“You know your dad talks about you all the time. He’s always telling me about you and your brother’s accomplishments. He’s so proud of you.”

I grew up my whole life hearing variations of this statement. I used to be so embarrassed - it’s pretty cringe when your dad is constantly trying to brag about you at work, at parties, and to random brown families at the grocery store. My brother and I used to get so mad at him, begging him to stop and even avoiding him at times. I wish I recognized earlier that it came from pure love.

My dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 thyroid cancer the winter of my freshman year of high school. 95% of people who had similar conditions died within 2 years of the diagnosis. My biggest and most vocal fan wouldn’t even get to see me graduate high school.

When my dad was diagnosed, I became very aware of the fact that he might die without knowing who I really was. Neither of my parents did. Like a lot of my friends with immigrant parents, I had quite a different personality in real life and school verse at home. As soon as I stepped into the house, I turned on so many filters - changed my clothes, lowered my voice, limited my conversation to academics and extracurriculars. I subdued my personality and demeanor. My parents only knew a scoped down and muted version of who I really was. Was my dad going to die without really knowing who I am?

Throughout high school, my dad went through rounds of radiation, chemotherapy, and high-risk surgeries. He almost lost his leg and was bedridden for more than 6 months after one of the surgeries. He would later tell me, when I was in college, that he was in constant pain and severely depressed most of those years. But he survived. He saw me graduate high school and moved me into my Rutgers dorm my first day of college. He told almost everyone he saw that summer that I got into the Honors College with a scholarship.

My dad and I during the summer of 2016 after I graduated high school. He rarely ever smiles in photos but I explicitly asked him to do so here.

The end of my freshman year, I got an offer for my first internship. I called my dad the second I got off the call with the recruiter. (Within a day, he probably messaged and emailed over a 100 people about my summer plans. I was flooded with congratulatory texts from unknown numbers.) My dad is always the first person I call with good news. I would dream about getting an internship or award just so I could call him after and hear his reaction. That was the best part of achieving anything. It still is. But this particular phone call was special because it was one of the first times I actively decided to turn off a major filter. I wanted him to really understand how sentimental I felt in that moment. I told him I loved him and that he’s the reason why I applied in the first place. I told him I never used to believe in myself because I would compare myself to my twin brother (who was always ahead of me academically). I told him how much it meant to me that he always encouraged me to strive for (what seemed like) impossible milestones. I let myself cry as I told him. He was thrown off guard and mostly shrugged it off. But right before he ended the call, I could have sworn I heard his voice start to shake. I decided that going forward, I would be honest like this with him.

Throughout college, I slowly started turning off other filters. I began expanding my scope of conversation with my parents to not just include superficial topics like how I’m doing in class or what I ate for dinner. I decided to actually open up about my social life which included talking about my friendships more deeply and about attending parties, drinking alcohol, and dating. I just didn’t want to lie or hide things from them anymore. There was a decent amount of backlash at first, which included a lot of stern lectures and arguments. But over time, I kept being honest and pushed past the initial fear and awkwardness. Eventually, they grew to respect my honesty and trusted I was responsible enough to not be too reckless with my life. They started to understand me more deeply and I started to feel lighter, more fulfilled and warm in response.

Generally, for the past 4 years, my dad has been doing really well (as much as you can for someone who’s dying of stage 4 cancer). He’s the only patient that survived in his clinical trial of 120 people. He has been responding well to the treatment and has been diligent in sticking to his health regimen (intermittent fasting, daily exercise, ice baths and saunas, etc.) His cancer is still present all over his body (in his legs and neck and lungs) but it stopped spreading. Things were stable, that is until a few months ago, when my dad noticed an abnormal bump on the left side of his forehead. He only told me at first, asking me to keep it a secret from my mom and my brother. “Why unnecessarily stress them out if it’s nothing?”. He went to the doctor to get it checked out. It was not nothing.

I celebrated my 25th birthday at home with my parents this past October. They are the people who I love the most in this world and I truly believe that they would sacrifice anything for me; they would endure pain and heartbreak and even give up their lives for me. I am really that lucky. And for the past 10 years of my life, since my dad first got diagnosed, I’ve been on this mission to show him and my mom who I really am. Slowly, I’ve been turning off filters and developing a more honest, genuine, and meaningful relationship with them. During my 25th birthday, I felt quite at peace knowing these people whom I love finally knew so much of who I really was. I turned off almost all of my filters around them. Almost all.