Memories of my father

I have been thinking of my father a lot lately. Since his crossover to the afterlife on Jan. 18, 2010, not a day or night will pass without me remembering him.

I only had him for 38 years on earth, a time rather short. But what keeps me connected to my father, who passed on at 74, are the memories we built together. Because of memories, I can revisit the many occasions we shared in my heart, in my dreams.

The best thing about memories is that they become the lighthouse on nights when the heart and mind ache for illumination. On a Saturday night when the wind was howling due to typhoon Lando’s imminent threat, I found myself remembering my father fortifying our old lawanit-walled house in Gulod by tying thick ropes on all corners of the roof. These ropes would be stretched down to the ground where they would be knotted on big tree trunks or sturdy makeshift posts half-buried in the ground. My father called the process “bagting” and it sure did protect us from becoming roofless after the calamity. It did not matter if it was Signal 1, 2 or 3, my father would try to un-wit the storm by preparing two days before its landfall. On top of that, he made sure that the holes in the roof had been sealed with alkitran; that there was enough dried firewood beside our improvised stove; that all our earthen jars (tapayan) were filled with water fetched from the neighbor’s deep-well faucet; that all his red Eveready batteries for his flashlight were charged (and to fully charge the batteries, he put them under the sun the whole day); and that he had his small transistor radio at hand to monitor news about the tempest. 

The whole day or night of the storm he would not sleep. The morning after when the storm had passed, he would get the broom and sweep the yard. And when the sun rose, he would go to the farm he managed and salvage whatever he could in the rice field. He never lost hope that the next planting season would yield better.  My father would always keep the sunshine inside him in the middle of the storm.

I never saw him lose hope. Even when he died in my arms, I saw him flashing a faint smile after 24 days of struggling in the ICU due to a massive stroke. When he died, a memory flashed; I came face to face with my two-year-old self. Yes, I had only one sterling memory when I was two years old: my father would put me on the pedestal of a wooden cabinet and cajole me to jump. I would jump and he would quickly catch me. My very young mind didn’t know what leap of faith was but I knew my father was my safety net. Almost all my life he would catch me in moments that I fell.

Memories are a barometer of happiness. When I think of my father, I am reminded of a thousand and one memories. When I am tired, my body almost a dead weight, I think of my father and how he would massage my feet. He would engage me into a conversation, often about his childhood, how it was during the war. He would tell me about love, the amorous kind, how and why it should be exclusive. He would regal me about his love story — with my mother. He would always say beautiful things about his wife. More than that, he would always do beautiful deeds for his wife. When he saw that I was already in dreamland after all the tapping and kneading of my feet, he would let me be. He would leave me on the couch. But not without covering me first with his blanket.

I tell people I got my sense of humor from my father. He was funny without trying to be. He would invite a few of his friends at home for a round of instant coffee. He was a wry raconteur in one moment, an electrifying storyteller the next. Laughter was important to him. And it didn’t matter to his friends or family if he was pulling a practical joke or two on them.

Memories are a moral compass, they point to our inner mantle and fortify it. My father taught my four brothers and me one supreme order: “Huwag kayong magnanakaw. Kahit gaano kahirap ang buhay, huwag kayong magnanakaw (Do not steal. No matter how hard life is, do not steal).” He told us that trustworthiness is an important characteristic of a human being. He did not even allow me to borrow my cousin’s Matchbox car. Instead, he fashioned a trumpo (top) out of an ipil-ipil branch and gave it to me. My eldest brother Ronnie had a yo-yo made of dried wood, courtesy, too, of my father’s imaginative mind. My Kuya Gadie had a wooden saltek (sling-shot) that my father made out of a mature guava branch.

He taught us that whatever we borrowed should be returned in the same good condition. He expected the same from people who would borrow his farming implements. Once, a neighbor borrowed a hoe from him and returned it with a dent on the blade without any explanation. He didn’t make it an issue. Only, that neighbor didn’t have the opportunity to borrow anything from him again.

He also expected his wife and children to live within their means. Because we hardly had enough, our birthdays were never celebrated. No cakes. No balloons. No pancit. No spaghetti. No singing of “Happy birthday.” But my parents would always make sure that a dumalaga (a free-range chicken, which we had a few in our backyard) would be turned into niluyahang manok (also known as tinola) to celebrate a birthday of any member of the family. The niluyahang manok was not complete without green papaya picked by my father from our backyard.

The birthday celebrator would visit the nearby bisita (chapel) in the barrio to light a candle in thanksgiving for the gift of another year. We never had the luxury of blowing birthday candles on cakes every year but we grew up fine. We were comforted with love, blanketed by the thought that poverty was temporary to those who knew how to dream. What we did not have, we did not miss. 

My memories of my father are incandescent. They are bankable fortresses when I need to make important decisions. His Starex van, for example, has been gathering dust and cobwebs in our humble garage now for quite sometime. It has a busted engine among other quirks and ails of a secondhand car. Some friends and neighbors have been wanting to buy my father’s car. But I could not let it go. It was in Christmas of 2008 when I gifted my father with a secondhand car after years of saving for it. The happiest tears that flowed down my father’s face were shed on the day when I handed him the key.

All his life, he rode the back of a carabao to till the land to provide food on the table. One day, he expressed to me his dream of owning even an owner-type jeepney but he was already old to save for it, to afford it. I kept his dream in my heart, saved for it for a couple of years, and when I was ready, I surprised him. It was to become our first family car.

I have kept his van in its state to ward off buyers. But maybe, I should have it brought soon to a casa. Let its black sheen shine anew; let its engine vroom again; let it hit the road and give happiness the way it gave my father joy in days when he wanted to visit some friends living in distant places. I will have his black van fixed. And keep it for the family.

To think of my father every single day is to have memories that give me a perspective of the destiny I further wish to chase, an ambition I still want to accomplish. My father taught me to dream for my family.

I will pursue the dream.

(For your new beginnings, e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. I’m also on Instagram @bumtenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)