Ang Tatay Ko

If there is one memory in my life that would probably form part of a flash flood of memories when I bid this world goodbye (if this indeed happens when you die as I saw in the movie Armageddon) it would be one of my father's 80th birthday wherein we gave him a surprise.  His friends in church including those who used to attend as well as his kins and their families, both from his side and my mother's, were there.  It was held in a social hall of  Philam Village in Las Pinas. We had a catering and a beautiful cake that resembled a chess mat (though he doesn't really play chess, just looked good for a male celebrant : P ).  His grandchildren, eight in all, prepared a dance number at the end of the celebration.  I was suppose to sing but I got no music accompaniment though I kind of doubted if  I could really do that as I never sang in a family affair before- that's a different pressure, he he.  We did an AVP with "Dakilang Katapatan" as music score, the song still brings tears to my eyes whenever I ponder upon it. It was so memorable because I knew we made my father very happy.  


My father turned 82 last February 7 and though you can see him very much a grandpop, he still moves like I used to remember him as a child.  We did not exactly had the best times with my father.  In our early years as a family, my mother would always lament on my father's gambling habit.  It was excessive, I had to admit, but not to the point of us being left with nothing to live by.  But of course, we never heard the end of it  from my mother who had to bear the burden of such a habit. What could've beens if my father did not gamble that much or at all.


I will never understand why he was like that because, I don't know, probably I was too busy being a child and really had no time worrying the problems of the adults.  All I know is I grew up with a father who was there whenever I need him.  When I had my foot wounded and eventually sprained learning to bike, he carried me to a "hilot" which I think was actually a doctor of some sort as I remembered him wearing a gown. The clinic had lovebirds and a monkey.  When I was too lazy to write my theme works, he would write them for me, of course not without reprimanding me for playing and not doing it myself, but he did it anyway. There was a time as a child when I would sleep beside my father who made his bed at our living room (we were already 5 kids so the bedroom was just enough for mom and kids, the other was being rented to augment the family's income) and I would see him smoke a stick or two before going to bed.  Thank God and His miracles, that habit stopped.


You must be wondering if  love was lost between him and my mother.  Let me just take a few steps back for a clearer perspective, I guess.  Actually, theirs was a marriage of convenience if I would base it from my mother's stories.  He is 15 years older than her and my mother said she used to wash his clothes as a sideline. My father was renting then an apartment owned by my mother's relative where she lives and whom she was helping.  My mother said she had a falling out with her boyfriend then and upon the advise of  her mother's sister's Chinese husband (can you trace the connection? ha ha - they were the relative I was referring to), whom we fondly called Lolo Buncha, he married my father because as how Lolo Buncha would put it, he can support a family as he had a stable job. She was 22 at that time, my father was 37.  Over the years, I don't recall any sweet moments between them. There was a time as a child when I chided my mother into confessing his love for my father (hhhmmm, so I was really a bit tactless even as a child) and what I remembered her answering was "naging  5 na nga kayo eh."  Not exactly the answer I was expecting, ha ha ha!  I even remembered a time when they fought bigtime and the neighbors had to come to the rescue.  Hmmm, if I feel remorse remembering that?  Nope, I guess as a child I had a clear delineation on things that I should worry about and grown up issues were not counted.  Actually, it was kind of funny as I remembered us sisters (we were only 3 at that time) discussing who goes with whom in a matter-of-factly manner.  I can't help but smile at the thought.  Yep, amidst the skirmishes and threats of  leaving the other, both are very much together except of course when the granny duty calls and one has to go and leave the other.  If  there was love at all despite the unlikely start of a lifetime partnership?  Well, let me just put it this way - one time, when my mother had to be rushed to New Era's hospital in Commonwealth, Quezon City while we were visiting my sister who lived there, my mother kept on telling us to tell my father who was left in our house in Dasmarinas, Cavite.  That was a Saturday night, I believe. At 4:00 am the following day, my father was there at the hospital.




Best of all, I would probably have images of  how my father was so well loved by God.  There are a lot of things in my life that I am uncertain of  but there is one thing I am so sure of and THAT IS IT.  God loves my father.  I can't exactly remember when he became a Christian but I did remember attending another church where I would study Sunday School and would sing in a choir called Junior Choir (I can still hum some of our songs then).  I remembered him praying when my mother was about to give birth to our youngest.  I was 7 at that time.  There was a time when he gave up on it. But God was faithful and used me to bring him back.  Nope, there was no me talking him into it. It was just that I also became a Christian and started striving to live as one (yes it was hard but fulfilling).  It was God all along faithfully working in his life until one day, he started to attend the church again with me and in an altar call,  re-dedicated his life to God.  From then on there was no turning back. He ministered in every way he felt he could.  He was an elder of the church, a lone outreach minister to Silang, Cavite (our church was in Las Pinas), the oldest member of the choir, a part of a Tuesday bible study group and a regular attender of  Wednesday Prayer Meetings.  During our early days in Dasmarinas, Cavite,  he would still go to his bible study  and prayer meetings in Las Pinas until it became physically impossible for him already.  He spends an hour or so every afternoon reading the Bible and praying to God. Serving God became his life.  Loving God, I guess, became his passion.  To this day, in his old age, he rarely misses travelling the long way back to our home church every Sunday in Las Pinas. He commutes by the way.  

My father is 82 years old and his life is a living testimony of God's faithfulness and loving kindness  Imperfectly perfect before God.  I am indebted to my Heavenly Father for giving him to us - as a husband to my mother, as a father to us his 5 children and a doting grandfather to his 8 beautiful grandchildren.  For my father and his life of blessings, SOLI DEO GLORIA!!!!