The Father's Day Gift

I was born just days before Father’s Day, and maybe in some poetic way, I was supposed to be a gift for him. As his only daughter, I was close to him, but not in the way people expect when they think of a father-daughter bond. Ours was a connection made up of tension, the kind that binds just as much as it bruises. Our relationship was a constant struggle—both of us stubborn, unyielding, and headstrong, mirrors of each other’s rough edges. I wonder, in those moments he called me kurang ajar, biadap, tak dengar kata—did he realize just how much of those traits I’d learned from him? Or did he see my defiance as something foreign, something he had to criticize in me, even though he was the one who shaped it?

When he called me stubborn, it was like he was naming a piece of himself that I’d inherited. I’d seen him be keras kepala my whole life, watched him stand his ground, refusing to bend or compromise. He wore his hard-headedness with pride, yet when it showed up in me, he seemed to resent it. His criticisms felt like a strange double standard: he valued these traits in himself but couldn’t accept them in his own daughter. It left me wondering if he knew he was condemning his own reflection, that I was simply mirroring back the resilience he’d taught me, even if he didn’t mean to.

He’d often accuse me of not listening, of being too independent and unwilling to follow his lead. But that independence was something I picked up from watching him. I learned to go my own way, to trust my own instincts, because I’d seen him do it over and over again. He raised me to be self-sufficient, but only to a point—only when my independence didn’t challenge his authority. Our arguments felt like a constant clash of two people who were equally unyielding, two stubborn minds fighting to hold their ground. He criticized my strength and independence, but I couldn’t have become that way without his example. And each time he called me disrespectful, I wondered if he recognized his own defiance staring back at him.

Then, after every argument, he would come to apologize. His apologies were quiet, reluctant, as if he struggled with saying the words. I could never tell if he was genuinely sorry for what he’d said or if he was coming to terms with the fact that he’d molded me into this person he now found so difficult to control. Did he realize that every trait he scorned in me was a reflection of himself? Or was he only apologizing because he felt he had to, without fully understanding that I had become who I was largely because of him?

The hardest moment came when I had to stand on that podium in court, testifying against him for the abuse my mother endured. It was a moment that felt surreal, the weight of my words heavy with the pain of what I had witnessed. I had to draw on the strength he had built in me, the same hard-headedness he often resented, to speak out and stand firm in a way he never anticipated. I felt his influence in every word, in the resolve that kept me steady, even as I stood against him. In that moment, I understood just how deeply he had shaped me—not just in his flaws, but in the very traits that made me capable of defying him. I wonder if he was angry with me for standing up to him, or if he felt a twisted sense of pride that I had become strong enough to do it.

Even now, I wrestle with my feelings toward him. Part of me resents him for all the hurt he caused, for the harsh words that still echo in my mind, for the way he tried to control both my mother and me. But there’s another part of me that longs for a connection, that misses the father I wished he could have been. He wasn’t a shabby father in every way; there were moments that showed a glimmer of care, a spark of love. Yet as my mother’s daughter, I can’t ignore the damage he inflicted. I want to hate him to the core, to reject everything he represented, but I also recognize that so much of who I am comes from him.

All the traits he despised in me were the very same ones I’d learned from him. I am his daughter, a reflection of his strength and stubbornness, shaped by his hands in ways neither of us expected. I am strong-willed, defiant, and resilient, but those qualities are also intertwined with the pain of my past. Even if our bond is painful and complex, I know that everything I am—the good and the difficult—is a part of him that I carry forward.

As I navigate my feelings, I find myself trapped between the daughter who misses her father and the advocate who can’t ignore the truth. I want to be proud of the strength he instilled in me, yet I can’t overlook the hurtful legacy he left behind. It’s a conflicting existence, one filled with a yearning for connection while grappling with the reality of what he did. I’m learning that it’s possible to hold both feelings—love and resentment—in my heart at the same time. In the end, I am a complex tapestry woven from both his influence and my own resolve to be better than what I’ve known.