Remembering Papay - Twenty-Five Years Later

TODAY marks the 25th year that my father has been gone from this world. He died when I have just learned to read and write.

One of the things I remember about him was his habit of bringing home chocolates for me, no matter how drunk he was.

He knew I loved those chocolates (and still do), and every time he came home, without fail, I would always find some in one of his pants' side pockets.

While he treated me as a child, he also treated me as an adult. He would always respond to my childish queries with real-life answers - no sugar-coating.

I learned from him the local term for halo, that circular thing above saints' heads - to signify their holiness. I also learned from him that it was the sun, or any source of light, and the way it hits the water in the pavement, that creates that dancing reflection in the opposite roof eaves.

He never got tired of me pestering him with my ABCs. I used to follow him around either singing or reciting my ABCs - but in the end, when my elder siblings suggested I learn to read and write at an age earlier than usual, my father remained firm that I should learn it at my own pace. At any rate, I was really rather bored with syllabic formations that time - give me games anytime.

My father was not always a model father - but he had his fatherly ways for sure, there's no mistaking about that.

There was this one time when he made a horn for me out of coconut fronds. Just a simple gesture but one that's enough to make him some sort of a super human for me in those early days.

He also brought me to the provincial capitol one time. I remember there was this huge digging on the side of the road, and instead of navigating away from it, he simply grabbed me and leapt over the hole - perhaps unaware that he had just added a few more superhuman points for him, in my eyes at least.

I remember I was around five that time, it was Christmas, and I had this huge bump in my right cheek. I was really moody that time, being uncomfortable and all with the bump - and knowing that I also love cheese, he bought me a bar, and told everyone else that it's for me and me alone. In the end, I could only eat a few slices, since the pain in my cheek was almost next to a toothache.

There was also this other Christmas, again before I could even read or write - we would hang socks (not stockings) on our window sill. I grabbed this pen and paper and started "writing" what I wanted for Christmas - by writing I meant scribbling while saying out loud what I was supposed to be writing. I reasoned, I could not yet write, and hey, this was the next best thing to writing!

Anyway, I clearly stated that I didn't want anything in particular but would really love a single coin to go inside my sock. Something for me to jiggle.

Christmas morn came and voila! I got my coins in my sock, jiggling amidst the candies. Yes, he gave me more than one coin, for how indeed could it jiggle alone!

During World War II, My father and his twin sisters stayed with their maternal grandparents in their coco and hemp plantation south of town. They had numerous adventures during those years, some of which he would tell us, in lieu of bedtime stories.

I learned from him the local term for "approaching" - "naghihirandaon" - the way he would describe the fighter planes droning in the skies.

When Typhoon Dinang destroyed my grandfather's camalig house on Christmas Day 1981, my father commissioned one of the local photographers and posed with me in front of the shambles, and then sent the picture to my aunt as proof that yes, their old house had stood its last.

As I have earlier said, my father had not always been a model father - but my father he is, nevertheless.

I am proud to be his son - I am proud to have shared these experiences with him - no matter how brief our time together had been.

A, twenty-five years.

And here I am, with my twenty-five something blog - and I still do love chocolates.