I could hear him from the walls

He cried for days alone and didn’t leave the room

My mother asked me to to bring him rice porridge on a tray

I knocked, he opened the door and he gave me a gentle nod

I never seen my father so broken

My grandfather had died the previous week and my father did not attend his funeral

He would later tell me that he couldn’t

He said that had he left to Korea, he feared that he would lose his business and he would endanger our livelihood

At age 12, I didn’t believe him

I could tell he was scared to face it

He didn’t want to accept the death of his father

When I was four, I remember my grandparents visited us and lived in our cramped apartment in East LA

My grandfather would burn incense and chant his Buddhist mantras

He would invite me in and have me sit on his lap and he gently swayed me to sleep

My grandfather was kind

When he died, I knew that something changed inside my father

He became colder, he became easily agitated

He was quick to reprimand

There was something unspoken

It was as if my father wanted me to feel his pain

I could hear his moans from the walls

A wounded man, a wounded child

He was no longer strong

He was true

He was beautiful

He was the lion.