There comes a time where you have a moment to ponder upon just what kind of father you have and perspective comes hard into play.
Being with Papa was my corner of peace I didn’t even know I had been given until now, in his absence, I realize I was fortunate to have had.
Was he a perfect father? Hardly not the case. We all can pick on our dads for their flaws and faults. My Papa had his share. Even Papa admitted to this, at times, without a word spoken. As a parent who has had to endure silent admittance to have not handled a situation well with a child, I know that feeling too well. It just took now to come to that arrival.
It’s difficult to see struggles of a parent to get every moment right until you have become one.
Though Papa passed on and left me in my adult years, after I had already become a mother, I ache to realize we had somewhat parted long before that time.
Growing up, I saw my Papa in the mindset that he was to be honored and respected no matter what. Even before he told me to live a good life, I would only need to follow the Ten Commandments, somehow I already knew honoring your mother and father was an unquestionable given command.
When I overheard him and Mama quietly contemplating on sending me back to live in the Philippines to stay with nuns, I said nothing about having heard any word of the conversation. I had visited a convent once when I was around the age of five. The absolute silence that crept through the halls while I was to sit next to Mama without movement or a word was not suitable for a hardly ever able to sit and not talk spunk-of-a-child like me.
That inner thigh pinch only those who have ever come to feel such pain from a mother can understand that should never be a resort when trying to get a child to do as you ask.
I’ve never seen a head nun get up and move so fast. What I thought was a long time to be wailing on the floor (where so I was, as one or two nuns scurried out) must have felt like a good amount of time for those who heard me also because while I know I probably did not deserve such reward, I received a piece of candy- a peace offering to help me quiet down.
Maybe Mama remembered that time with me as well because although I waited to see if there would be any further talk or action for me to be sent back, I found myself moving onto junior high that following year as scheduled.
I don’t know what kind of child I was in junior high, but I know and accept I was not a perfect one. Like Prince, the black horse I was told was the most difficult to manage and control during horseback riding for my 6th grade camp, I insisted would be my horse to ride, I perhaps was drawn to the same spirit. It was around that time I felt Papa was just looking at me from a distance, hardly asking me or talking to me at all.
By the time I was entering high school, it was Papa who decided to go back to the Philippines-without me.
When he left me to go back, it was not just days or weeks, but several months. I had been somewhat prepared. Again, to my quiet eavesdropping, I overheard him talking to Mama about the two of them going together. That I, being the youngest was old enough (whatever that entailed), shortly to enter high school. My older siblings, perhaps in the suggestion, could look after me.
Mama stayed back with me. Papa left.
Mama had her own reasons as to why not to go back with him for that extended period of time, but she kept to herself in my memories, truly never taking opportunity to share any moments with me during Papa’s absence. Mama always seemed to have kept to her own preoccupations.
For the first time, I felt fatherless. No Papa sitting there watching whatever sport he could find on our basic channels television. No Papa laughing at another Looney Toons cartoons or Three’s Company sitcom. No Papa to sit across from me to be seen reading his newspaper while I quietly read the headlines to myself. I had only a wall to look at with an empty chair, devoid of his presence.
Although he did return, his absence had been a distinctly voided silence. I, without choice, endured it. I seemingly ignored, but felt it.
In healing my own heart, mind, body, and spirit from any possibility of buried hurt, I reflectively think that he and I must have arrived to the realization sometime around that point I truly no longer was in need of his watchful eyes, suggesting I was no longer in need of him to look after me.
The memories I had walking around with him, talking to him, listening or watching him- they all slowly and surely withered away the more I began to find interest in other people and the world.
Always wanting to be by his side, Papa perhaps was my world as a child. And then, maybe he sensed he no longer was.
Like a child who gets distracted in her path, I must have given the impression I was ready to walk alone.
No longer did he hold my hand when crossing the street. I can’t even remember when he let go, but funny how I find myself now missing those times where he did.
No longer did we sit and watch those cartoons together when aired on television. It was sometime around that 6th grade year where my lack of desire to watch cartoons with him withered away. It was me who had pulled away. I know it was.
I can still hear Papa laughing when watching Speedy Gonzales or Bugs Bunny following Porky Pig and Elmer Fud. Simple moments he embraced with me I simply lost interest in.
I see this now. That perspective of a parent versus that one of a child. It hurts to admit that we, as children, inadvertently give the notion we no longer need our parents. It was the shows I was no longer interested in. Whether intentionally or not, Papa didn’t pick up on the mere fact that I was simply growing up and thus, out of my childish ways, each year at a time.
That permission to let go was never officially given, but the world didn’t wait for me to think that through.
