Where the Past Begins

by Amy Tan

  I came across several binders with typed sermons. The citations for prayers were typed in red. I marveled that there were few typographical errors. If only I wrote so assuredly. In looking through my father’s sermons, I found one from 1963, around the same year we did the science project on solar cells. He titled it “In God We Trust.” It was his response to that week’s headline: “Reaction Mostly Mild on Outlawing the Lord’s Prayer in School.” His reaction was not mild. “Like many others,” he said in his sermon, “I was deeply disturbed and incensed over the action of the Supreme Court concerning prayer in our public schools. It seemed not only the reversal of our historic tradition but also to undermine the very foundation of our American democracy.” He talked about his hope that this would actually serve as a revitalization of both religion and democracy.

  One of my father’s sermons, beginning with a prayer.

  On this issue, we definitely would have had disagreement. I imagine myself at twenty, arguing about the Lord’s Prayer in school. I would have cited the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and he would have cited the second part: “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” We had King Solomon’s dilemma. Did Solomon propose we cleave our country in two? That is certainly what happened with the 2016 election, I would have pointed out. Surely he did not think that Jews and atheists should be forced to say the Lord’s Prayer. He might have said it would not harm them and might even be good for them. I would have exploded with a sharp retort. In that same sermon, he explained that even in a pluralistic society, we must follow the historic American position: “In God We Trust.” I would have pointed out that the first time “In God We Trust” was used it was on a penny in 1864, not when the United States was established. It took a while for those words to be added to a nickel, and much longer before they were added to a dollar bill. Trusting in God when it came to money matters did not make it a historic American position, I would have said. And the reason it supplanted E Pluribus Unum was because of McCarthyism fears. It was a Commie Pinko litmus test. If a man coughed in trying to get out the words “In God We Trust,” he was un-American. It was adopted in 1956, only seven years before he gave his sermon, which was a rather brief amount of time to describe it as a “historic American position.” The words “under God,” were not added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954. Since I was born in 1952, I would have sarcastically asked if I was more historic than the Pledge of Allegiance. We would have argued about prayer and God in the classroom ad nauseum. Had he still been alive today, as a way to stay on speaking terms, I probably would have suggested that schools should give students a two-minute period of silence at the start of the day. They had the option of praying to whichever God they believed in, or they could meditate on peace, daydream, think about life goals, or listen to music through headphones. No establishment of religion, and no prohibition either.

  How much would we have argued? Would a gulf of inharmonious beliefs have separated us?

  I read his letters, his sermons, and his diaries, trying to find the father I loved and had believed was perfect. I was confronted with evidence that I had heavily edited my memories. Nearly all his writings were religious sentiments, scripture-like thoughts, all but the letters he sent to the Department of Justice when his and my mother’s student visas had expired. In a letter to a close family friend who had received electroconvulsive therapy, he wrote about faith and mercy, but he did not inquire how she was feeling or where she might want to go when she was released from the hospital. He offered no help. It was simply the prayer. So little of his writing seemed spontaneous or—dare I say it?—personal and genuine. His diaries were passages from the Bible, a list of expenses, phone numbers, and appointment reminders to meet parishioners. He made one entry of my birth, and another entry years later that it was my birthday. But on subsequent birthdays, his calendar showed he had scheduled meetings on those evenings. If these papers had been the sum of what I knew about him, I would have concluded that he was sincere but lacked intimacy.

  But then I read some of the eulogies given at my father’s funeral. They included fond exaggerations, and also some misinterpretations, all of them harmless and kind. But he was there—the prankster, the charmer who always had a humorous aside, the father I had chosen to remember. When he was in the hospital, one person said, he took time to go to the children’s wards to spend time with those who were crying. He went to strangers who looked out of place and made them feel welcome. The sermons he typed would not have included any of his spontaneous actions, remarks, and personal stories. They contained none of his humor. And yet, as many recalled, there was never a time when he did not leave them laughing.

  When I finished reading those eulogies, I found nothing had been said about his relationship with his two younger children, John and me. He was admired for his devotion to my older brother, his dying son, and his steadfast love and gratitude for his wife. As an adult, I can understand why he and my mother chose to be with my older brother as much as possible, leaving little time for his healthy children. I would have been similarly consumed. I can also understand why he had to provide testimony of his faith to others—it was to make himself worthy enough to petition God to save his son. He had broken the Ten Commandments out of love for my mother. He neglected his other children out of desperation to undo what his adultery had wrought.

