SPARKLE OF A Last Tear

With ‘You’re Already Dead’ coming out soon, I thought I’d share how this book came to be.

Here I am, nearly three years after writing the first page of the first idea when I thought about the title.

October 2020. My firstborn daughter was nearing seven months old. Covid had begun to bring my business to a standstill, and during times of despair, like many of you, I’m sure, I got lost in prayer.

I’ve also had a habit of trying to place myself in my dad’s shoes, thinking, “What would my dad say to me right now?” I suppose what he would say are all the topics I touched on in the upcoming book.

From a young age, I had lots of responsibility, especially when my dad got sick, and it fell on my shoulders to provide for my family. When my dad’s cancer returned around 2007, I was only 22 years old and stuck in a sales job for a telecom company. I prayed to anyone and anything beyond me that would listen. Help me take care of my family, my father, my mother, and my brother. With mortgage payments looming, bills piling up, an opportunity seemingly fell into my lap.

I guess I can say my prayer was answered. A good friend of mine approached me about a business opportunity: running a small restaurant. My dad gave me his last penny to invest in the business and turn our fortunes around.

Fast forward a couple of years, after gaining experience at small and big dealerships, starting my own small dealership felt like a natural pairing of the entrepreneurial drive that I inherited from my father, combined with the financing and selling of used vehicles that I was experienced in.

When I first started it, it was fairly lucrative, and I felt sure of myself, that I was on the right path with my life and career. I’m not particularly fond of the auto industry or working in it. It’s not my passion, but I fell into it by obligation after my dad had passed away, and in the grief-filled year that followed, I decided to sell my small business restaurant.

I really felt I was lucky doing what I was doing, and on my own, considering I was in such a hard industry. And by hard, I mean one driven by ego and the drive for profits.

I had no boss making unreasonable demands on me or selling products that I didn’t believe in, like all the little extras. I was content with the money I was making, and perhaps I could’ve made more if I really pushed customers to the last penny, but that’s not the type of person I am. Like Mark Cuban said, sales is not convincing; it’s helping. And if I am draining every last penny from my customer, then I am not really helping them at all.

(I’m dragging with the story, but I touch on this subject much more in the follow-up to my debut book, ‘On the Bridge between Lost and Nowhere’. The story about my life, my childhood, my upbringing, education, romantic relationships, my parents, grandparents, tragedies, successes, failures, mistakes, and the lessons I’ve learned thus far. All of it wrapped up with the influence of parentification and my bicultural identity.)

Back to the original point I was making, essentially, I was struggling to cope with the fear of failure, in having to walk away from my business, and yet still find a way to provide for my wife and newborn. I had to learn to be able to run on fumes until the day I could thrive again.

The book was my way of working through all of these feelings. Who was I, what was I, all framed with the ever-present feeling of not being able to let go of my father, who has been gone now for over 12 years.

Even to this day, when I talk about him, or think about him, I still cry. Yet, this is the cycle of life, and others have had it much worse than him, and I, and my family; however, it still doesn’t make it easy.

So I started writing. There’s a saying out there that goes, “If you write a page a day, you’ll have a book in less than a year.” However, what I learned was, you might write a page a day, and then scrap that page the next day, having read what you wrote only to have to rewrite it. And that was this book; it’s gone through so many revisions and many ideas.

It started off pretty harsh, very didactic, and I suppose, in a way, insensitive. So I put it away for a while, about a year to be exact.

In the meantime, with the economic situation of the automotive industry pushing me to the brink, I had to shut it down. I used to be able to sell a handful of vehicles or finance a handful every month and make a decent profit. But with the inventory constraints plaguing the industry due to Covid, I wasn’t able to secure vehicles for my customers at the right price. My income was decimated. With inflation on the creep, rising costs for everything, and reduced income, I had to make some tough decisions.

After swearing off the auto industry, I needed a break from it and so, I started back to where it all began for me: in the restaurant business. It was a tough pill to swallow, but I am thankful to my cousins for bringing me on at their restaurant. The wages were meager, but I couldn’t expect any more; family or not, this isn’t a charity. It’s a business.

I’ve read tons of books in my life, some of them great, some of them not so great, but I came to appreciate all of them because the writer was sharing their truth and giving it to the world.

I once read a quote by Paul Kalanithi, the author of “When Breath Becomes Air.” He wrote that words have a longevity he does not. I suppose we have to leave a little trust to the reader; that is why, at the beginning of the book, I write that some topics might not be for you, but we have to be honest with ourselves.

And so, this is my truth, in a sense, a truth bestowed upon me by my father. The chapters might start off didactic, but I explain, in a way that I know how, how I got to such a didactic lesson. It was through his life, and ultimately his death.

If my book changes your perspectives in a positive way, then that’s great, and if it doesn’t, that’s fine also.

I don’t want to give away how I ended up with the title; you’ll get there on your own, until you finish the book. Just know that it’s a piece of my truth, something I am having to learn myself every single day, something I strive to live by. Sometimes I succeed at it, and oftentimes I fail.

I write that I am not famous. I am a nobody, but even somebodies are nobodies. And for other nobodies, we truly can be somebody. I care to be somebody to those I love, those around me who want to journey through time together and influence each other for the better, bound by love and honor and the common idea that we all come from the same tree. The same tree whose leaves are falling into the river of life, floating away together.

I find myself now still trying to rebuild my life post-Covid, but after writing the book for myself to help myself, not to forget my dad but to let him go, for me to try to Live! And live well. I realize that I may have lost so much, yet I have so much that is truly priceless. I am one of the luckiest people alive.

As I’ve said in the previous blog post, I find myself in my father’s shoes, with children that never met their grandfather, but not only that, also starting from scratch as he did, and having the faith and the perseverance to face the uncertainties of life.

So, this book is perhaps the sparkle of the last tear shed by my father, as I explain in the book. I try to heal the void his passing left by echoing his wisdom, as though he were whispering with every word, every paragraph, to just live.

Telling me to stop worrying, to take a leap of faith. Learn from my mistakes. Forgive people, forgive yourself, ask for forgiveness. To love those around you and, finally, to understand that the thing that I thought was right for me, my small business, is no longer right for me.

Telling me to get to work and find that next thing in my life. Because, just like his life is over, mine one day is already over. So, get going.

Thank you for reading. I will have a couple more blog posts prior to the book release; one is a playlist, a song for every chapter, and the other is on the subject of kites.

Until then, thank you.