Between June 17, 1975, my birthdate, and June 21, 2026, this year’s Father’s Day, more than fifty-one years have passed. It is high time that I take stock of that time with gratitude and memory, to remember cheerfully the great and wonderful things my father did for me, and to do so before it is too late for us to reminisce with joy.
I think of three peaks in our relationship. The first was the Steinway grand piano you bought for me, even though I already had a perfectly serviceable Yamaha upright. In cold, calculating terms, it could have looked like nothing more than wood and metal. But you knew better. Though you did not know music technically, you understood that music was not an ornament to life, but one of its essential cores. That Steinway told me more clearly than words ever could that you wanted the very best for your son.
Another peak was Harvard. You gave me four priceless years in the company of professors, ideas, and intellectual freedom, and you supported that experience financially so that I could study philosophy without hustling simply to survive. I still hang that diploma on my wall because I earned it, but I have never forgotten that your support made the experience possible.
A third peak was the University of Pittsburgh. Whatever credentials I brought with me, I know that your reputation and your distinguished service to Pitt mattered. And when six years of doctoral work left me with immense debt, you took care of it. What kind of father pays for one education, then another, and never stops believing that his son’s education still matters? An extraordinary one.
The valleys are harder to write about, but they reveal your love no less. In August 1998, in Hancock Park, when I was mis-medicated, drunk, and manic, I brandished a golf club at you. I could have committed patricide. And yet, as the police car prepared to take me away in handcuffs, you said through the open window, “I WILL PROTECT YOU!” And you did. Even in the haze of mania and hatred, I knew that you loved me and would not abandon me.
I remember too the night in Manhattan Beach in the early 2000s when, having unwisely gone off medication, I struck you from behind while you were peacefully watching television. Blood was everywhere. Yet even then, you held me tightly enough to contain me, but not so tightly as to injure me. What father does that for his adult son in the grip of madness? Very few. Perhaps none but you.
And I cannot forget arriving in Pittsburgh from Hong Kong, completely manic, harassing Lisa Kaltenbaugh, and forcing you to step in because only a close family member could act to have me committed. In that terrible waiting room I shouted, “To the death, Dad, to the death!” I cannot take back those words. When I remember that moment, I still feel shame, sorrow, and guilt for what I put you through.
For years after my illness began, progress felt like two steps forward and one step back. Bridges were nearly burned. Friendships were nearly ruined. I strained not only my own life, but your relationships with others. And still, you helped mend what was torn. Because you gave me secure financial footing, progress has now become one step forward, one step forward, one step forward, every day. That gives me hope where once there was none.
More than anything else, you gave me the Good Life. You made possible the conditions that allow me to write, write, write. And so I reckon it is now my solemn duty, with my small talent and from my low station, to honor, love, and cherish the father from whom I have received so generous a protection.
Respectfully submitted,Jason Whan Park박 상 준June 5, 2026
