I need to die before my parents. This, once again, is not dramatics, just fact. I've reconciled with them to some extent, but it was a one-sided reconciliation. They are still the foundation of who I basically am now. And no reconciliation has addressed that.

Before the reconciliation, it was all about separating and getting as far away from them as possible. The reconciliation itself was about realizing I didn't need to get away anymore. I was out of their sphere of influence. However, my being is still rooted in them.

I don't want to go where they have gone before me. I don't know what happens after death. I only know what I believe. But the experience of death that we all must experience, I think is a profound one, perhaps the most profound experience we will have. And whatever is on the other side, I don't want to follow them into it. They can follow me, as one or the other must happen, but I don't want to follow them.

I talk about reconciliation, but how much is a one-sided reconciliation worth? The 'rents have started sending family photos of whichever was my most recent visit. I have found it increasingly disturbing that I do resemble my father.

Growing up, I was glad whenever people said I didn't look like either of my parents. But come adulthood, during one visit to Taiwan, my cousin Audrey had a photo of my father when he was young and she pointed out how much I look like him. I said, "No, I don't", but I noticed it before she said anything.

I don't want to look like them, looking like either of them fills me with self-loathing. We do not have a connection that allows them to claim me as a part of them through a physical resemblance.

Resembling them makes me want to die, it robs me of my identity, and whatever reconciliation I have unilaterally achieved, we are separate and we have nothing to do with each other. They never wanted to know me, they never made an effort to know me. I have no interest in knowing anything about them. I have no interest in looking like them.