mom left for a year and dad threw away my carnation

Okay this is going to sound cheesy but I need to get this out.

It's not like, devastating cry-your-eyes-out territory, but when I was in middle school my mom had a huge fight with my dad and just. left. For a year. Gone.

My little sibling was still in elementary school at the time.

So naturally all the housework just became my problem. Like that was just the new reality now. Every single morning before school I had to make sure my sibling ate breakfast, and the second I got home I had to go straight into chores. If I didn't? Dad would absolutely lose it on me.

That was just life for a while.

And then Parents' Day rolled around on the calendar and I couldn't stop staring at it. (Parents' Day in Korea is May 8th, it's a whole thing, you're supposed to give carnations to your parents.) My sibling and I were both so young, we had literally nothing to give. So I scraped together a few thousand won, maybe like a couple bucks, went to the neighborhood convenience store, and bought a carnation for my dad.

Gave it to him.

And the next day he'd left it out in the yard. Just. dropped it outside and went wherever he went.

I saw it sitting there and I didn't even think to pick it up. I just. left it. For days. That thing just stayed in that exact spot for days.

All kinds of thoughts went through my head.