Dear Jason; Love, Madison

My dad is very good at vocal inflections, almost comically so. He'll talk himself silly on the telephone with a native-born American, all his "Yep!"s and "Uhhhh huh!"s in all the right places, so vocally and inflectiony. Sometimes I pause in my room and listen to his too-loud voice booming through our whole second story, as he talks about "Yeah, that'll be grrrreat!"s and "Perfect, just perfect"s with those American friends and comrades. ["Good guy, very good guy"]

It's really amazing what he's done with his life - he came out of the womb wanting to be a mechanical engineer, and has never looked back. Breaking radios, fixing radios, dreaming about airplane models and taking anything apart that's take-apartable with a screwdriver, he took himself through college and supported little siblings, too, as the too-young head of household he became when his dad died. [Cannot imagine. I cannot even imagine.]

He fell in love with a lady who fell back in love with him (never knowing what a temper he was hiding behind that goofy grin and big 80s hair), and became a dad to two little girls with whom he also fell irrevocably in lifelong-love.

Brought them all over to the Land of the Dreamy Freedom with all the shiny hopes and sparkly eyes and well-groomed hair of a man recently promoted, and began his great American adventure, working every day on that particular Korean-American "Yep!"py accent my sister and I always used to tease him about. Along the way were un-rollable "rrr"s and other immigrant woes; jobs lost and jobs gained, lots of fighting with the lady and crying with the babies. But those babies are ladies now, and all his ladies dote on him, even especially when they're making fun of his American inflections.

You will never read this, and even if you do, will never fully comprehend my language in all its topsy-turvy lovefulness, but that's the tragi-comedy of our story, dad. Thank you for making this confusion happen, and you have to stick around for a long time, okay? so I can tell you in little bits and pieces all the things (un)explained here.

sassfrass trio