Happy Father’s Day, Pang!
Pang, of late, I comfort myself in the thought that you and Mamang are together now in heaven. I can imagine the joy the two of you have as you catch up after 13 years of not being together. I can imagine the exchange of songs you render to each other, just how you sang to each other when you were still with us. I can only imagine.
Imagination, I’m rich in that. In our many days of want, you taught me to use my imagination to see the future I wanted for myself. My imagination brought me to many a dreamland I never thought I would see in my lifetime. The faraway clouds above our humble home were always the subject of my imaginings. They appeared like white cotton candy or mimicked the shape of a dog or ice cream in a cone. Or the face of God. How joyful we were when I shared with you my first plane ride in 1992 to Cebu and how I regaled you about the beauty of the sky filled with amber cumulus clouds at sunset. Vicariously, you shared with my happiness as we lounged in your hammock under the himbaba-o tree. You were always happy for me — a seal of approval that built my confidence, that made me dream a dream.
Imagination, I have plenty of that because you taught me to use it when I am bored or when I am contemplating something. Or when I am lonely.
Since Nanay’s passing on May 21, loneliness has stolen the night from me. Grief is a thief that hostages me in the night. I am its prisoner when all is quiet, when all is still, when all is at peace. It comes unannounced as I toss and turn in bed and I just drift in grief. Laging ninanakaw ng lungkot ang antok, Pang.
But imagination is potent, so, in bed, I roll onto the side of memories. Just like last night, I counted the many ways you loved me. I fell asleep, no matter how late, with a grateful heart.
To love exclusively is one of the many lessons I learned from you. Never once did Nanay question your fidelity to her. Yours is my favorite love story. You saved P125 to afford your bride, almost 10 years younger than you, a bespoke traje de boda. You rented a suit. Your wedding rings were borrowed from the priest who solemnized your wedding on May 23, 1965 and returned them right after the ceremonies were over. (You always taught us to return what we borrowed. And never to borrow money if we don’t have the capacity to repay it. You taught us to live within our means and never to live a life of pretension. You taught us never to steal because not only is it bad, but also because it will rob us of our reputation and dignity.)
Two days shy of your 58th wedding anniversary, Nanay, with our hearts saddled with a boulder of grief, left us to join you, perhaps all too excited to celebrate with you. My imagination led me to think that you were waiting for her at the gates of heaven when she passed on. I could only imagine the tight embrace between you and how Nanay melted in your arms. Such love. Such devotion. My four brothers and I are beyond grateful you are our parents. And if I would be born anew, I would still choose you and Mamang to be my father and mother.
Thank you for affording us the comforts of life with the little that you had. You taught us not to complain but instead celebrate the blessings we had for the year. After all, you said, no blessing is too small to not be thankful about.
One big blessing you taught me is to believe that there’s grace in waiting. A tenant farmer, you waited five months before you could harvest the palay. In between planting time and harvest season was a series of challenges — delayed irrigation, typhoon, pests. But you practically prepared for the worst. The weather news on your transistor radio or our black-and-white TV was your best friend come dusk because you always watched out for the coming typhoon. You knew how to wait for grace because you were a farmer — and a good harvest, despite the challenges that came with the territory, was a grace from God.Thank you for teaching me the art of waiting. Because we could not have most of the things we wanted in life in a snap of a finger, you told me to wait — for the right time, for the right break, for the right moment. Waiting for grace, I learned from you, also required the mind and body to do their job. “You just can’t wait without first planting the seed,” you said in the vernacular. So I learned to wait.
Waiting, for you, always came with a twin: hoping. With hope, you taught me, came the intervention of the divine. You hoped for greater yield, you prayed. Though your prayers were succinct, direct to the point. Not inside the church. But under the sky, in the open field.
Thank you for teaching me to hope — in times of defeat, in times of want, in times of challenges, in times when hope itself was elusive, far from sight, or totally not visible. I figured to have hope is to have faith. With hope comes the imminent answers to the prayers, to the pleas to God. When all else fails, hope still. You said that. It still rings in my head. Those who have less in life bank on hope because they find richness and riches in hoping. Like dreaming, hoping opens a clear blue sky. So there’s always a need to hope.
Thank you for raising a fighter in me. I may have lost some battles but I always win because you taught me how to put up a good fight — with life. Thank you for making sure I would always have a winner in me. I can only be grateful for the inspiration that fortified my spirit.
With prayers in my heart, I hope I will sleep better tonight, Pang. I will cultivate the happy thought that you and Nanay are together now—serenading each other with kundiman and harana songs. Perhaps I will sing with you Bituing Marikit, the first song I memorized in full as Nanay taught it to me when I was six. Or probably Anak Dalita, your favorite kundiman. Let all the songs I learned from you and Nanay be my lullabies tonight in my mind. My grateful heart will imagine many a dreamland again.
Happy Father’s Day, Pang. Please, please send also my kisses to Mamang. I love you both with my life. *
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