Today is the one month anniversary since my dad died. I was tempted to mourn in private but as I thought about it I realized so many are dealing with the loss of their loved ones, and in unique times at that, so this is something we can all connect on and understand. I know dad touched a lot of people with his friendship and a lot of people couldn’t see dad in the end so I decided I would share a little about him and some of the moments from the last few days. Perhaps this will offer some closure until we’re able to have a proper memorial..
The Beginning
On April 3, 1979 a baby girl was born in Daegu, Korea. For whatever reason unknown to her she was abandoned at birth. A nurse named her Young-eun Kim, allegedly after the maternity clinic that no longer exists today. She was placed in an orphanage for four years and later with a foster mother who cared for her deeply — so much she remembered her face like only a mother could some 27 years later when they reunited. But back then their time together had to end as a family across the world sent for her. This little girl traveled from South, Korea to Chesterfield, Michigan alone and afraid, never truly knowing what a family looked like. In a Chicago airport she would meet Rodney and Sandra Joy Redlawsk, her new parents who had three sons waiting to meet her. They would name her Kam Young-Eun Kim.
For the first few years things weren’t easy. It wasn’t until later in life that my dad would reveal that I was sent for in a desperate time when my parents were trying to keep their marriage together. My mother also always wanted a daughter and wasn’t successful through the biological route. Late in life dad would express guilt for bringing a little girl into a house of problems and brokenness, but I don’t see it this way.
So here we were, a family with their own problems who sought to ease the mind of a little four year old girl who was conditioned to be untrusting, weary and had little experience with the concept of family and love.
I’ve always been told it was my dad and Uncle Kerry (dad’s cousin but more like a brother) who named me. My mother wanted to name me Bliss. My dad saved me by naming me after a figure skater, which was funny because I didn’t know this for the longest time. As a kid I was obsessed with the idea of becoming a figure skater but we didn’t have the money for things like dance, piano, gymnastics, girl scouts or figure skating. I did play soccer for my entire childhood, though.
On August 27, 1948 my father was born in Mt Clemens, Michigan but grew up in the country next to his grandma’s (my grandmother’s mother, Wegner) house. Both of dad’s parents lived in this house until they died. I still remember every knick knack at grandmas. My dad always said he was a country boy who loved baseball. The street corner my grandparents (and my father’s grandparents) inhabited had a lot of history with many of the Redlawsk and Wegner generations living around the same corner and farmland area. This seems indicative to the old days when family all lived in close vicinity. There are so many memories in that stretch of country with my parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts and extended family.
Dad was the quintessential Midwestern hard working blue collar man. He served in the U.S. Army and the Air National Guard. He fought in Vietnam and Desert Storm. He also worked for the Macomb County Road Commission for some 25 years.
As kids my dad was more like the hammer and mom was the one who cared for us, doing all the thankless household and day-to-day work required to keep us alive as well as the nurturer we’d climb on for a hug. I mostly remember my dad working but he always made sure to never miss our sports games and school activities. Dad was the one who taught us how to ride our bikes, drive and fix our cars. I can still hear the oldies on blast in the garage while I was on the floor changing my oil with him. It’s why I love oldies music so much today. Dad and I were also fishing partners, specifically ice fishing. Out of three boys it was me who took to fishing with dad.
I remember Amvets hall celebrations, memorial parades and massive family reunions that shrank as time marched on. I remember sitting on my bedroom floor writing letters to dad when he was in Desert Storm. I remember holidays at grandmas, annual air shows at Selfridge Base and the annual New Years Day party where my aunt would make an array of authentic mexican dishes, including her homemade tamales she’d make only once a year. I remember large annual Fourth of July picnics on my Aunt and Uncle’s acreage where full-on baseball games were on cycle all day long. We had enough people for multiple teams. I loved those baseball games. There are too many memories to list.
