{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-tsx","path":"/martinpersonalcolumn","result":{"data":{"primeArticle":{"slug":"martinpersonalcolumn","excerpt":"PRIME writer Martin Sevcik has been told that his father abandoned him to follow his dreams. Yet Sevcik isn’t so sure those voices are right.","headline":"My father’s anchor","author":"Martin Sevcik","authorbio":"","authoremail":"","authortwitter":"","coverimg":"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/martinpersonalcolumn/phones-808ee8a0f0b4e7b11ef6d0729a9e7444.jpg","covercred":"Nikole Liang","coveralt":"Illustration of two phones connected by tangled wires with the word \"Hello?\" written.","articleType":"article","updated":null,"content":[{"type":"text","value":"Everything worth keeping from my father’s home is crammed into some boxes in the backseat. I’m driving these boxes to my mother’s house, using a car that will soon be donated to a family friend."},{"type":"text","value":"My father is leaving for Hong Kong in a week, and he plans to stay there as long as he can. He said he would visit me if anything big happened. The example he gave was my wedding."},{"type":"text","value":"For 20 years before I was born, my father spent his life as a perpetual nomad, traveling the world and refusing to grow roots. Now, he’s picking up where he left off, leaving his life in the United States behind. I initially saw his departure as a natural consequence of his roaming spirit, but family and friends called it abandonment. They assumed I felt disappointed in my father’s violation of parental duties. By forgoing his active role in my life, my father was deserting me, they argued."},{"type":"text","value":"And I began to suspect they were right."},{"type":"line","value":"{\"filler\":\"filler\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"It’s close to midnight by the time I pull up to my mother’s home. As usual, she stayed up late to make sure I got home safely. When I step inside, I discover she also had my father on her mind."},{"type":"text","value":"\"He never wanted to stay in the United States,\" my mother tells me as I move the boxes into my room. Her matter-of-fact tone wavers with her next sentiment. \"I know he always wanted to leave, but it feels surreal to see him go.\""},{"type":"text","value":"My parents met in Kyrgyzstan in the mid-'90s. My father had settled into a rhythm, spending four months salmon fishing in Alaska to fund eight months of exploration across the world. She, an English-language student in the midst of a collapsing Soviet Union, wanted to move to the U.S. My father agreed to put aside his fledgling yurt business to travel alongside her, despite his reluctance to return to the continental U.S."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"I know he always wanted to leave, but it feels surreal to see him go.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"By accommodating my mother’s request, my father broke his nomadic streak. Since he settled down over two decades ago, he has had a child and gone through a divorce. I already knew that by leaving now, he was trying to reconnect with his former lifestyle. But before my mother’s comments, I had never realized how much he wanted to wander the Earth again."},{"type":"text","value":"So why had he stayed?"},{"type":"line","value":"{\"filler\":\"filler\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Just 12 hours later, I’m back at my father’s near-vacant apartment. After two weeks of selling items on Craigslist, some of his furniture remains unclaimed. My father and I are breaking it into pieces so it can fit in our building’s dumpster. Between the electric screeches of the buzzsaw, I break our workman’s silence to broach the uncomfortable subject."},{"type":"text","value":"\"My mom said you always wanted to leave the states. Why didn’t you do it earlier?\""},{"type":"text","value":"He lifts his head and stares at me with wide, alert eyes for a few moments as he thinks of a response."},{"type":"text","value":"\"Because you were around,\" he says. Realizing that his answer isn’t comprehensive, he briefly continues, \"Now that you’re off at college, I don’t need to be here. I barely see you anyways.\""},{"type":"text","value":"We resume our work. But as my mind continues to churn, I realize I was his reason to stay. To some extent, I feel like a burden, that I am selfish for dreading his departure. If I was the only thing anchoring him to the U.S., then I was effectively preventing him from following his life’s passion."},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Illustration of a figure sitting inside a large box drawn like the interior of a room.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/martinpersonalcolumn/boxes-b0459ba33750aa3be6c47a390e605148.jpg\",\"credit\":\"Nikole Liang/Daily Bruin\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Not only did this realization hurt me, it proved the cynics correct. He didn’t have to be a full-time parent anymore, so he was abandoning the responsibility entirely. With his social obligation fulfilled, it was finally OK to resume his nomadism."},{"type":"text","value":"I call Cassie, my girlfriend, that night to talk about it. Even though the walls are thin at the apartment, I’m not worried about my father eavesdropping. He respects boundaries better than anyone else I know."},{"type":"text","value":"Cassie knew my father as an uninvolved parent, intentionally staying out of my business to the fullest extent possible. He wasn’t like her parents, who planned their lives around their children."},{"type":"text","value":"During our call, the word Cassie uses to describe him is \"distant.\" When I explain how he doesn’t need to be an active part of my life anymore, she wonders whether he was a major participant to begin with."