The last time I spent nights at my Dad's house was when my mother passed away. Two years passed, and I found myself sleeping in my old room with the things that brought back memories. Nothing changes on the second floor of this house. All my mom’s stuff, exactly in the place when I last saw ‘em. 

My undergraduate thesis was about death. I worked on that for more than 1 year, flooding myself with philosophy books of life meaning and death thoughts. Death for me was no longer scary since then. It’s just a life phenomenon that we must accept as a part of our life stage. So many young people hope that they were never born, and so many old people hope to greet death sooner. At the end of the day, we need to deal with it, and I always choose to pity the ones who were left behind, not those who died. Those thoughts came to me very often while I was packing all my mom’s old stuff and put in the donation box.

My dad has been remarried after my mom died. At first, I was so angry with this decision, but just a year later, I was on an expedition and had a chance to talk with a friend. In the middle of the Eastern sea, she told me that she was a child of a remarried couple. She also experienced a kind of hatred from the first child of her dad, but she seemed okay with that. She said she understood and hoped someday she would be accepted. That conversation left a black hole in my mind; humans can easily hate others for a mistake that person never made. My friend has never been asked to be born by her parents. 

On another chance, someone I respect told me that, at least in my mom’s lifetime, my dad has been a faithful and responsible husband. Ensuring that my family was never in hunger or lack of education. Plus, being faithful and committed to only one person for 28 years is not easy. And that makes sense to me. After my dad lost my mother, he never threw away her goods (and he’s still having a folder of her pictures on his phone) or put down her pictures in the living room. He just needed a partner before he died (because all his kids are now living their own lives far away). 

Being in my childhood house has taught me acceptance. It gave me time for myself to take a step back to review all my decisions in the past and what I needed to advance. I might never agree with my dad’s decision, but at least I am no longer in anger or hatred.

I just realized from that one-week stay that acceptance is a product of deep reflection on a step back in time.