My dad's 3H

My dad always had sage advice.

He would say, "In life you have to have the 3H: Happy, Healthy, Have some money".

When he was terminally ill, my dad had extended stays at the hospitals and he would introduce me to the new nurses, "this is my youngest daughter. She is a tattoo artist". On his death bed when I was just 24 years old and two years into tattooing, he would repeat to me "be your own boss, work for yourself". I never really understood the weight of his words until I got older, living and working more, continuing to work as a tattoo artist at shops. It took me tattooing at shops along the west/pacific coast from June 2006-April 2011, Sept 2015-Nov 2018 to fully realize this dream into reality with my own studio in Berkeley Dec 2018.

My dad started working as a civil engineer as soon as he could. He excelled at math and immigrated to the states in 1969, graduated from UC Berkeley 1974. He was never satisfied with having a boss but because of his opportunity and capacity as a first generation immigrant that wasn't an option because he was still learning English as soon as he arrived. He would tell me he would get a "gentleman's C" in his non-math classes in UC Berkeley. When his English speaking improved, he decided to work on his own as an independent contractor. There were times he said the gweilo (white person) would not pay him on time or pay him at all. But even then, he found it worthwhile and always harked back to the days that he worked for himself and had his own schedule.

As my sisters and I got older, we were college bound and my parents did what a lot of Asian parents do, and didn't want us to have college debt. They worked their asses off. I am very aware and grateful for the sacrifices they made. My mom worked graveyard shifts at Safeway even though she had a degree in math and physics from the University of Taiwan, and taught in Hong Kong for 7 years high school calculus, we needed the health insurance.

Before my oldest sister left for UC Berkeley to pursue the EECS (Electrical Engineering Computer Science) program, my dad decided to worked for Caltrans to support our family and the stress of working for a company took a toll on his mind and body. When he tested in, he tested into the highest capacity level civil engineer and worked on the new Oakland SF bay bridge, the first single pillar bridge in a seismic zone on the west coast. The last thing he told me about his work was that he was working on the Treasure Island Bypass. He worked M-F on site, bought a condo in the east bay and drove back to Sacramento on the weekends. Before the project was proposed, he worked on California's highway bypasses, freeway signs and other smaller bridges in the state of California. He developed myasthenia gravis and thymoma cancer, and within 8 months of diagnosis he died at 60 before he could retire with my mom.

I vow to myself and to my dad, to live out his dreams of being our own boss and have the 3H (health being number one for me), till the end of my time. Miss you, Daddy.