His Father Criticized Him All His Life. Then He Learned Who He Really Was at His Funeral: ‘Nothing I Did Was Ever Enough for Him.’
He learned more about his father during his funeral than in the 27 years before it.
A person can spend a lifetime viewed through one facet by their loved ones. For years, internet essayist Allen Tsai (@imallentsai) had a distant relationship with his father. But in the last leg of his life and during the funeral, Tsai had the privilege of seeing different aspects of the man he thought he knew.
“I learned more about dad at his funeral than in the 27 years before it,” Tsai told TikTok. He uploaded the clip on August 8, which is Father’s Day in Taiwan.
During the funeral, Tsai heard stories from his father’s friends about how caring, generous, and funny he was in life—these impressions surprised Tsai. He claimed that his father had been nothing short of critical to him throughout his life. Tsai said his father was also disappointed at him for not having the same work ethic he had. But it wasn’t always that way between the father and son.
A happy childhood
When Tsai was five or six years old, he shared how his father brought home a cardboard workbox from Taipei. His father made him practice math on Saturdays and made him read on Sundays. “I learned fractions that weekend as the neighborhood kids played outside,” Tsai said of the memory. It’s a strict regimen, but Tsai didn’t complain about the experience.
He also started piano lessons at that age and was entered by his teacher at a competition. His father accompanied him, and Tsai won the trophy. As they were walking home, his father tried hiding the trophy to surprise Tsai’s mother. But he was beaming, and his mother knew her son won without him having to say a word.
“That walk home is one of the few times I remember us being close,” Tsai recalled. His father was also notably generous. He remembered loving comic books and how he racked up a $65 debt because of it. For a child his age, $65 was big money, and it sat at the pit of his stomach. But on his birthday, his father chose to forgive the debt entirely. Tsai said he hasn’t bought anything on credit since.
Then his relationship with him began to crack
“When I turned 16, he already decided on who I was going to be,” Tsai alleged. He told his father he wanted to study piano. But he claimed his father disagreed, commanding Tsai to take electrical engineering. Tsai eventually relented and said he struggled through every semester of it.
“Dad was always critical of my accomplishments. When I graduated and escaped to finance, he told his friends I’d chosen a life of greed, no contribution to society,” Tsai said. But then, he also said that when he had taken a pay cut to work in the Middle East, his father also supposedly called him a “fool.”
“Nothing I did was ever enough for him,” Tsai felt. Some adult children eventually choose no-contact over a failed relationship with their parents. But one of Tsai’s friends, whose parents were killed by a drunk driver, advised him to ‘work out’ his relationship with his father while he can before it’s too late.
“I’d never thought there was anything to work out. But the words sat in my head for weeks, and so I tried to get to know him,” Tsai said. He began rekindling his relationship with his father from that point on.
Tsai said he took his father out for lunch every Saturday and probed him to talk. Then, they would say their awkward goodbyes as they headed their separate ways. This has been their routine for months, Tsai said. That was until one afternoon after lunch. Before parting ways, his father pulled him in for a hug and whispered, “I love you.”
It was almost too quiet to hear. Tsai said it was the first and only time his father told him those three special words. A few days later, Tsai texted his father, telling him that he heard what he said. Tsai let him know that he loves him, too.
A life-changing diagnosis
“He was diagnosed with cancer. It had spread to his lungs, his liver, his bones,” Tsai said. By the time they brought him to the doctor, they were advised to go home and make the most out of his remaining days.
“We had a month left to say everything we had never bothered to say,” Tsai recalled. His father’s health rapidly declined, and he became bedridden by the end of it. He entered his father’s house and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I’m ready,” his father supposedly said. He was not going to be long for this world. They sat in silence for a while before Tsai spoke up. “You should’ve seen me, Dad. I was good at what I did—really good,” he said. Tsai wanted his acknowledgement. For years, he felt as though he had been a disappointment.
“Allen, you would have been good at anything,” his father replied. The man was strict with Tsai, but not out of faithlessness. He wanted to push his son towards the best opportunities in life. Tsai’s father would later pass away on a Tuesday afternoon. While years have already passed, the internet personality still thinks of him during Father’s Day.
“I’ve come to think of our relationship as a bell curve,” Tsai said, drawing reference from the math workbooks of his childhood. He and his father started with a close relationship, only to diverge because of their differences. But fortunately, they grew close again and mended their relationship before it was too late.
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