussle your child’s hair, give a playful pat for a job well done, tease them gently to lift their spirits, be patient and listen deeply to their calls for guidance and love them fiercely without judgement, even from the edges of their world. For I know now, as my father did not, that my heart always yearned to be near him as in my own children, if only we had found the words to ask.
Blessings and Namaste,
t
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