No, this isn’t a list of presents I’ve received from my father over the years — that could fill a book. Rather, it’s a list of intangibles that make up half of who I am: they say every child is 50-percent father and 50-percent mother, and I think that I must have inherited the following traits from him:
His logical way of thinking. My dad wanted to be a detective when he grew up but there wasn’t much call for private investigators in postwar Manila, so he took the next best profession instead: becoming a doctor. In diagnosing a case, he’s like Ellery Queen on the trail of a murderer, following clues till it leads him to the most likely culprit. He may have the less glamorous title of pulmonary specialist now, but within the circles of smokers, asthmatics and life-or-death cases, Dr. Eduardo M. Jamora is legendary as the doctor who saved their lives, or cured them of that nagging cough.
His sense of humor. Every time we have lunch together, my dad will thumb through his cell phone to recite the week’s best text jokes to us (he even translates them into English for Scott). A rich supply of jokes, and a rich sense of the absurd, have made him the most easygoing dad you can imagine. He can tell us about staying in a certain dodgy hotel in the US where he was assigned to “Room 666” — then recount all the creepy sights and smells of the room — and leave us in stitches. He shares with his kids a love of watching Benny Hill and Peter Sellers comedies on TV, so we always have a common frame of reference. Humor runs deeply in his life, in his profession, and in his way of dealing with the world. It’s a gift I’ll always treasure in him.
His love for music. My father can build a stereo from scratch (he actually did, during his residency in NYC), and the turntable was always a prominent part of the household. I remember long trips in the car when MacArthur Park, Jack Jones and Johnny Mathis would be blaring, but my father loved jazz most of all: Bill Evans, George Shearing, Frank Sinatra and Mel Torme were only a fraction of his amazing collection of vinyl. My brother and I amassed our own record collections in response — in a bid to assert his own identity, my brother even went through a jazz-fusion phase in the Eighties while I veered towards New Wave — but we both have a solid foundation in the classics thanks to my dad. Today mon pére does a killer version of My Way on the Magic Sing, and he regards the iPod with near-talismanic wonder: “What’s the point of making playlists,” he insists, “when I can hear songs I’ve never heard before on ‘Shuffle’?”
His love of good food. I have a theory that my dad must have been French in a former life. It’s not just that his signature dish is coq au vin (which illustrates what British food writer Nigel Slater said about men and booze: “They only cook twice a year but it always involves a bottle of something.”), that Paris is the most beautiful city or that French wine and cuisine are the best, my father has that particular Gallic superiority that drives all the other peasants crazy. Few men would have the couilles to tweak the French themselves: once, at a Michelin-starred restaurant, dad ordered the foie gras and it was served to him raw and quivering on the plate. My dad promptly sent it back, telling them to “cook it more.” Mon dieu! You can imagine the commotion this caused between the maitre d’ and the chef. In the end, however, the customer prevailed, and my father managed to extract his pound of flesh … lightly seared. I guess they couldn’t argue with the true Frenchman in the room.
His love for movies. Cinema is the greatest art form, according to my dad, and he’s absolutely right. No other medium meshes the other arts of writing, visuals and music to come up with the transporting, sometimes life-changing hybrid that is film. (Maybe that’s why he was so supportive when my youngest sis, Marie, wanted to become a filmmaker.) Whether he’s viewing the sublime (Babette’s Feast, The Deer Hunter, Dr. Strangelove) or the ridiculous, he’s an astute cineaste who can guess the villain within 10 minutes of a movie. When that Harrison Ford/ Bonnie Bedelia flick Presumed Innocent premiered, he leaned over immediately and whispered, “I bet the wife did it.” Spoiler alert! I made it a point not to sit through thrillers with him in the room again.
His looks, hopefully. When he was young, people often compared my dad to Robert Redford. It wasn’t just the movie-star looks, it was a certain regal bearing he had, a commanding presence that served him well as a parent, when one word by him was enough to send us kids scurrying; and as a doctor, when he’s playing God with patients’ lives. At the hospital, nurses would know Dr. Jamora was doing his rounds by inhaling the intoxicating scent of Ted Lapidus he’d leave in his wake.
His respect for excellence. My dad’s seen a lot of political regimes come and go, and he’s never one to hold his tongue about what needs fixing in the Philippines — but he’s always hoping the country will get better. He believes in education, and excellence, but all too often finds himself surrounded by “mediocrity.” From him I’ve learned that mediocrity and incompetence are two of the worst sins a person can commit — to himself and his country. To settle for something that’s just enough to get by when you can aim for excellence. It’s spurred his offspring to strive harder, at times to an almost neurotic degree. If we couldn’t be the best at what we did, we should at least try our best.
His faith. My dad has taught me that people can change for the better, if their faith is strong enough. When he hears about heinous crimes, or stories about people who appear to have everything yet can’t find happiness, it’s because “they don’t believe in God.” One lesson I take away from all this is that no matter what the tragedies in your life, no matter what mistakes you’ve made, if you have a spiritual rock to cling on to, there’s always hope for redemption.
Genetics is a roll of the dice. I like to think I inherited a lot of great things from my mom, including her energy, passion, drive and love of art. But from my dad, I inherited a very definite idea, not only of how a father should be, but of what a person can be.