I’m not going to only paint a Leave It To Beaver TV show, there were hard times and there were troubles. It wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t always peaceful. Like many families there was hurt, misunderstandings, good intentions, confrontations, regret and neglected past traumas that spilled over to family life. It was a household of two parents doing their best for their children while fighting their own past wounds and finding it hard to communicate themselves to each other. This fact ultimately led to their separation when I was around 20 and embarking on my own adventure of figuring out what was happening to my body.
But one thing I do know is my parents loved us. That was never in question. The words I love you escaped our mouths all the time in every phone call and every time we walked out the door or went to bed. This rule was instilled in us since we were children.
Photo video: some pics of dad and I and our last few days with him.
Last Few Days With Dad
A week before Christmas we got word dad had about a year left. This was devastating.
Two and a half years ago dad underwent a double lung transplant due to Pulmonary Fibrosis. At 70 years old it was one, remarkable there was a facility that would do the transplant on someone that old and two, my dad handled it amazingly. He recovered incredibly well and worked so hard, and I was for sure we would have dad for another ten years. But this wouldn’t be so.
On Christmas Day we realized he was declining faster than we thought. There was a last ditch effort, an induction therapy dad tried at the beginning of January 2021. It would take weeks for us to know if it worked. On Wednesday, January 27th my brother called me to break the difficult news that the therapy didn’t work and dad maybe had a couple weeks to a couple months left. So I immediately booked a flight for a few days later. By next morning my brother notified me that I better get there within 24 hours, so I booked another ticket for the next flight out. Within 24 hours I from California, my oldest brother from England and my youngest brother from Florida all traveled to join my brother in Michigan to be with dad who held on until we could all get there.
When I rolled into my childhood bedroom I was startled to see my father. He looked so different, so frail and quiet in his bed, a complete contrast to the boisterous dad with the booming voice that I knew. I immediately became aware he was worse over the months than he let on. It’s also really hard to know how someone is when you don’t see them often.
For the past few months I would call dad every day but there were many times the calls would only last a couple minutes. As someone who has been enduring a fight with her own body for some 20 years, I understand that sometimes one doesn't want to be on the phone talking when they’re amidst major health problems. But I also think dad was hiding a little of how he was physically, mentally and emotionally from us kids, he didn’t want us to worry. I found this fact scratched onto some random journal notes dad wrote. I knew some of it. In the last few months my dad really struggled and towards the end developed anxiety and panic attacks from night terrors from war that increased as he struggled more, and just the general stress of feeling so physically limited and weak.
I’ll never forget dad’s face when I rolled into his bedroom. The smile in his eyes when he saw me, an awareness I wouldn't have had if I had arrived twenty minutes later. I tried not to cry in front of him but to see a big man who made his presence known in every room reduced to this meek and tired human brought me to instant tears.
How are we at this moment and so quickly?
I knew by the time I would get there dad wouldn’t be at a talking stage and I was upset I didn’t have the time to have the talks we needed to. When we originally thought we had a year left with him I had planned to go and help dad for the month of March while my brother was away at Academy. This would be the time to have those “conversations”. But now I didn’t have this time and was forced to reduce 37 years into a couple minutes.
This was all happening too fast.
I held onto my dad’s hands and told him how much I loved him. I confronted my dad’s mentioned guilt of “ruining a little girl's life by bringing her into a broken marriage”. I told him in the end he ruined nothing and that mom and him gave me life; a chance. And this is not under the halo glow many people have over adoptive parents, only viewing orphans as the “lucky ones who were saved”. This was me recognizing gratitude for what I do have. Life could go one million paths and I’m not a frequent visitor of how things could have been. My parents were good people who loved and lived for their children and I was happy to be their daughter.
In just the few minutes I was with dad I could already tell he was fading. The keen awareness in his eyes when I first came in switched to glossy and our exchange was quickly reduced to one word grunts and never-ending I love yous.
In December when I heard dad was dying there was the struggle of Covid and me being very high risk due to my muscle-wasting condition that has taken me to quadriplegia and eventually complete immobility. But I had missed my mother’s death, and during a flight to Michigan to say goodbye to my grandma, grandma died. So I didn't want to miss saying goodbye to my father. And even though I wanted to see him before he died, it was more important for dad to see me one last time, because I wanted him to know I cared enough to come.