},{"type":"text","value":"I could see where she was coming from. My father wanted me to develop independence from a young age. While my classmates experienced helicopter parenting and overprotection, I found myself with ruthless freedom."},{"type":"text","value":"When my father and I went to the beach, we didn’t build sandcastles with plastic toys. Instead, I climbed the jagged rock formations, always just one wrong move from plunging into the ocean. My father sat far away, subduing his own fears for the sake of my growth. He could have intervened, but that would have only reinforced the parental safety nets he was trying to avoid. He engaged in this nontraditional parenting style because he felt it would be best for me, not because he was disinterested and uncaring."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"Maybe he was trying to prepare you for this moment.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"That mentality carried into my middle and high school years. He never pushed me in any way, for my life was my own to live. He supported my endeavors but never played an active role in their upkeep. He never asked questions, never wanted to meet my friends and never told me what to do."},{"type":"text","value":"I didn’t mind managing my own life. I could sometimes feel the difference when engaging with other parents, but his distance was a consequence of respect, not negligence. In hindsight, he paid as much attention to me as any other parent – he attended my mock trial tournaments, read my newspaper articles and reviewed my report cards. It was just a different kind of affection."},{"type":"text","value":"I try explaining this to Cassie. I’m not sure if any of it makes sense to her. In fact, I’m not sure if it makes sense to anyone but me. But I think she understands because she cuts through my long-winded explanation and offers something I had not considered before:"},{"type":"text","value":"\"Maybe he was trying to prepare you for this moment.\""},{"type":"image","value":"{\"alt\":\"Illustration of a figure walking away holding a luggage covered in travel stickers.\",\"url\":\"https://assets3.dailybruin.com/images/martinpersonalcolumn/luggage-55cff2cff6f7f62f3ba844771ee91fcc.png\",\"credit\":\"Nikole Liang/Daily Bruin\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"line","value":"{\"filler\":\"filler\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Five months before I was moving boxes, I was enjoying wings and football in the Texas summer heat. As part of his preparations for his departure, my father had scheduled a weeklong trip to visit his family in College Station. A day before our flight, he contracted COVID-19. I had to brave the trip alone."},{"type":"text","value":"A week into the trip, I sat at Cousin Jimmy’s dinner table discussing family history. The table fell quiet as Aunt Joyce brought up my grandmother. She described her as my father’s soulmate. When she died in his early teenage years, all my father had left was a financially supportive yet emotionally unattached father."},{"type":"text","value":"The others around the table tacitly agreed. It was a genuine tragedy."},{"type":"text","value":"As a result, my father’s 18th birthday – and subsequent graduation from high school – represented an escape from sleepy Rosenberg, Texas. He had no anchors there; neither his family nor his prospects enticed him."},{"type":"text","value":"Decades later, my father still views 18 as a magic number. When he began discussing his departure in my teenage years, he always talked about my 18th birthday as some sort of liberation date. It would represent my maturity, allowing him to leave me on my own."},{"type":"text","value":"Looking back on my father’s childhood, I realized that he may have expected this dispassionate parenting to be hereditary. He would take care of me much like his father took care of him, but he wouldn’t anticipate any greater involvement. As he planned an eventual return to his nomadic lifestyle, he made a point of raising a highly independent child who could handle his eventual departure. Although I’ll miss the presence of my father, his distance is a burden he prepared me to bear."},{"type":"line","value":"{\"filler\":\"filler\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"I know my father will read this piece. He reads everything I write. I’m writing this ending for him."},{"type":"text","value":"I could have ended this piece talking about how my mother and I cried after our final dinner with him. How she called him a mediocre husband but a great father and how I couldn’t agree more. Or I could have talked about how many times I cried writing this piece and how the whole process helped reveal my feelings on the subject. Or I could have addressed the family and friends I’ve alluded to throughout this piece, defending my father’s actions with a bold emotional appeal."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"This is nothing like abandonment. It’s the final moment of a well-plotted plan.\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"But that’s not his style. Sentimentality has never reached my father’s soul."},{"type":"text","value":"Instead, I’m ending this piece by saying that I’ve come to terms with my father’s absence. He made the decision that was right for him. It’s an atypical decision – as I’ve heard over and over again since he announced his plans – but it was not made hastily or selfishly. He knew he would reclaim his old life one day, and he knew that his travels would not include me. He did everything in his power to prepare me for his departure."},{"type":"text","value":"This is nothing like abandonment. It’s the final moment of a well-plotted plan."},{"type":"text","value":"All I can do now is thank him for his foresight."}]}},"pageContext":{"term":"winter23","slug":"martinpersonalcolumn"}},"staticQueryHashes":[]}