  My father’s last letter, written four months before he died, went to one of his closest friends, another minister. By then my father’s damaged right brain made him unable to see the full width of the page. He wrote only on the right half of the page, which became increasingly narrow, as if to represent how diminished he was becoming. His once-beautiful handwriting was now uneven and spider-like. His ability to say things gracefully was gone. He lacked the beautiful words, which had enabled him to hide his feelings of terror. After his greeting, he expressed frustration over the complications of his care and his concern for his exhausted wife, whom he described as “my first true love.” The second paragraph was heartbreaking:

  On top of everything, we have “teenager” problems. Amy suddenly became unreasonably rebellious. Early in the morning, she’ll read the newspaper for two hours never lift her small finger to help her mother …

  His thoughts meandered into other areas, fears that he had always been a bad Christian:

  For the last eighteen years of my ministry I was a hypocritical Pharisee, which Jesus hates. I could preach fervently about the love of God, but I seldom practiced what I preached … I am so ashamed of myself I wished that I were dead to run away from guilty conscience.

  He then returned to his thoughts about me:

  Amy’s indeferent [sic] attitude probably is a result of my own negligence to provide her an act of sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.

  Still later, he added in the margin more thoughts on this:

  Actually, this is an exposure of my failure to show her the love of God. Love never fails. Now it is not love that fails. It was me that failed.

  I felt terrible that this was among his last memories of me: a selfish, uncaring girl. What he had said was only partially true: I was rebellious. But that’s because I was fifteen. And it is true that I seemed to be indifferent. But I was not. I could not bear what was happening and I had to withdraw. He should have understood that no fifteen-year-old should have to see death approaching every day. If he failed me, it was because he saw me through the eyes of a minister who had had no time to make an appointment to see me. He had forgotten how to be a father. I did not want him to show me the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ or the beliefs he found in scripture. I wanted his love, the one that had once protected me and scooped me up after I had fallen. I wanted the secret compatriot who comforted me when my mother went into a rage over a watermelon that had rolled off a table and broke. I wanted the father who believed I was smart enough to launch a solar-cell-powered rocket to the moon. That was the father I had already been losing even before he
and my brother fell ill. I had been losing him to his ambitions as a minister, a student, and an inventor. When he died, I lost him in all ways possible. I lost the future of him seeing me change into a considerate and helpful daughter. I lost the chance to see his relief that I had chosen a kind man for my husband. I lost the chance for him to encourage me whenever I started a new job or a new novel, just as he had when I stood at the top of the slide, terrified, while he patiently called for me at the other end.

  Those were my losses and they make me realize that he did show me enough love to want to exult in more of it with others. Among men, he was a great man. Among fathers, he was a great father. But I also realize this painful truth: he loved God far more than he loved me. He would have admitted that was true. He would have explained that we should all love God more because God’s love for us was greater than what a mother and father could give. Having read his diaries and his sermons, I think his love of God was based more on fear of God. To fear God is to love God—that was what many evangelicals believe. He feared he had not loved God enough and that was why God was giving him trial after trial. He felt he had let God down. He asked for forgiveness. He renewed his faith after each crisis. When more crises came, he had to do more for God. He had to be ambitious for God. But it was still not enough. God was taking his son. God took his son. God was taking him. I remember that he asked aloud when he was ill, “God, why have you forsaken me?” Others heard only the joke that he did not need to make peace with God since they had never quarreled. They did not hear his doubts and why he was afraid of God’s wrath.

  I would have told him fear of God wasn’t love. It was also not love that compelled an evangelical relative to tell my father he should ask God to forgive him one more time for his sin in marrying my mother. Fear was one of the last emotions my father felt while he was still cognizant. How could I embrace a religion based on the notion that eternal torment awaits those who have not become converts? What about babies who die of malaria before they ever have a chance to be saved? I posed the question to a Christian relative who believes in boiling vats for the unsaved. “Unfortunately, the opening in the door to heaven is very narrow,” she said. Was my father also narrow-minded about the exclusivity of heaven?

  As my brother lay dying, my father’s self-imposed desire to please God and inspire his flock blinkered him. He did not understand I was flailing with fear and coping through numbness. I had lost my brother and I had lost hope that God or doctors would save my father. I was scared that I would soon have a bald head marred with stitches, and would mew incoherently while being spoon-fed. He was too busy appeasing his God to notice his daughter, except when he was angry that I was doing nothing to help my mother. He was too scared of God.

  His fear did not turn me away from God. It made me reject the notion that God must be constantly pleased and feared. If my father were alive, I would try to talk to him in his framework of Christianity. I would tell him that I can’t worship a God who is synonymous with prohibition and the threat of punishment. Fear, I think, is the worst element of religions of all kinds. It is used to justify more fear, as well as hatred, lack of compassion, intolerance, and war. My God is not a deity I have to worship in any particular way. My God is always there, I would tell him, wherever I am. It is a consciousness greater than mine but also includes mine. It is the full knowledge that love, joy, and peace are the same thing and it is in all of us. We don’t have to be better than someone else to have it. I would tell him that I have experienced the fullness of it when I was able to lose fear, preconceptions, and worries, and turn off the cogwheel that churns out endless thoughts that are not important. I have had to let go and be open to the mystery of love and how huge it can be. Love, peace, and joy are somewhere in Christian doctrine as well. Just get rid of the fear, I would say to him. Jesus died because of hatred. Did Jesus really want people put in hell for not believing he sacrificed himself for them? Isn’t heaven really a metaphor about sharing the wonders of love that unite us? I would ask if he truly favored the idea of an exclusive pearly-gated community. Was his future in heaven more important than the future of Earth and of the coming generations who would live on it? Imagine more; obey less. That is what I would tell my father if he were alive and still considering he might vote for a candidate who promoted fear.