I didn’t mean to let go of Papa. I just always thought if I wandered away a little, he’d always be there when I came back.
Before I knew it, I was off to college already starting my own growing family. The roles I quickly found myself in as a wife, mother, and student took an enormous toll of my time and energy.
The more I found myself moving forward and fast into accomplishing my set goals, time with Papa became more seldom. Timing seemed off when he would call. In my efforts, maybe, to show him I was fine, calling him even just to say Hello hardly came to mind.
It was me who regularly forgot such simple gestures. I know this now. I held the character to want to handle and control life my way. Even when Papa would call me, I recall now to have been somehow always be busy with life, our conversations sweet at times, always respectful, but short.
Soon, having anything in common with Papa seemed to have simply gone away.
Why did I not just sit with him when he watched cartoons with my two oldest? Why did I not sit a little longer with him when we started short conversations? Why did I not talk at the time to learn more about his life or continue our talks about his own childhood?
And, then, the child in me retorts,
Why did he not fight for my time? Why did he not insist to talk to me more? Why did he not just keep persisting even when I did act too busy or was truly preoccupied? Why did he not put himself first before my eyes? Why did he accept my silence as a cue that he should stop talking? Why did he just give up on not giving up on me?
What was the world doing to his heart, mind, body, and spirit that was taking away his joyous moments with me? What had the world done to me to let that happen? Then, that grown voice closes in on my thoughts to ask me, Why did I let that happen?
It was me. I know it was. I didn’t respond to the messages when I should have. I didn’t extend the conversations when I could have. I didn’t because somehow I took for granted that he would still be there eventually when I found the need or time to just sit or talk with him again. In his absence. In my absence. He’d be back. I’d be back. Until that day, one of us didn’t return.
I share moments with my children I know Papa would have loved to have been a part of. I am comforted by my husband who reminds me he is always here, probably watching us all the time, proud of us for what we have done and continue to do. It’s beyond comfort to truly believe that- Papa is still here with us.
I know now I made some choices to spend time with those in the world I didn’t have to. I could have used those moments to share with Papa. There are no regrets for there is no taking back time, but I reflect to know that wisdom tells me there are those who take away your time from those you should have spent them with instead if you are not careful.
We only reach out when we are in need to go back as a child. But in our adult world, it’s as if we think we know and do better than those before us ever did. This, perhaps is true. But better in what?
There comes a time where we find adulting is not so easy, but with greatest pride and silent hopes to get it right, we don’t reach out to just even say, “Hello” to the one who had been at your side from the beginning. Perhaps too afraid that in the ask, “How are you?” there will be some silence to release some truth that all isn’t so fancy and divine. As if they wouldn’t be the first to understand this.
The timidity to even admit that we struggle- for the strong and determined only grows further into silence when convinced that divulging in opposing truth would only cause worry and concern. Or, at worst, make you look weak and incapable of overcoming hurdles. You want to be peace and strength even when inside, you feel the walls are caving in and crumbling down on you. As if they wouldn’t be the first to understand this.
To cultivate truth in the peace and strength we fully want to arrive at, we emote only that in their eyes. We want to show we know more, are doing more, are being more. To ask in rhetoric, had we ever walked in their shoes? Are we truly better in our circumstances compared to their own struggles during their time facing the world grown, but still growing for the first time?
And in what we are better at, does that make us better in all things?
I wonder how my children view their very own father. I wonder how much they know, if they even truly know at all, how many sacrifices he’s had to make just to provide us the life we have had, to be able to not just make a respectful living for us, but be able to coach their sports and be regularly and routinely home for us all.
I wonder if my children know how much their father speaks of them with me; how proud he is of each of their successes, but afraid to celebrate too early, believing there is so much more still to be done.
I wonder if they have arrived in truth to grasp what their own father had to overcome throughout his childhood. I wonder if they have been able to accept or have come to admittance how much they have taken for granted who he has become today for us all.
I wonder if they only knew how much of our future he has continued to talk about and plan for from the time he taped up matrixes on walls of individual timelines for each of them, how scared they would be to actually think one man dare dream that big.
I wonder if they even believe in their father the way that, in his own push and frustrations at times, he has believed in each of them to be more and do more knowing they can because with much less, he did.
I look at my husband and am thankful to have found similar attributes that he and Papa share- that childlike spirit, strength, manhood, goodness and peace within.
I know Papa would agree with me that he has left me in good hands with a husband who does all he can to plan ahead for his family. That was one thing Papa would be glad to continue as I know in my heart he only tried in so many ways to get ahead.
Hello, Papa. If you can hear me now, I know you’ve long known this, but just in case you needed to hear me say it, I just want you to know, I’m good.
