Dear Tempest,
You asked me a question today, a very worried look on your face. You wanted to know, since Abu is in heaven, how Abu would know you when you see him again. “Mommy, how will Abu know it’s me when I get big?” you asked. And then you asked me why I was crying and with panic in your voice, promised not to ask me anymore.
Dearest one, mommy cried because her heart was full. It was not because you did anything to make me sad or because you shouldn’t ask. When your love is too big to fit in your heart, it pushes the tears out of your eyes.
I cried because Abu loved you, loved all of us, so much that he would have hated to see you crying because of him. I cried because at five years old, you are much too young to deal with the enormity of death and loss.
My mom’s father died long before I was even born and we were never close to papa’s father, so I never really had a grandfather of my own. Perhaps your Abu was not like other grandfathers; perhaps he was one of a kind, extra-ordinary in his love for you and for our family. But then again, perhaps he was typical of all other grandfathers and our memories of him are tinted by the rose-coloured lenses of the love we had for him such that we thought him to be much more than he was. Either way, I can assure you of one thing – that next to Mommy Te, you were the love of his life, his beloved one.
I have wanted to write about your Abu for days, I am afraid that if I don’t put down on paper what I remember of him, the memories will slip away as swiftly and unexpectedly as he himself slipped away from us.
But how do you even begin to write about the person who brought you into the world? The one who in turns, made you laugh, cry, terrified you, and comforted you, the person who moulded you into what you are? How could I find enough words to write about my handsome father, the one who taught me to reap a map, to ride a two-wheeled bicycle, how to fix a flat tire, how to pack a suitcase in that special way he has, the one who encouraged me and believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself? The father who showed me the world and gave me his love of travel, the one I shared adventures with, the one who always got my jokes and always listened to me?
How could I even begin to explain how it was not his famous temper that kept me in line growing up, but rather, the desire to hear him say “Ang galing galing naman ng anak ko.” or “Ang bait naman ng anak ko.” Because while he never said the words “I love you” or “I’m proud of you” to me (although with you, the words came easier to him) he showed me every day of my life, and even now that he has gone.
On some level, I must have known he was proud of me and never doubted that he loved me. But ironically, it was not until he left us that I learned how much.
Today I cried as I opened his passport case, the leather worn and beat up from the thirty three years it had been travelling with him. Inside, he had a picture of my mom, faded now under the discoloured plastic liner, the sides rumpled as if from being handled so much. And in the inside pocket, copies of every single graduation picture ever taken of me and Beng and I wondered how many random people, strangers I’ll never meet or know, he had shown these pictures to.
And in his papers, together with his important documents, was a clipping of a poem I had forgotten I had written, published in a newspaper years and years ago. The newsprint is yellowish now and the paper is brittle. The poetry is bad. That newspaper has long been out of circulation. And yet my papa kept it with his most important papers, as if it were worth as much as the house he had built for his wife, or the money he had saved for her to live on when he was gone.
During the wake, I realized there must have been many such random people he had spoken to about me. Each time a perfect stranger came up to me and asked me if I was the “lawyer daughter” or the “doctor daughter”, each time someone I had never met before asked if I enjoyed my new job or whether I still handled cases for channel two or if I still did work on TV, I realized that my papa must have talked about me and Beng all the time. I realized that he was so proud of us that he would regale friends and strangers alike with stories of his beautiful wife, his two brilliant daughters and his beloved granddaughters.
Especially you.
When you grow up, I’m not sure you’ll remember much of your Abu. But I hope with my help, you won’t forget how much he adored you from the moment he first saw you. I will tell you stories of your Abu and how he taught me how to love you. And I hope that when it is my turn to die, you will remember that all the good in me, everything right I have ever done, each time I was a good mother to you, it was because he taught me to be.
I will tell you how you were the first thing he would want to see in the morning – that no matter how early he left the house, he would peek into the room just for a glimpse of you.
I will tell you how after his open heart surgery, he never complained of the pain although it must have been immense, he never said a word about the discomfort although we could clearly see him suffering. And through that entire ordeal, the single thing he complained about was that he was not allowed to hold you or put you on his lap.
I will tell you how in the latter part of his life he hated to drive and hated the traffic and yet, without even asking, he would volunteer to drive you or any of us, anywhere. How he would wake up when it was still dark, or stay up late, or brave the rains or the floods just so that your Ninang and I wouldn’t have to drive for ourselves. And that no matter how late, and no matter how much traffic he had to brave, he would rush home from Bulacan on Tuesday nights just so he could catch you before your bedtime, and how he would be so happy to spend even a few minutes with you.
I will you how Mommy Te used to scold him for taking the bus or the MRT instead of the car and how being afraid of pickpockets, he would only bring a few hundred pesos with him. And yet, he would spend the last peso in his wallet to bring you home some small toy that you would get tired of in a few hours, rather than buy himself merienda.
I will tell of that day on the MRT when he saw an old lady taking care of two children, one of them sick and deformed, and the other, a little girl who reminded him of you. How he loved you so much that because of the little girl who looked like you, he gave the Lola all of the little money he had brought with him so she could take the little girls to Jollibee and how he had only enough money left to pay his bus fare.
I will tell you how my handsome papa, who captained jumbo jets, who travelled the world, who met beautiful women and who dined in Paris and drank champagne, was never happier in his life than when we would all squeeze into his car and travel ten minutes down the street to Jollibee to eat chicken joy – you, me, Bobbi, Ninang Beng and his beloved Mommy Te – we were his world.
And I will remind you of his promises that “Everything I have belongs to you.” and that “Abu will never be mad at Tempest, never.”
Your Abu was not a rich man but he left behind a rich family – because of him we have millions of memories, we have hearts overflowing with love, a home he built to shelter us, and the remembrance that once upon a time, there was a very good man, the most loving husband, the proudest father, the most doting grandfather who loved us all with his whole heart.
So my dearest one do not worry that when you meet again, Abu will not know you. Abu taught me to trust in God and so I do.
And so I trust that if I get to heaven, Abu will be waiting for me and he will know me, and he will still be my papa. Because a heaven without my papa or one where he doesn’t know me, would not be heaven at all.