  But now I realize I am giving my father short shrift. My father was flawed, and he admitted it. But in all my memories and in everything I read in his sermons, I never found any evidence of hatred or lack of sympathy. He would not have abided by any position that required it. Had he lived, he would have also experienced all the changes in the United States for several more decades—the hundreds of ethnicities who had come to live here, the plight of refugees, the new epidemics, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism. We might have talked about the Vietnam War and the peace marches, as well as the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an American Baptist minister. He would have been among those who mourned Dr. King’s death and committed himself to fight racism. He would have been deeply moved by the peaceful civil rights march. He would have praised those who advocated for faith and kindness. I know he would have written a sermon about immigrants, and as part of it, he would have told the story of his and my mother’s fears of being deported back to what had become Communist China. He would have used humor to convey his sentiments about a more-inclusive world: something about the Tower of Babel and discordant voices, something about our need for an interpreter of all the languages so that we could hear what we had in common. He would have joked that he had a nephew for hire, an excellent simultaneous interpreter, and a Christian, to boot, who would probably give them a discount. He would have joked that when Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, Chinese food was delivered and it was enough to feed the multitudes and put them in a peace-loving mood, because everyone loves Chinese food. I can easily imagine him saying all that.

  We would have found common ground in most places. Like my mother, he would have met our friends who are Muslim, gay, lesbian, and transgender. Like my mother, he might have complimented some of our gay friends for having better relationships than many heterosexual couples they knew. He would have performed their wedding ceremonies. He would have written a revision to that sermon, “In God We Trust,” to express his sadness that trust was a diminishing resource and suspicion of others was rising. I imagine we would have agreed on many concerns having to do with those who were impoverished and ill. He would have known that I have an incurable disease, and what might have happened to me if I had not had the means to get medical care.

  I would thank him for giving me a foundation for thinking about meaning and compassion. His need to find meaning and to provide compassion led to the ministry. My need for meaning and to show compassion led to my writing stories.

  There is only one issue that leaves me uncertain whether he would have voted as I did: a woman’s right to chose. For many evangelical Christians, that was the single most compelling reason why they voted for a man who did not believe a woman should make her own decisions. For those people, none of the other concerns mattered, not even health care for those who would die without it. Would he have considered voting with a collective conscience that saw the multiple dangers of a drastically different order? Would he have voted based on the importance of the big picture, knowing he could continue to fight with others on specific concerns? I know of many Christians who voted for my candidate with that kind of conscience, my father’s friends, for example.

  And now I realize that I do know how he would have voted, and the reason that it would have been impossible for him to have voted any other way. My mother. I know what she felt about a woman’s right to choose. She told me when I was twenty-eight. We were sitting in my car, about to go into a restaurant. As rain pelted the windshield, I told her I was upset because I had just learned I was pregnant and that this occurred sometime during a two-week vacation when I had been consuming alcohol—a bloody Mary in the morning, a margarita at night. At the time,
I worked in the field of developmental disabilities, and babies were just then being diagnosed with a newly recognized congenital condition, “fetal alcohol syndrome.” It was not yet clear how much alcohol might be damaging nor during which trimester it was consumed. What’s more, neither Lou nor I had the financial means to raise a child. He was still in law school, and we depended on my meager income to survive. Because of my profession, I knew full well what attention and extra time would be required to raise a child with a disability. I knew what I would have to fight for. I confessed to my mother we were not even sure we wanted to have children. Lou’s parents often hinted about their desire for grandchildren. We could not tell them that we felt no need to pass along our custom DNA. Lou and I had already agreed that if we changed our minds, we would adopt a child with special needs. But now I was six weeks pregnant, and I was forced to consider what to do.

  My mother had remained completely silent as I spoke, and when I finished, she said in a calm voice: “If you want a baby, even if you are poor, nothing can stop you from caring for this baby. You will find a way.” And then she said in a forceful tone, “But if you do not want a baby, no one—not your husband, not your mother-in-law, no one—can tell you that you must have this baby.”

  When she was married to “that bad man,” she said, he tortured her and would not give her a divorce. He would not use birth control. He used her like a sex machine. He kept her pregnant every year. She had four children, and three abortions. “Only you can decide,” she said to me. As it turned out, I did not have to decide. A few days later, I had a miscarriage. Having been caught between two choices, I felt a mixture of relief and sadness. But most of all, I felt grateful for what my mother had said. It was not just about my right to choose whether to have an abortion or a baby. It was about everything in life. I don’t remember how old I was when she first told me that I was not equal to a man—that I was better.