...well, i don't lose my composure often in public, but i almost lost it at the river east amc theaters last night...teddy & i went to see tim burton's new movie BIG FISH while jay & david went to see paycheck...i really had no idea what the movie was about, but my friends who'd seen it raved about it...IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YET, I'M ABOUT TO RUIN IT FOR YOU, SO I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU GO READ SOMETHING ELSE...
...i won't go into details, but let's just say that there's a dad dying of cancer, a dad who's lived a really 'big fish' of a life, and a son who tries desparately to get to know who his father is beyond the elaborate stories he's heard, stories which turn out to be truer than he could've imagined...i mean, the little details like the dying dad having to sip water from a glass w/ a straw because he can't take actual gulps or sips, or the son staying at the hospital with him through his last night alive, and then the funeral with all the people who showed up, the people his dad had helped or befriended during his lifetime, all with their own stories of his dad...
...it was all too familiar for me...and you know what i realized after seeing that movie last night? i realized that my dad too had lived a 'big fish' of a life...i remember soaking in all the stories he would tell me and my brother...about an occupied korea, and then a wartorn korea...about fleeing seoul and living in refugee camps...about an older sister who ran off with a north korean army officer...his family losing all their wealth during the war...being separated after the war from his maternal grandmother, who lived in north korea, and whom he never saw again...how he became a news reporter even though he'd been a phyics major and worked as a high school physics teacher after college...his mountain climbing expeditions, and the scars still on his hands from the time he was supporting his burly novice climber friend who stumbled down the side of the mountain and he had to hang on as the rope burned into his hands to save him...and the time half of his climbing team died in an avalanche because they had not followed him and the rest of the team further up the mountain before camping for the night...how after he was rescued he insisted on staying with the rescue team to cover the story for his newspaper, to the dismay of my anxious mom who was in seoul...about the time he got drunk and fought a cop and got one of his front teeth knocked out...or his adventures going to alpine skiing school in the REAL ALPS in france and his preparations to lead a himilayan expedition which he never did because he almost died from kidney failure...how he lay in the hospital recovering from his illness, and his mother's friends from her church came to pray for him and how he turned his back to them and refused to listen, but how he couldn't sleep that night and opened up the bible they'd left and started reading and how he wept at the message of the gospel...i was just a baby at that time when he became a christian in that hospital bed...and that was the beginning of a whole new adventure for my dad...
...for the 30 years he lived after that night in the hospital, until his very last night on this earth, again in a hospital bed, he was on one adventure after another...but these weren't the type of adventures people will oooh and aaaahh over...these were adventures in seeing lives transformed, in seeing people's hearts healed, in seeing relationships mended, in seeing people embark on their own spiritual adventures...there's no doubt that pastoring and preaching and worshipping were my dad's passions until he died, and i don't think he felt that he'd been left out of any of the fun he would've had if he'd kept on living the life he'd been living before he gave up his old dreams for new ones...in fact, i know that he was convinced that there was no greater joy for him in this life than to be doing what he was doing...
...my dad should've have been the pastor of a huge and flourishing church...i know he had more love and humility than so many who lead multi-million dollar ministries and drive mercedes and what not...there was nothing flashy about my dad...the few years that he did pastor a church after retiring from years of working a day job as an IT professional, that church never had more than a few dozen members...my dad should've had an international preaching ministry...he was good...i mean, he'd preach in korean so i couldn't really understand what he was saying, but he was so dynamic and passionate, you couldn't help but be moved...
...had my dad lived, who knows...but those were not the things that he even desired...he had no ambition save that of doing whatever it was that god called him to do on that day...and usually, it meant comforting the widows or single moms and the fatherless, or loving troubled and confused teens without judgment or condemnation, or recognizing and honoring the prayerful korean grandmas who did nothing but pray and sing hymns and watch korean TV all day...my dad saw the painful cultural and generational gap between the korean first generation and their children and grandchildren...he worked so hard to rebuild burned bridges and to bring the two.five generations together...and he loved the children and recognized them as equals in the spiritual world, and he encouraged them to participate in worship and prayer as much as the adults...
...at my dad's wake and funeral, i will never forget the hundreds of different faces i saw who came to mourn with my family...many considered him as their father, some as the only father they'd known...i saw even teenage boys openly weeping...i never knew the extent of my father's impact on others' lives until he himself was gone...my dad truly truly was a big fish, although he had the humility of a minnow...
...but it's not all that he did for other people that i remember the most...it's how he LOVED ME, his little girl...how he accepted me even when i seemed to be rejecting everything he'd taught me...it's the delight i saw in my father's eyes when i was with him that i treasure...the feeling of total acceptance, and the freedom to be who i was, knowing that he would never love me less...
...when i look at my dad's life, i can't deny the presence of a power that is of another world...i don't totally understand it, but that's why i can't just flat out reject the faith that he held to so strongly...if you had known my dad, you would understand...
...how does one ever recover from such a loss as this? i don't think i ever will...
Tuesday, February 17, 2004 at 5:12PM 
...i found out today that i am now an international rock photographer...yes, it's true...my photo was published on an oniline swedish article about my favorite georgian rocker bill mallonee...you can see for yourself right here...you'll have to scroll down some to see the photo w/ my name next to it...there's another photo of mine being used on the flash thingie beneath the klubb sondag name on the top right...i didn't even remember taking those photos, but they're apparently from the show @ schuba's back in september...my swedish is a little rusty, but the article basically says something about how much the swedes love buddy miller and now they've got a new rocker to love in buddy's good friend bill mallonee, and how he's comparable to bob dylan whom the author of the article adores...apparently, bill & jake are playing their first show in sweden on march 7th...if you're in that neck of the woods (er, snowfields rather), make sure you check out bill mallonee @ klubb sondag in orebro...
