Rest in peace Dad

I do clearly remember when I was 6 years old on a sunny morning in our front yard while my mother and father was gardening that I decided to get a broom stick, stood on a chair and starting singing my lungs out in the tune of Tie A Yellow Ribbon and told myself and my parents that someday, I will be a great performer.

I do not remember much of my childhood other than what my mother told me in stories. I am the eldest of 4 children and my mother was only 15 and my father was 16 years old when they had me. I do not remember much about the good side of my father. I guess because his life turned completely in chaos when I was in the age of understanding and my memories of calm and happy childhood was clouded by fear, disappointment and disgust.

My father lived a very short life. I guess now I could understand why he had the urge to do and try everything he can get his hands on because someway somehow, he knew he will only be in this earth for a short period of time.

At a young age, he became a husband, a father and a business man trapped in the big demand and expectation to be a good man of the house that can protect his family while all eyes are on him waiting for him to make a mistake and fail. With no father-figure to guide him, he grew up in an environment of solidarity and the only weapon he has is his determination to prove that he can make it.

As he began to taste the success of his hard work, temptations lurking came to get him off his path. He became an alcoholic, womanizer and a wife-beater. My mother's life became a living hell with him but only to keep taking it all for the sake of her children. At the age of 12, I did not understand this scenario and the more my mother tried to explain why she continues to live this way, I refuse to understand and began nourishing hate towards my father. I hated my life with them and wanted to get away which I did as soon as I finish high school. With support from my grand mother, I was able to leave home for College. Years later, I graduated with a Degree while my mother finally left my father. My father carried on living with his new family. Our immediate family finally had celebrations of special occasions with laughter and peace. We carried on with our lives and tried to forget the chaos we endured for so many years.

Years later, my father was diagnosed with cancer. I found myself confused with emotions. I feel that I have an obligation to be at peace with what is bound to happen and at the same time relieve myself of the unsettling feeling of hate towards my father. My father was sent home from the hospital because the doctors cannot do anything for him. All we can do is make him comfortable. August 27, me, my mom and the rest of my siblings came to visit him to greet him happy birthday. I remember him clearly saying "I do not look handsome anymore." I told him you will always be handsome to me. There is that feeling of sadness in the air. The feeling was strong enough to say that we all fell that this will be the last time we will see each other. Early morning the next day, August 28, I was awaken by a know on my door by my father's other wife saying my father was asking for me. I came to him as soon as I can. I held his hand and told him I am here. He called my name and said it why is it so dark here and started gasping for breath. He stopped breathing and I tried to revive him but to no success. I pronounced his passing 15 minutes later.

This is the beginning of another phase in my life. As I live my young adult life with knowledge and starting to acquire experience in so many facets of life, I begin to slowly understand the life that my father lived. In my previous perspective, my father was a person to hate. The one who made our lives miserable and full of fear and made my mother's live a living hell. At least that is what I thought it was. As I age, I begin to realize that I did not look at it on my father's perspective. He was alone and emotionally deprived of love. He lived working to get approval from everyone around him and he lived with no guidance to follow in his choices in life that all his mistakes are taken as proof of his incapability. He lived achieving approvals from the wrong crowd of friends and colleagues. He lived a very short life and did not get a chance to correct his mistakes but as for me, I now know and understand that the little things I learned from him in my early age, I still have and that became the foundation of my ability to succeed in what I do in my life. I did made mistakes in my life but the example of my father's life gave me the hard way of understanding what I would like to achieve in my life.

Today, I remember my father whose life was cut short mainly due to mistakes and choices he made. The path that he took was the one that will be short-lived. Time healed the hate I had in me and the memories started coming back. The father I came to know was a good provider. Someone who will bring up his children who are willing to work for a living despite being born in a well-to-do family. This memory was blurred in my mind for so long. Life's lesson is that life is how you live it. Live life and love. Rest in peace Dad.