A Prayer For My Father

I

I knew the moment my father was about to die. I couldn't explain it to you, but I just felt it.

I was so sure about my hunch that I spent the entire evening sitting on the couch next to my father's bed, watching him closely while he was resting.

He was lying in bed, nestled under a thin blanket while That 70's Show droned in the background. Typically, I'd hear him giggle along to the sitcom's laugh tracks, but not that night. That night, his eyes were shut, and he was sound asleep.

To pass the time, I flipped through the pages of my sister's teen magazines, answering the countless relationship quizzes that were honestly impertinent to a young 15-year-old boy. But I didn't mind because I had to find a way to get my mind off ominous thoughts.

Once in a while, I'd lower my sister's magazine to see if my father was still breathing. I'd watch his chest rise and fall with a cold countenance similar to that of a seasoned doctor.

Everything was relatively uneventful when I started checking at 10 p.m. By midnight, I was beginning to doubt if I should even lose sleep over a hunch. But then, at 4 a.m., I noticed my father's chest had stopped moving.

I moved closer to check. I couldn't feel any beat when I placed my hand on my father's chest. Then my heart started racing when it dawned on me he had passed away.

I calmly got up and started waking up everyone in the house: my sister, my auntie, my uncle, and my cousins. They were shocked when they heard the news and headed straight to my father's room.

While everyone else panicked and rushed to my father's side, I stood with my back against the wall. I understood the gravity of the situation, but I vividly remember mainly being emotionless.

There my father was, lying in bed as if he was sleeping. Only this time, he looked stiff and pale--as if he had just been dipped in ice-cold water. And the glassy pupils peeking slightly behind his rigid eyelids looked like a pair of headlights that had just been switched off. What once radiated warmth and brightness had now turned cold and grey.

I slowly walked toward him while the rest of the family stood around his death bed. I kissed him on the forehead and whispered: "I love you, papa."

II

My father had his first stroke when I was in sixth grade. My mother was so good at hiding secrets that I didn't even know what had happened to him at first. She was only forced to tell me the truth when I noticed my papa limping one day when I came home from school.

In the next few years, my father would suffer a few more strokes. After a while, we got used to him walking with a cane and slurring his words whenever he spoke. But by the time I was twelve, and my sister was eleven, our father was already in a vegetative state and couldn't speak.

My sister and I were old enough to be conscious of everything that was going on. But at the same time, we still sincerely believed that if we only clasped our hands tighter together in prayer, there'd be a miracle, and our father would be okay again.

To help my father recover, my mother hired a physical therapist to come to the house thrice a week. Every time the therapist arrived, my sister and I would rush to the bedroom to watch him connect wires to our father's body.

Once the therapist turned on his machine, we would observe our father's muscles contract rhythmically. Secretly, I imagined that the pulses of electricity running through his body would "turn him on" just like the way Frankenstein's Monster did.

After each session, I would tickle my father's feet to see if he could feel anything. It took a few years before I managed to make his foot twitch. But that was the extent of his physical progress. He would never walk or talk again.

Surprisingly, our father appeared emotionally present despite being paralyzed. We realized this when my sister and I watched That 70's Show for the first time and heard him laugh like a talking doll with a broken speaker. And whenever the entire family watched drama, we would see him whimper like a dog and shed a tear, even though he seemed expressionless because his face was paralyzed.

The most emotional I saw my father post-stroke was when my mother told him she had to leave the Philippines to work abroad. Although he couldn't speak, he moaned to express his anguish. We all cried, but my sister and I agreed that mom had to do it.

After a bout with bankruptcy and rising medical bills, my mom had to become an illegal immigrant in the United States. Despite being a college graduate, she had to work as a waitress and a caregiver to make sure we all survived.

I was certain my father wouldn't have agreed with my mother's decision. But there was nothing he could do. He couldn't even say "I love you" as our mother walked out the door with her suitcases.

III

My sister and I didn't realize this back then, but in essence, we had lost our father after his third stroke.

Before he became paralyzed, our family was always together. But after our mother left, my sister and I felt like orphans. Even though our father was still with us, there was nothing he could do to fulfill his parental obligations.

