Inheritance

This is (late) Essay #37 of The 52 Essay Challenge, a series in which I write a new (unpolished & messy) essay each week during 2017.

When I was twelve, my dad taught me how to shoot a gun. I didn’t understand why nor did I question it; my brother and I simply went with him to the shooting range. It was matter-of-fact. It was like him teaching us how to tie our shoes: it was another basic lesson for life. Learn how to shoot a gun.

I didn’t grow up in a state where there were vast stretches of unpopulated land, where hunting was an everyday occurrence. I lived in New Jersey. A state comprised of scattered pockets of dense populations alternating with farmlands and forest. It’s not like I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone went out target shooting every weekend. It was just me and my brother learning how to shoot and care for a gun from my immigrant father, a man who did not serve time in the military. I’m not even sure where he learned to shoot and care for a gun. Maybe from his WWII veteran Bataan-death-march-surviving father.

I remember him teaching us how to hold it, how to load it, how to aim, how to brace for the kickback, how to reload. It was a .22 rifle, a manageable weapon for a 12-year-old.

“You need to be prepared,” he would tell us.

For what? I wondered.

He wasn’t teaching us the basics of gun use and safety for hunting purposes. He was preparing us for some unforeseen doomsday. A day he was sure would come. Like the second coming of Christ. We just didn’t know when. All he knew was that we needed to be prepared.

These days, I wonder if that day is closer than I think. (Some say the world is ending tomorrow, Sept 23rd. Are you ready??)

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My parents left the Philippines right after Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. The version they tell me of their immigration story isn’t what I imagine their reality to be. Their version sounds like a storybook: we came here for better opportunity, for the American Dream. I believe that to be partly true. I also believe that they have left out some important things. I imagine them fleeing their homeland; they tell me they just came over here because my dad was offered a medical residency in Ohio. My dad admitted later that he applied to every possible residency in the world just so he could get out. Sounds like flight to me.

I try to imagine what it might have been like to be given a small window to leave. To hurry, to get married, pack your things, and say goodbye to your family, not knowing if you’d see them again, not knowing if you’d see your homeland again. But knowing that this was your only shot out. And you needed to get out. Who knew what would happen if you stayed.

I think about this often when I consider what I have inherited from my dad.

Be prepared, he says. Not in the Boy Scout way, but in the “conspiracy-theorist-the-apocalypse-is-coming” kind of way. In a Doomsday Prepper kind of way. But with an immigrant’s flair.

The result?

I stock up on things. Just in case. Costco is my friend and enemy (aka frenemy). It is my biggest monthly expense. You never know when you’ll need 500 ziploc bags. Or when you’ll run out of toilet paper and not be able to make it to the store in time. But make sure that you use every bit of it (even the little shreds that are stuck to the cardboard tube) before you replace the roll. Do. Not. Waste.

Also, paranoia is mandatory.

Trust no one. Be suspicious of everyone. Trust must be earned; it is not automatically given. You must prove to me that you are trustworthy. Sometimes, though, I forget this lesson – I blindly trust and love folks who end up letting me down. And that sucks. Sometimes, though, sometimes folks surprise me.

Be able to defend yourself. That right to bear arms? Your best freaking friend. Well, at least my dad’s best friend.

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How much do we inherit from our parents, our grandparents? Our great-grandparents and so on? Sure, we might get their eye color or their hair texture or height. But what about the invisible traits? A knack for financial management inherited from a (great-)grandmother who lived during the Depression? A muted feeling of being “on alert” inherited from a war veteran? There have been studies about how our genes change due to lived experiences like trauma, and how those genes carry these memories, get passed down through the generations.

I wonder: what am I passing on to my children? To my grandchildren?

I also find myself asking: do they need to know how to shoot a gun?

Sometimes you can’t shake loose your inheritance.