For the next ten hours we laid on dad’s bed as we waited for my oldest brother to arrive.
In that time I got to meet Kim, a woman who knew of my dad because she is also a veteran and hung in the same circle. Two years ago she and my dad became actual friends, and for the last six weeks Kim, my brother who lives in Michigan (aka my dad’s best friend) and my dad’s lifelong best friend, Jim, took care of my dad EVERY single day.
Throughout the last few days Kim and my sister-in-law, who was very close with dad, cared for my father like a daughter would...in the ways I wished I could have. On one hand I was immensely grateful for people to love my dad like I did, but on the other hand I felt limited, impotent...helpless because I wanted to be able to physically care for him. I’m naturally maternal and when I had mobility my love language was through physical acts and taking care of others, but alas my body could just sit there. This is frustrating to know you have so much to give but not the body to give it. The only thing I really could do was lift my tired arm and hand to his, so I at least made sure to try and hold his hand throughout the entire time.
As I sat back in my wheelchair and watched Kim take care of my dad, I was amazed. The way she lovingly stroked his forehead, placed damp face cloths on his face, checked his vitals and looked at him like a daughter would seemed out of sorts for someone who only knew him for two years. It was beautiful to see and goes to show it’s not the time but connection. She was committed to my dad and stayed with us the entire time to help and be a source of comfort. She was amazing and I can't explain how much I appreciated her presence, love for my father and neutrality.
As we waited for our final sibling to arrive, we remained vigilant in reminding dad to hold on, and he did while frequently blurting out how difficult this was to do. At midnight the last sibling finally arrived and we all corralled in dad’s room for the night. I honestly thought dad would let go after he got to say goodbye to all of us, but his readiness to leave soon turned into fear of dying and leaving us kids. So we spent the night reassuring dad it was ok to leave. We spent the night sharing stories, laughs and tears. We took turns playing melancholy music and surrounded him with our tired bodies and soaked eyes.
We even had a round of whiskey shots at 3am when dad suddenly perked up and said “Ok, I’m ready for that shot!”
Amidst all this, Kim was always in the background gently caring for dad and constantly reminding him, “You get more air if you breathe through your nose”.
“I know, kid”, dad would mumble as he gasped for breath.
“In examining disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy and physiology and biology. In examining the person with disease, we gain wisdom about life.”
By Saturday morning dad was still with us and getting worse. The night before was tender and beautiful in many ways but now would come the difficult side of dying most people don’t talk about; the pain, discomfort, pressure sores, suffering and the cries that come from someone who is mentally prepared to go but their body hasn't quite caught up yet. I began to deeply worry that dad would have to endure this for days and even weeks. I’m not going to go into detail but this was the ugly side of death. As my mother-in/law said, “Dying is hard work” and that is the best way to describe it. It’s hard on the loved ones and very hard on the one dying. It’s not always quiet and peaceful like it is in the movies.
After hospice came and we figured out the concoction ratio to help calm him, he was peaceful and slept throughout the night.
For me I was so alert because I did not want to miss the moment dad passed. I wanted to be next to him until he died. So I mostly did just that and sat in my wheelchair next to him for hours and hours over the last days while my body was screaming in pain. Over the course of three days I probably had 3 hours of sleep and before I arrived I hadn't slept days prior. I also hadn’t eaten in days due to chronic stomach issues. My body was in overdrive and incredibly painful and weak.
I’ve always been a high endurance, high performance kind of person but as I get weaker I can’t deny it’s getting harder to fight. You don’t know what it’s like not to have movement in your arms, to have them feel like dead weights that now require someone else to wipe your tears or needing help to hug your own dying father. It was very difficult to feel so powerless, provincial, broken…fragile.
As I sat and watched dad struggle to breathe I thought of how it mimicked my own body that is slowly dying, finding it harder and harder to fight. It can feel like a marathon that never ends. It’s tiring. It’s constant. It’s never-ending.
