People | Generations

With His Absence, My Artist Father Taught Me the Art of Vanishing

My father was missing. How could I put him back in the picture?

Barbarosa

Magnum, P.I. TV GuideChoose Your Own Adventure

That peasant boy on his knee in supplication? That’s my brother. The warlord all armored up before him? That’s my dad.

painting from the studio of George Tsui / photo courtesy of the author

painting from the studio of George Tsui / photo courtesy of the author

there

It’s not a good time,Maybe next year.


I was embarrassed.I didn’t want you to see me that way.

Look at all the fun we had. It made us feel close again.

you want him to know them

Choose Your Own Adventure

Is this why we’re here? To be here when he dies?

What happened? Where? I did?

photo courtesy of the author

photo courtesy of the author

Draw it, Mama.

the author, age 8, and her father / photo courtesy of the author

With any luck, my father will let me fly him to California this summer to be with us. We text each other almost every day, only now I’m sending images as well as words. The other day I texted him a photo of me drawing with my older son. It was taken from the point of view of me behind my page: my actual son blurry in the background, busy with his own sketchbook; the drawing of him sharp in the foreground, rendered in green ink.

Do you like my drawings?

Love your drawings

photo courtesy of the author