As I’m anxiously trying to catch up with my school work, my mom calls me downstairs. She has on her lap a stack of papers – a time capsule of important documents my dad has collected over his lifetime.

My mom hands me my child immunization record – double-sided in English and Korean – something I asked her in preparation for my trip to Tanzania. Measles, Mumps, Hepatitis B, and a entire slew of shots I had as a child came rushing back into my memory. She told me to thank my dad for storing such important documents safely in his office.

College transcripts. Immigration papers. My dad had saved absolutely everything. She showed me the English-Korean manual my dad had created during his time in the army – a tool that many soldiers found very useful during their time there. She laughed and smiled as my dad passed to her all of the national, school, and newspaper awards for excellence in art and poetry as a child. There were a good ten of them. All very large and prestigious. They dated back to the time when he was in preschool and primary school.

I smiled with my mom as I looked through all of these wonderful awards. My dad said that his grandmother had had him submit his art and poetry everywhere as a child but as soon as he had entered grade school, his father – my grandfather – never let him practice his talent. So I as I looked at the papers from my father’s past, I couldn’t help but feel sad. He had never been allowed to pursue his dreams by his father in his youth. Along with that, a variety of other reasons led to my father hating my grandfather.

I always knew my father was smart. He was talented, artistic, witty, and very well versed in the arts. He still is, actually. But he’s now a real estate agent and he’s not ashamed to say he became one for the money. When I look at my dad, and the stack of papers in my mother’s lap, I see a road of broken dreams. I see pain. I see sadness. And I see his perseverance through it all.

I’ve never been on good terms with my father. Although, I don’t believe I was ever as talented as my dad was in his youth, I did inherit his love of writing and the arts. Music and writing are my muses, and as a child, I was allowed to pursue them. I was never encouraged by my father. He never really made my recitals or concerts. He’s never read anything I read. He wasn’t very involved when I was growing up. But he was adamantly against either my brother and I pursuing a degree or career in the arts. Ever since I was a child, I was told nothing but horror stories about the dead ends in the arts. We had fights. I honestly believe that the fighting would have been a lot worse if I had been dead set on arts (which I’m not, fortunately for him).

I could easily hate my father, for not letting me take my life fully in my own hands, much like his father did for him. But I know his past. I know his talents. I know, as I stare at those awards, that my dad grew up to be a broken man. And since I understand that, I can’t hate him. He has his reasons. But that’s all the more reason why I don’t listen to him.

I have hopes. I have dreams and passions that I’m in pursuit of every day. It is my privilege – something I am so very grateful for. So even if my dreams right now aren’t what my dad had in mind, I am pursuing them. Because when I see my dad, I want to prove him wrong. I want him to see that I can make my dreams come true – that I can be successful and happy without sacrificing my passions. I want him to understand my passion and be proud of what I’m doing with my life.

I want him to know that even though he couldn’t pursue his dreams, his daughter is.