I’ve lived 20 years with this disease and disability and it’s strange to know how my dad, mom and grandma felt when they struggled with disability in the last couple years of their lives. Their own experience with disability and sickness merged in parallel with my own, and no one could understand their uncertainty, lack of control, sadness, loneliness, limitation and the humility that breaches upon you in this stage than I could. Both my parents had confessed they never knew how hard it was for me until it affected them, and it seemed unnatural to share this intimate experience with them at such a young age.
Sunday morning the furnace broke which made me chuckle as this is the epitome of Redlawsk chaos but also exemplifies that life indeed moves on even while life is ending. The four of us siblings were in the living room talking over things when Kim came and got us -- recognizing this was the moment dad was finally leaving us.
All of us were there for dad's final minutes. As I studied his open eyes looking towards the window light, I’ll never forget the life fading from his eyes while a sense of peacefulness fell upon him; a moment frozen in time. I was grateful that dad was able to attain the peace he so deserved at the end.
We then had a lovely little flag ceremony in his bedroom.
Family is an interesting dichotomy. You’ve got different lives, different personalities and history coming together in a small confined space, all while coping with the death of their last surviving parent. It’s a mix of tender and intense moments, tears, stories, exchange, hard feelings, stress, emotions run wild, heartaches, misunderstandings, reconciliation, and hurt including past unsettled hurts that permeate the air, and if you don’t learn to balance, have empathy and communicate then the structure will disintegrate. It wasn’t easy but we all did our best to be there for dad, and we’re forever grateful to all those who called, dropped off food and came by to support.
Final Thoughts
Grief an awareness that something is missing...an absence.
Since dad’s passing it’s been really painful. I can’t describe it. All the emotions and pasts gone just like that. It’s an end to an era and I feel too young to have lost both parents.
When you lose your parents it almost feels like your childhood has ended, like it never really happened. Perhaps it was a dream. How can someone you love be there one second and gone the next?
At my mother’s memorial four years ago I read a letter I wrote to her and in it I shared that her passing made me feel like a child, an orphan all over again. Emotions from when I was a kid in an abandoned state without the words to verbalize my trauma came rushing back to me, and I was alone just as I came into this world. Again. Dad dying solidified this feeling.
Time marches on and the cycle is on repeat. We come, we go.
It’s really weird to be parentless. I’ve always been independent and been financially responsible for my own life since I was young, and I’ve never really needed to ask my parents for help. But no matter how old we get we never stop needing our parents even if we don’t take their advice like a child would. They can become like our security blanket; a place we can go if things get desperate.
The passing of my parents represents a generation leaving which means I’m the next generation in waiting. My grandfather alone had seventeen brothers and sisters so I grew up with a large extended family and big gatherings, and I loved that, and as a kid I always wanted a big family of my own. But today there are fewer and fewer family members left who knew me when I was a child or when I was still walking. This feels strange and lonely. And, it’s sad because despite not seeing many of the extended family as much as I wished I would have liked after I moved to California, they were/are still important and that time was important.
For me this process has been more than just my dad dying. It’s also felt like an end to my personal family line which brings up the open wound of my personal decision not to have children despite it being something I always wanted since I was young (I have a progressive disability and we have the lack of local familial support we would require). My brothers have their own nucleus family and children to return to and will continue the family line while building their own traditions. But for me there’s a feeling of being alone and having no one — wondering who will come and be with me at my bedside when I’m dying if I don’t have children, and I haven’t been quite sure what to do with this.
My dad was a storyteller (some of them tall tales), with a big personality and even bigger laugh. You knew when he was in the room. He was a dedicated father and a good friend who wore his heart on his sleeve. In a way, I knew two dads. After my parents separated my father softened a lot. As he aged he was highly sensitive, sentimental and emotional and would cry at the drop of a hat, like when we would say goodbye on the phone. This always touched my heart. When he would cry I could feel the years in his eyes; a life lived, remorse and perhaps reflection so many of us have in the later stages of life. My dad, despite some of his hardness when I was a child, was a gentle man who really only wanted to be loved and spent his life searching for it.
