Hellobee

Back in high school, I woke up every day at 4 am, ready to deliver the Washington Post newspaper to the 120 houses on my paper route.

In the cold winter mornings, my breath would frost the air as I felt the heat slowly leave my body. I tried not to think about the cold as I bagged the newspapers, and instead searched the morning sky for my favorite constellation: Orion the Hunter.

Orion was a fixture of my favorite book, D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths:

Orion was the only man Artemis had ever favored, and her brother Apollo grew jealous. One day while Artemis was away, he sent an enormous scorpion to attack Orion. Orion’s club and mighty sword were no avail against the scorpion’s poisonous tail. He turned to flee, but as he did, the giant insect stung his heel.

Artemis was angry with her brother when she returned and found her companion dead. But she could not stay angry with her twin for long, and he helped her hang Orion’s image in the skies as a constellation so the great hunter would never be forgotten.

Over the stormy winter sea the constellation of Orion glitters, enormous and menacing, and the dark clouds flee before him like wild animals. But in summer, when the constellation of the Scorpion rises over the horizon, Orion begins to sway and stagger, and then he, in his turn, flees and disappears into the ocean.

I loved to watch the Scorpion chase Orion across the morning sky as I delivered the papers, but was always devastated when he fell below the horizon. Every morning I would search and hope for his return – but he wouldn’t appear over the horizon until the next November

I didn’t realize this at the time, but Orion had become a surrogate male figure in my life when I desperately needed one. My dad started an engineering company when I was 11 and when that failed, he had to move overseas to work as an expat engineer. He was able to support our family, but his extended absences were so hard for me to understand.  I loved my Dad of course, but I resented him so much for leaving me. There were 4 kids in the house, and my mom really struggled with solo parenting – especially when some of the kids struggled with substance abuse, jail and the juvenile court system. I could see life chewing up my mom and spitting her out. I wanted so much for my dad to be around all year round to help, but it was not to be. 

He would come back to Virginia every year or two, and my heart would leap with joy! But of course with each day I would dread the day that he would leave us again. So it’s no surprise that I glommed onto a new father figure in the sky with a familiar pattern. One that was only around for a few months, and would disappear below the horizon for most of the year.

My new sky dad, Orion.

I had a very simple relationship with Orion: I loved him. I loved seeing him, I loved seeing him travel across the sky and when he was gone, I loved looking forward to his return.

I had a more complicated relationship with my real dad. I couldn’t contain my anger with life and his prolonged absence and over time, my resentment boiled over into rage. I was mad at my dad, and even more mad at the world.  Then one day, I found the outlet for my anger.  I was playing snow football with some neighbors and my friend Omari noticed how no one could tackle me. He’s the one who suggested I go out for the football team – and encouraged me to start lifting weights. It was a perfect fit for me and like Orion, I became a Hunter.

Over the next 3 years, I put on 50 pounds of muscle as I pumped out reps of bench press and curls every day. I poured that rage onto the football field. I was a pretty small guy, but quickly noticed that most people didn’t seem to be all that motivated. Meanwhile the rage in my heart gave me all the fuel I needed.

I started off as a nobody, and in my second year I was a second-string player who only ever played in practice. The first-string offense would play against the second-string defense, and they kind of worked out an unspoken deal where they both sort of half-assed it. That didn’t work for me, so I would just go all out in practice. At first, everyone hated me for breaking the deal and making them actually practice. But over time, people began to notice that I was working through something.

I remember one day all the linemen went one on one against each other, and I had to face one of the biggest and strongest guys on the team. Rather than try to finesse him, I focused on my rage and decided to explode all of my power directly through him. I grabbed him by his jersey and executed what we call a pancake block: a block so powerful that the opposing player is pancaked onto their back.

The offensive coach took one look at my eyes and started one of his trademark rants.  (Please remember that this was a different era.)

“God dammit, I fucking love it. Sometimes I am in practice and I will feel a darkness descend over me. Then I’ll look over and see [Mr. Bee] staring at me and I actually feel like he wants to kill me. I haven’t felt so much hatred from just a look since I was in Vietnam and the gooks would stare at me the exact same way.”

I didn’t take his comments personally despite being one of the only Asians on the team; it was a different time.  I actually felt understood in a way that I rarely did.  I did often stare at Coach L and think about how much I hated him.  How had he noticed?  I was just one kid on a team of dozens.

I wasn’t the biggest guy on the team, but I realized that if I focused on my rage, I had a power of someone half again as big as me. It gave me a feeling of a little control in a childhood where everything felt like it was spinning out of control. Eventually I graduated from high school and branched out to other sports with an undercurrent of violence: rugby, boxing and a little powerlifting. I was able to channel that rage into something productive, and I honestly feel like it saved my life.

Fast forward to a a few years later, and eventually I visited my Dad in the Philippines. He had settled down in Manila working for a Japanese engineering company, and finally I was able to see life from his perspective.  Life was very hard for him, and he was living alone and sacrificing so that he could send money home to support his family. How had I not seen that before? I felt my anger start to melt away, and with it my interest in contact sports and even in Orion the Hunter.

But then I moved to the Philippines myself about 4 1/2 years ago to be close to my parents, and Orion entered my life again. I would often wake up at 4 or 5 am to check out a guest, and without the lights of a big city I could easily see that once again, Orion was being chased by the Scorpion.

It was a nostalgic sight until my dad died of Parkinson’s and then my mom was murdered, and I was suddenly all alone in the world. More than ever actually: my wife and I didn’t feel our family was safe in El Nido and so for that and other reasons, she moved with the kids 5-6 hours away to the province capital of Puerto Princesa.

Now I had truly traded places with my dad. I had become an expat living in the Philippines apart from my kids, earning money that I sent to my wife and children. I was now Orion the hunter.  Except now I saw the futility of rage. Rage had made me feel strong as a kid but in the end, I learned that it’s a poison as powerful as any Scorpion’s sting.  I had been able to compartmentalize that rage into violent sports, but I see how how it spilled over into an inner darkness that took years to dispel.

In some ways, my situation is different from my dad: I’m able to visit my family about once a month, and they visit me about the same. So we see each other at least twice a month for a few days, but it’s not the same as being there every day.

I think about how deeply my dad’s absence affected me, and wonder: is there a difference between how I felt about my dad leaving, and how my kids feel about me living apart from them? My dad was across the world and I’m only 5 hours away. He had only long-distance calls and snail mail, while I have Skype and Facetime.

But still, sometimes I feel like my kids are growing up without me. When Bee went to visit her family for 6 weeks over Christmas, I honestly thought I was going to die. It was the longest we’d ever been apart as a family, but the kids didn’t seem fazed by it. Did they not care about seeing me more anymore? Were they so busy doing fun things, that they didn’t have time to miss me?  I worried but then when when they visited me, they were so hungry to spend time alone with me – and for me to watch them do taekwondo or play soccer. And I’m reminded that even though I’m an Orion now, I’m lucky to still be a big part of their lives.

We are working towards a time when we can all live together again, and am hopeful that time will heal all wounds. In the meantime, it’s March and Orion is still in the sky for a few more weeks and I’m enjoying watching him again. Except now Orion isn’t my dad… I have become an Orion.  A sky dad to replace the one that would ideally be there every day.

How do you keep a family strong when one parent is an Orion in their lives… and regularly away from the children? Is there any way to manage this better than I am?