tatay

i cant stop thinking and bringing memories: i will say a little about my father & I-

• he was a father that will threaten me to use a charcoal to practice writing if I dont
• he was a father who will made me fill up a dam of water to practice reading if i dont.  filling-up a dam back then in philippines is excruciating if you think about it now.  you will be in a long line with other kids, you'll pick-up a fight or your enemy is waiting for a lucky day that you will be there. you'll be lucky to go home with a clean face or avoided rolled-out in muds. of course, i will choose to fill-up a dam.

you can now imagine a long years living with him avoiding his shadow of fear or duel to make yourself a better person and what's wrong with that? 

the next thing i know, i was reading endlessly. had read 'gone with the winds' in my early teens. kane & abel, mario puzo's books and pick-up mills & boon along with the other books flying out of the shelves back then.

i won best penmanship in class and helped classmates to work with their homework.  i was a teen with money, street wise and use every talent i posses.  i sneak out from home to play chess in the corner of the street with kids a lot older than me to win some bucks.  what kind of a daughter iam to my father? not knowing what to do next and after next.  i am not a bad person and for what i will do is just what we call 'hyper'.

i once read a poem to my parents whose now together again:

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts.

emphasizing and reading the bold words.

the battle did not end and iam a better person because someone did not gave up on me.  i am one lucky person who had an opportunity to work overseas and every single letter i received from him will always makes me cry.  it was not abusive nor blame.  it was a fatherly letter to a daughter who always care. i cried because i was so guilty how hard i fought him. i run-away from home not only once and only to go home with a father with an open arms to accept a daughter again.

what more? he is not my real father - he is my step-father! through out the years i did not fail to let him know how sorry i was and how grateful i am.

luhod

why you didn't tell us all about it? that is so depressing to think you have to experience such begging. though we didnt get along very well, i would never in my soul do the same thing to you nor any of us except her.  i am so sorry. i should have known.  i maybe too far away but i know i could have done something to at least ease your pain.

tatay is now with you and i trust that both of you will pick-up the life you had happily lived before.

i love you both!

my textmate passed away 'dust in the wind'

Dear Tatay,

To this date I am still learning from you.  Did not know that punerarya need to wait 10 hours before they can move nor touch a dead soul.  You're a constant mentor and never failed to teach your children just about everything.  I just talked to Jhun-jhun and somehow we manage to laugh things of how you reason out for anything.

Now I will be missing your text and thank goodness you can text.  In an effort to be close to you I promised myself that I will text you at lease every week to check on you which you may have not notice we do.

There are too many things that I would sincerely like to express how grateful I am to having you as a father and some people say you are not my father.  I have never believe it nor you made me feel that you are not.  I will be truthful to what I will say next.  When I was young I used to hate how extremely strict you are to me, you will do anything to make me do the right thing.  You will make me choose to practice reading or fetch a water and fill up a dam.  Of course, I will choose to fill up a dam and when its done, you did not leave me alone and I ended up practice reading.  How much I hate you those times.  When I know your heading home from work, I will go and hid myself at the rooftop of our house and spend my afternoon until you get drunk and fall asleep, I am free for any task you may want to me do to study.  That does not happen everyday.  The continuous task to study goes on and I finally learned.  I did not realize it before but when I started learning to read, I did not stop afterall.  I found myself reading, writing and reading that led me an opportunity to work overseas. 

My life change dramatically.  I live a life too busy and too fast and each time I got a letter from you when I am in Hong Kong I cry, not that you say bad things it is too fatherly letter for a daughter.  For many years I worked you never asked a single cents from me not even once even when you are sicked.  Between phone calls when I am now here in US and I told you that my life is so different compared in HK you said you "i have $200 dollars, you want me to send it to you?"  I will never forget that offer 'coz I dont think anyone offered me that much.

I am lucky to know that I once a daughter, that I have a father that made me feel like one.  In spite of shortcoming you may have, I understand that none of it, is too cause any of us pain or sufferings there is always a goal to what you do.  People had an impression that you dont communicate well what people dont know is how loud, precise and clearly you carried a communication.  I used to say with my friends when we talked about our parents and I will reply 'dont get me wrong, i love my parents Tatay & Nanay but for some reason, I can sit with my father from dusk to dawn talking just about nothing and anything while I'll be with my mom and in less than an hour one of us is ready to twist each other's neck".