So many people loved my father like a dad. When people pass you begin to see the stories and their lifelong friendships, and even less known friends, differently, and it’s nice to experience someone you think you knew through someone else's eyes — making up a collective puzzle image of what a person is, reminding you there are parts of them you didn’t know.
And that’s just it. No one person can be everything to one. We pick up people along our journey and each one fills a spot, void or offers an understanding perhaps only unique to them. It reminds me that this person wasn’t just my dad, he was many things to many; a complex human full of stories, joy, love, insecurities, love and heartbreak.
I’m lucky my dad had love near him in the last few years. From his many friends to my two brothers and granddaughters who lived there and my sister-in-law who took such great care of my dad, especially during the transplant years. She was there in ways I couldn’t have physically been even if I lived there. She was a friend, a daughter and a neutral party my dad could talk to about things parents won’t or can’t share with their children.
As I get older I view things less through a black and white lens and much more through an overarching vista. Everything is grey and there is a story behind every person and act. Our parents are humans who have their own problems, trails of regret and sometimes dominating pasts. They have their own mistakes and struggles that may lead them to things we couldn't understand as kids, and troubled pasts we never knew about. As children we don’t have the scope to understand this, but as adults we come into our own when we have our own children and then it all comes flooding back to us. I don’t have children but I have empathy and can imagine how this cycle feels — when you becomes parents yourselves and perhaps a little more forgiving towards your parents, and hope your own child(ren) extend that same understanding for the mistakes you will make.
Every four walls has its own history and hurts. In many ways I think my dad held himself in contempt for the regrets of his past, and this always made me sad. After all, we’re all just traveling through this world — fumbling and making mistakes as we try to figure out ways to heal old wounds and find our place here on earth.
Oftentimes we get mad at our parents and of course all of us have different and valid reasons, but I think love is seeing another's' humanity and having the sight and empathy to see past their mistakes or see the regret written in their eyes; to see them as human, beyond the parental figure.
My dad and I didn’t always agree and there were times we had troubles. In so many ways we’re polar opposites but our humanity and part of our history are the same. We saw the years roll past together and that is a bond no similarity can replace. Maybe things weren’t always perfect but I know above everything dad and mom had real love for us in their hearts, and there are alot of people who don’t have this kind of unconditional love.
In my advocacy I share a lot about impermanence and the beauty and pain wrapped up in this fact of life. It’s been this way since the beginning of time so how dare we arrogantly think forever belongs to us — that everything will always stay the same including the people around us? I know of impermanence so well through my own degrading body. Impermanence can teach us more about beauty than beauty itself as it forces us to reflect on what matters most in this life. This is the bittersweet reality but also a reminder that we don't have forever.
I’ve been given perspective since birth and this progressive disease has put it into overdrive making the vantage of my viewpoint humbling, amazing, beautiful, devastating...real life. For me I’ve never been afraid of dying as much as I’m afraid of not living. We can either be afraid that we don’t last forever or truly live our lives and accept that the beauty of life is filled with good and bad, and to take all of it as part of the human experience, and recognize how lovely it is that we get to experience this — however temporary.
There is an end to every chapter, but there are plenty of books still left to fill. So I’m sitting on the proverbial cliff waiting to hear from the wind of what my next steps are: Why am I here? How can I help? How can I connect, love better and be more understanding of the deep complexities that reside in this life?
Life is beautiful but it hurts and that’s ok.
I don’t think a lot of people talk about their problems or sadness, but we should. Instead, we’re always afraid to show this weakness but weakness is our humanity. It’s ok to feel sad and vulnerable. In the end we need each other. This is why we are here.
I’ll leave you with one more dad-ism. In every single reply to my texts dad would end his sentences with “love you” or “lvy”. EVERY SINGLE REPLY in a thread of multiply replies.
I would tell him, “It doesn't work like that, dad.”
He would reply, “I know, kid.”
I'll miss this.
So long, dad. I’ll see you in my heart. ❣️
(photo video I made of dad’s life for his 70th birthday party.)