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I had barely walked into one of our brightest conference rooms with beautiful windows and brick building views — one of those classic sceneries that made me fall in love with The Big Apple — when I noticed a missed call from Jeremy. Jeremy’s my younger brother and he had been by dad’s side since he went into the ICU just a few days ago. It was October 24th, 2019, and in less than 12 hours, I was about to get on a flight to Taiwan.
My day started like any other Thursday; from the frantic subway to the barely-moving elevator, I feed off of the adrenaline that gets me into “fixer” mode. I had met with my leadership coach in the morning. My teammate and I were about to review the learning and development plan as we pushed to finish Q4 strong. A draft of my “out of the office” was ready to go. Unlike the weeks before where I felt powerless as my mom pinged updates about my dad on WeChat, I was finally going to do something about it. It was October 24th, 2019, and in less than 36 hours, I was going to be by my dad’s side.
I excused myself, called Jeremy back, and in the faintest voice, he said, “dad died.” Or, did he say dad passed? Dad’s gone? Dad something. Did he say it in English? Mandarin? I don’t recall. My legs went on autopilot and they took me straight to the bathroom on the other side of the floor. The single-use bathrooms at work I once advocated so fiercely for because of gender inclusivity now existed to benefit me. “He was supposed to wait for me” I said half speaking half crying as I shut the door. It was October 24th, 2019, and in less than 72 hours, I was to see my dad in a way that I’d hoped to never see him.
My dad, Joe Lee, or Mr. Lee as I fondly called him in front of friends and coworkers, had been battling with heart complications since I was born. In one family VHS tape, I was four years old. I wore the whitest, softest looking fur jacket that had ears on its hood. The outfit was most likely a splurge that ended in an argument between my parents. I hopped on the gray cement blocks like the prettiest snow creature, self-entertaining on a hazy day. I’d learn as an adult that the footage was filmed in front of the hospital where my dad had yet another open-heart surgery and we were waiting for good news. It would be the second out of four.
In 2016, a few years after he recovered from his fourth open-heart surgery where he received a heart transplant from a young man roughly my age, my dad shared that in his latest check up, the doctor saw two tumors growing on his liver. I…