After a while, my sister and I got used to my father always being in bed. We hired some help to take care of his needs, and on their days off, my sister and I would take turns feeding him and moving him around to prevent bed sores.

At some point, everything became pretty mechanical. Although we did our best to do our responsibilities, we stopped talking to our father and hugged him less and less.

Even though our father was there, he somehow became invisible. And his bed turned into a box everyone felt too lazy to move aside.

Down the line, we had completely forgotten that even though he couldn't move, he was still there emotionally. Sometimes, I would notice him follow me with his eyes as if to ask, "how's everything?"

But all I could muster was smile and declare, "I love you," only because it was the most convenient thing to say when I didn't know what else to say.

IV

It's been almost twenty years since my father died.

Now that I am older and have more time to contemplate more profound existential questions, I realize I barely knew my papa. Even though I was with him for fifteen years, I only truly got to experience his presence for a fraction of that time.

So who was my father, really?

I suppose it depends on who you ask. Now you might think that my mother is the best person who could tell me about my father. But she was and still is undoubtedly the most unreliable regarding that question.

Our mother always used positive words when we were kids to describe my father. She'd always tell us he was intelligent, hardworking, and caring--admirable attributes that we ourselves could see in our papa.

However, as we got older, the positive words mom used to say mainly had transformed into pejoratives. When I was around nine or ten, my father was suddenly a thousand variations of stupid and lazy. Of course, my mom loved my dad dearly. But like all good marriages, her affection for him mutated into brutal honesty as time passed.

Hearing negative things about our father also affected our perception of him. I remember getting mad whenever my mom said, "you're just like your father," because that also meant I was stupid and lazy.

But the beauty of time is that it opens you to new perspectives. Despite a few rough years, I now realize that our papa was a good man despite his imperfections.

The truth was that our father worked hard to give us what we needed in life. He fell short a few times, but we knew he always tried his best, along with my mom.

He was also a brilliant person who always had the patience to answer whatever questions we had. He allowed us to be ourselves and discover what we could become. Most of all, he treated us well, and unlike other dads, he was never afraid to show us affection.

I still remember how my sister and I would run into our father's arms when he came home from work. He would then hug us tightly, kiss our foreheads, and say, "I love you, guys." I still vividly recall how that embrace made us feel so secure--like nothing could ever hurt my sister and me once we were in it.

V

Some years after my father's death, I stumbled upon the movie The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. It's a true story about Jean-Dominique Bauby, a renowned French magazine editor who was paralyzed from a stroke but managed to write an entire memoir by blinking his left eye.

Parts of the film were depicted through Bauby's eyes while trapped in a body he couldn't move. Through a vignetted lens, his point-of-view showed disorienting and often claustrophobic scenes filled with loved ones, doctors, and wards interacting with him in whitewashed hospital rooms. And Interspersed between these frenzied snippets of reality were the hazy montages of happy memories that offered respite from his seemingly insurmountable tragedies.

I found Bauby's first-person perspective particularly visceral because it felt like I was experiencing what he was going through. Every time he blinked, the screen would turn black for a moment. And whenever he cried, vivid scenes would slowly transform into a smear of colors, just like what you'd see when your eyes fill with tears.

"So, this is what it's like to see the world through my father's eyes," I thought while watching the film. And in the middle of this strange epiphany, sadness descended upon me like a heavy blanket on my shoulders.

I envisioned life through my father's eyes, and all I could see was misery and hopelessness. Could you imagine how sad it must have been for him to live his days staying in bed staring at the same walls? To see his children grow up and live their lives without him directly participating in it? And to not ever see his wife until his death?

If only I had hugged him a little longer and talked to him even though he couldn't talk back, perhaps it would have made his life just a little bit worthwhile. Little gestures that most of us take for granted could mean a lot to someone like my father, who could only use their thoughts to escape their tragic corporeal state.

Now there isn't a day I don't think about my father. Like him, I've learned to use my thoughts to amend the things I failed to do when he was still alive.

Sometimes I find myself telling my father stories in my head, hoping that whatever I share with him would provide some color in his new blanche paradise.

And before I sleep, I always say a heartfelt " I love you" to him. It's a phrase that's become a mantra, a prayer I dearly hope he'd still hear somehow, because I desperately want to compensate for the times I didn't say enough of it when it mattered.