I am lucky to know you and for that I will always be thankful how wide you open your heart to me not only to carry me under your wings but to be there as always 'till the last string of your breath!

reviving feelings

i remember the days when i first came from hong kong to us of a.  when ill be left alone at home while noel is at work and kerks at school.  i woke up this morning feeling the same when at 10am i have nothing left to do.  today i tend laundries and cooked for lunch by the time it is 10am, i cant think of anything else what to do. 

those days do drove me crazy living from the city full of lives, non-stop meeting friends, every week of parties, after hour drinking, dining outside - french food, vietnamese, thailand, italian, greek, being the first of 50 customers of a new restaurant or just cruising islands. exploring restaurants that we have to drive more than 2 hours for a plate of foods or flew to either bangkok or philippines to spend a long weekend if we do happen to get that break.  life is different now but i do like remembering those days.

today made me remind being lonely here, it breaks my heart and i dont want to remember coming here that's a sad transition.

now i have my family and dont think i will ever choose to live anywhere without them.

it bleeds to know ...

i worried about de-deng not because of having a tough life, that is one.  what bothers me is knowing that she is not happy, that's causing the bleed and i cant take my mind out of it.  how do you help someone in that stage.  you can only talk so much but how do you break the cord of loneliness. i hate to know someone i knew having that stage of life.  i hate myself, i worry too much, i love too deep for everyone, everyone i touch, everything i care!

my children

it's been a long time when i felt like this, waiting for your kid to get better, scared.  the first time was when i picked-up kerks in a high fever, he was just less than a year old. i rushed him in a hospital while i hold him like a vegetable in a cab.  i am so scared, he doesnt move, look or anything. luckily at the hospital i met my regular doctor who attended with him right away. he gave kerks a shot and we were sent home.  it took days that i was staring at him all the time not remembering what i am thinking, just the feeling.  i never want to be away from him, i remember that.

now its avell. i hardly say a word to anyone, i dont even want to talk what happened to her to anyone. i am constantly next to her, watching every move she make to protect her injured arm.  its now the 2nd night that iam loosing sleep - feel like a week - watching the time - watching avell - staring her in her sleep.  iam waiting for the time when we get to bring her to an orthopedic doctor. seems like forever.

with krispin. i refuse to plan anything on a weekend - hes constantly sick of colds/flu and often times fever.  i do not expect him that he will be sick why iam not planning - but i remember that i dont plan anything so i can be with him.  it came to the point that i loose sleep no matter what i do, krispin needs to be with me and only then i will fall asleep.

family is amazing. makes you realize how far you can do without question, without thinking, you are always there whoever needs you most.

sweety is different. he watched in the corner of his eyes, seeing everything -  not saying a word. always an inch away from anyone whose about to fall, whose ready to carry you anytime there now, lift your spirit, makes you laugh and at that precise moment you did forget - that you are sick - or you were depress - it is now depressed - and no longer are.

family!

the Atis tree

that was not a dream, you did visited me last night but that was a nice drop-by:  here's how it started:

i dream of this house that we live in, in a number of times actually. this house has fruit trees and flower plants too at the front yard. you love trees, plants, flowers and many kinds. 

as it started:  tess and her family arriving at the house to visit us, no occasion just a usual thing that we do.  there was also a baboy from one of the hundred stuff that tess to unload from their car, the usual tess. and i saw kuya boy walking behind the baboy.  the baboy is scheduled for lechon. boys thing to do, tatay and kuya boy to lechon together like the two do get along.  maybe you're telling me that they will do somehow in another area of life.

anyway, in the dream abigail and yeye is very clear perhaps because they are the two that are grown enough to remember me whenever i visited you guys in philippines.  i took the two girls to tour the house, like it was big but no - it's not a big house.  somewhere during the same day, i walked outside the house to mend the flower plants and ended up at the fruit trees.  we have mango tree, atis and something else.  i started picking fruits for some are getting over ripe and took it inside.  yeye followed me the 2nd time and started to pick fruits with me.  some of the atis are getting over ripe but some are still too hard to pick.  we kept picking different fruits from different trees until we have to grab a container and yeye took a ladder to pick more.  the dream went on and on picking fruits, yeye climbing up and down the ladder until one of the atis stuck on my hand, i was staring at it then i remember ...... when you once told me the story of atis.

you once visited vioy house and so happen that they have an atis tree.  i was living with them at that time and i guess you are actually visiting me instead of them.  you adored the atis tree at the front yard while over looking standing at vioy's front door. the sprouting little fruits at it's current season - bearing fruits.  while in the moment of adoring the atis tree, you asked rita if you can have some.  rita looked at the tree the way you adored it, then turned to you and said 'you can't have some'.  she was smiling though when she told you that, not a smile of an insult but it is to cover how it might hurt you.  and it did hurt you.

it hurt you so much you said, it made you depress and told me the story a few days later or i think you told that to me when we were back in our home.  i know its depression 'coz you did not say a word back and if its anger you have screamed already.  i dont think you are nagsusumbong sa'kin its just that you are hurt and you subconsciously telling the story.

somehow the atis that's stuck in my hand, one iam staring at, one that stop me from placing it in the container, made me remember you. but somehow remembering the past i did not feel you are upset nor depress.  you are actually smiling while i played the memory of that day you were telling me the atis tee.  and that's when i felt it was not a dream and that you are smiling next to me - you made me feel you are happy wherever you are.  you are happy with us and i know that.

thanks for dropping by, i like that and i wouldn't mind you doing it often.

love you nanay,

lina