Today may be the first time I’m joining everyone else in cyberspace, to remember my dad on Father’s Day. In Mandarin Chinese, the word for father is “ba ba” which sounds like “eight eight” — thus the eighth day of the eighth month is the preferred day to celebrate Father’s Day for the Chinese.
Dad was a grammarian, an analyst of the English language. He diagrammed English sentences and discussed the proper use of words without prejudice. I miss discussing grammar with him. Below was a typical conversation.
He likes to present a riddle, “What kind of word is ‘please’? Please sit down. Please come in. Is it a verb? An adverb?”
“It’s an adverb if it is used to describe the verb. Is it a verb? Can you have two verbs? You don’t mean ‘please and sit’ or ‘please and come’ — I’m not sure what it is.”
He clarifies, “When you say, ‘Please sit down’ you’re actually saying, ‘Sit down, if it pleases you’ or ‘Sit down, if you like.’ It’s a verb that’s part of a clause.”
Taking his iPad from his hands, I say, “If I google the function of ‘please’ I will find many discussions about it.”
Dad was my biggest fan, reading every single blog post as soon as I published it and asking questions or commenting on my writing. He read all 365 consecutive blog posts in my first blog “The Diary of Anne Ku” from May 1, 2000 to April 30, 2001. Still itching to write, I launched the Bon Journal, compiled the best entries into themed two-page newsletters, and then invited friends and colleagues to contribute to Le Bon Journal e-zines on topics I was interested in. I featured his input in many of these publications.
While analysing, writing, and lecturing about English grammar was his profession, my father’s favourite pastime was undoubtedly listening to music, especially old songs that took him down memory lane. I never understood how much he treasured listening to music until I took a music therapy course from the late Dr Arthur Harvey. It opened my eyes to the healing power of music.
One summer morning in New Hampshire, I woke up to a Facebook message from a cousin I hadn’t seen in ten years. As soon as I realised she was referring to my father, I instantly heard Joan Baez sing “Diamond and Rust” in my head. The song continued playing like a broken record even after the funeral in Taiwan when I sang “Plaisir d’amour.”
A year later, I began enumerating a playlist of his favourite songs. My goal was to compile the sheet music, give a concert, and record myself on the piano. I did the first two but not the third. With the ukulele, I will now collect song sheets and get my ukulele group to play and sing those songs. He would have enjoyed my journey with the ukulele.