Not all the time I want to talk about my childhood, especially the part where father left us. We practically grew up without him, and nobody cared to explain why. I didn’t ask anyone either because I thought it was forbidden to talk about it. So, I was left alone to surmise things for myself. I figured out that maybe if I don’t discuss him, missing and longing would not be real. So why only now, you might ask, bringing it out into open? For some strange reason, it just struck me.
The first few months were extremely raw for me. I was dealing with grief in different ways. As for my other siblings, I'd like to think I was the closest to him. That's why when he left,I was the one really affected. But no one knew about it. Outwardly, I looked fine but in the inside, I was developing insecurities. My mother, then, became so consumed looking for means to feed us. She would get her hands on anything just so we can continue with our studies.
Father taught my first ABC. He was just so patient; I would not be able to do the same thing if I was on his shoes. He would scribbled my name on the first line of a Grade one pad paper and have me filled up the whole page, back and front, with my large, bold-print handwriting. He was my first teacher in math too. We own a small sari sari store then and he would ask me to give the loose change. Unluckily, I never grew love for numbers. I also remember contacting skin infection before my school age. I would scratch my arms and legs until they turned red. I was once, covered with sores and lesions and father did all he could to soothe and relieve me. He would boil few guava leaves and bathe me with it. He would also tuck me neatly to bed after falling into sleep while waiting for him to finish his boxing on TV. I hate the sports when I was a child, but now I shriek, yell and shout every time Pacquaio made a hit.
Untold til now, I was in the comfort room when I heard him and mother fighting. No, he didn’t hit her, but they were cursing and calling names and then I saw him walk out of the house. I can't imagine how my young heart handled it. There was emptiness I can't explain. He came to school a few times but that’s were all to it. He showed up some 13 years later at my brother’s wedding, but only to leave again. Until news came that he died.
I kept rationalizing with myself that I had every right to be mad. Life wasn’t supposed to be this way – my father was supposed to watch me graduate with my college degree. He was supposed to give me fatherly advice to send me on my way to the “real world.” He was supposed to be one that walked me down the aisle at my wedding.
My father had swiftly moved out of our lives, like a movie scene of mysterious men on horseback making a mad escape into the dark night, leaving only a swirl of dust in their absence. But now that I’m of better age and understanding, even though my life still feels like a jigsaw puzzle sometimes in which the pieces don’t quite fit, I’m in a good place right now. I have my own family to cherish and take care of. True, that sad thoughts come in every now and then, but I’m slowly letting them all go. Surely, I will miss him all my life..
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