Coffee, Dad?

I haven’t seen or talked to Dad for three years. Like with most father and son relationships, ours is complicated.

It didn’t have to be, but life happens. As a child, I have expectations of what a parent should be when I have no expectations of how I should be as their child.

We don’t see our parents, other than that, our parents. We don’t see them as men or women. We don’t see them as someone who is trying to understand life like most of us do.

In 2020, we welcomed the new year in a hotel with our Mom. It was for making it through another year. She loved it. She didn’t sleep through the night, watching on the TV the countdown to 2020. I never saw her as happy as she was that night.

Dad arrives in the morning, and when I saw him, all I have to tell him was;

“Coffee, Dad?”

Like Mom, Dad is a coffee drinker, and so am I. But, it isn’t the only thing I share with Dad. I am a photographer just like him. I also love to read and write.

“Yes.”

Dad isn’t known for long conversations. I remember years ago I sent him a very long text message, it was Christmas Eve, I can’t remember now what year it was, but I knew I was alone.

I was looking for a place to spend a few hours before it is Christmas. As I was walking to find an open coffee shop, I decided to greet Dad. I already talked to Mom a few minutes earlier.

I sent him a very long text message, with Christmas greetings and “I love you, Dad,” at the end, it got a very short response from him.

“K!”

I knew I laughed at it because, by that time, I accepted Dad for who he is — most of the time, he is reading a book and listening to classical music. And, he is always in pursuit of knowledge and searching for answers. But, it doesn’t mean he didn’t read my message. The truth is, he reads everything.

But why can’t he say, I love you, son?

By March 2020, we all knew what happened. The world came to a halt. For some reason, a day before my city will be on total lockdown, I paid Dad a visit in his office. Nobody knows what the lockdown means, it was a word new to me, and to many, it felt like it would be over after a few days, and life goes back to normal.

It never did.

It took another eight months before I saw Dad again. I have to revisit him in his office, where he can’t even go out, as anyone over 60 isn’t allowed to go out.

Dad is 81.

I didn’t see him that Christmas, but he called to greet us. There were no birthday celebrations, Christmas, or welcoming the New Year at a hotel.

But God allowed my Mom to have a birthday celebration in 2020 as her birthday was on February 17, she turned 81. It was a few days before the world came to know, a virus that ushered a pandemic last seen 100 years ago.

We didn't know it was her last, as she died on February 2, 2021.

The pandemic was hard on my Mom, who has been a dialysis patient for almost seven years. Every time we go to the hospital, it is risky for her. The virus is everywhere. And once you get it and need medical attention, you need to be alone.

If left alone in a hospital room, Mom will not survive as she needs help, and hospital staff can’t be with her, as she won’t be the only one who needs their attention. By this time, Mom is bound to her wheelchair.

And my fear, if she ever gets the virus, she would die alone in the hospital, and none of us will ever see her again. Death by the virus means the body has to be cremated, and Mom always told me that she wants to be buried.

Mom must have done right in the eyes of God. That didn’t happen. She died at home, with all of us, including our Dad — her first love, the only man she loved.

When I was 12, my parents separated, they grew apart. But Mom never found love again, nor did my Dad.

Mom never said a bad word about Dad. Then, as Mom was dying, one day, Dad visited her, and they held hands until they both fell asleep.

Love is never confined in time and space, and while for most of their life they were apart, their hearts never stopped loving each other.

When Mom died, Dad came home. He buried his wife and comforted his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Dad becomes a husband, a father, and a widower.

In the weeks that followed, my eldest sister went through Mom’s things, and she found a postcard from Dad addressed to me. It was dated in 1970, and I was barely a year old. I knew from stories that in 1970, Dad went to the US but came back, and the reason wasn’t revealed until I read what he wrote to me,

Be good always,

If you aren’t,

I’ll not go home anymore.

But if you are then,

I’ll buy you candies, apples, and toys.

Kiss Nanay (Mom) and all for me,

Your Itay (Dad)

I must have been good, and as promised, Dad came home with candies, apples, and toys.

Even as a baby, he treated me as equal. It was a contract between two men, who happen to be father and son.

After Mom died, I moved to be closer to Dad. I wish he would stay with me, but I know he loves being by himself and be with his books and music.

I cherish my moments with Dad. Whenever I do something for him now, without fail, he says;

“Thank you, Nap.”

My Mom’s death allowed Dad to be in our space again, as a Dad, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather.

Whenever it is allowed, he would ask us to have lunch together. And every time we are in the car, I always welcome our conversations.

Our relationship is no longer complicated. It took fifty years to happen, my Mom’s death, and a cup of coffee, but as Mom always tells me — “Life works out in the end.”

The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time, in other words, is an illusion. — Albert Einstein.