“My Father The Cook”

Tu Ngonethong

Saint Paul, Minnesota | Lao | he/him/his

After escaping the Vietnam War, we (my dad, mom, brother, sister, uncle and cousins) settled in Hawaii. At first, we moved around a lot within the housing project program, but eventually found a beautiful big house with five bedrooms in a very nice area to rent; the east side of Honolulu. There were 13 people in our home. We were at full capacity.

Soon after my older siblings and cousins graduated high school, they left. They went into the military, moved to the mainland and so on. Only the young folks were left: one older  brother, sister, and me. So, we moved into a smaller house previously occupied by a Filipino family.

Although everything felt stable, we still had our own struggles. My mom struggled with my dad, and he had his own struggles. He had a disease.

Dad was angry and loud towards my mom and sisters. My little sister would sometimes hide in the closet when dad argued with my mom. He never got physical, but he was verbally abusive, especially when he drank alcohol. When he was sober, he was quiet.

Dad was in and out of AA programs. We thought that was normal as kids.

I remember one time when I was 11 or 12 years old, my father was yelling and everyone was arguing in the car. I felt so frustrated I wanted to grab the wheel and swerve the car into oncoming traffic. I wanted all of the screaming and yelling to stop.

My parents finally separated when I went away to college in Oregon. My father moved with me. I took out college loans in order to help take care of him for a year. It was so hard for him to quit drinking. He was dealing with PTSD too, but we didn’t know anything about it then.

The only time dad talked about the war was when he was drunk. He had been the right hand man to a General in Vientiane, Laos so he saw killings and deaths. He had lived through a lot, and he turned to alcohol to find solace and peace. Dad struggled because he couldn’t escape his memories of his homeland.

Over time, my siblings eventually stopped giving him money because he used it for alcohol, but he always found other relatives who would give him something. He moved around to different states, living with relative to relative. When he finally passed on, he was living with a niece.

I sometimes think that his death was sort of my fault because I wrote him a check a week before he passed away. He was in college studying to become a pastor. He only had one class left so I wrote him a check. He cashed the check and bought alcohol.

Everyone remembers him as a soldier, and yes, he was a soldier at heart, but I remember him as a good cook. He made a lot of food that I enjoyed. I wish that I would have inherited that talent from him. He was from southern Laos and he made very good pus pus (raw fish with spice). He really liked making this dish with clams and seafood. It’s one of the reasons why he stayed in Seattle. Looking back, I think he moved around a lot because nothing ever felt like home to him. He wanted to recreate home. Unfortunately, he never did.