The Happy Tree

It is my hope — when finally the switch breaker was turned on to reveal the colors of LED lights reflected on the leaves and branches of our 23-year-old narra tree in Gulod — that my father could also see the dancing lights from up above.

He would have been the first one to admire the glistening lights on the tree. I could imagine him clapping his hands like a child as he sat on his rocking chair, looking up to the boughs, saying his simple and succinct prayers of thanksgiving.

With his child-like penchant for giving sobriquets to people and things, he would have named our narra tree “The Happy Tree.” What with thousands of little blue, red, green, pink, lavender, white, violet,  gold, silver, yellow and orange lights that are festooned on the leaves and branches of the tree. Each light is like a colorful fairy that constantly hops from one leaf to another in a friendly speed.

He would have, for a long moment, believed that those lights prancing on the tree were fairies and not beam lights that actually came from two crystal magic balls that were “planted” below the boughs. He would have thanked Sonya, a dear friend of mine, for gifting our family with those two LED disco balls that had strobe lights so bright and powerful they didn’t only illumine the tree but my father’s heart as well.

He would have enjoyed the bunch of young carolers singing under the floodlit tree or the brass band that piped his favorite Christmas carols. I could imagine him standing up from his rocking chair, his less-nimble limbs starting to sway to the beat. His musically-inclined soul always loved to listen to old Tagalog Christmas songs. He would stop from whatever he was doing and listen to the carolers. It gave him joy. If the elderly carolers came in the wee hours, he would gleefully wake up his wife to get a small sum from his wallet to give as aguinaldo to those ladies singing Christmas songs outside our gate. 

He would have gleefully anticipated the coming of dusk, though, as a farmer, dawn was his favorite time of the day, because he would be able to watch anew the colorful life that was so alive up in the canopy of the narra tree. I could imagine him in total bliss as the thousands of colorful lights emblazoned on the tree were also reflected in his eyes. And even with his eyes wide open, he would enter dreamland with imminent happiness written all over him. The nippy breeze would kiss him as he watched the spectacle of lights in our humble garden.

The Christmas-tree lighting ceremony we had last Sunday at our garden was the fifth year he was not with us. But he is always within us. Why should he be out of mind just because he is out of sight?

To many of those who have lost a loved one, the Christmas season is a bitter-sweet celebration. We remember our loving departed and celebrate still the memories we built with them. The season makes us wish that if we could have another moment with them, we would dare do whatever it takes for the wish to come true. As always, however, to think of them and to celebrate the inspiring memories they left behind are enough to see us through. We manage to court joy and maintain a sincere dalliance with it even if a tinge of poignant mood creeps at the fiber of our soul.

A few times, I would go home to Laguna for the weekend and forget that it had been five years that my father passed on. I forgot about it that my mother or my nieces would be surprised that I would look for him. “Saan ang Tatay?” were my first words upon arriving home. Silence and surprise would be written on their faces. Then reality would set in. I sometimes thought that my father had only slipped away to his wooden hammock under the himbaba-o tree in our backyard.

Many nights, especially during the first two years that he was no longer physically with us, I would find myself sitting on his hammock, imagining myself reading to him my Sunday column. It was our bonding moment. I would write simple words and uncomplicated thoughts in my essays because in my mind, my father was my lone audience, my wide-eyed reader, my focused listener, my ultimate critic, my No. 1 fan. He finished Grade 2 and in my mind, he had to understand with his heart and soul what I wrote without necessarily translating everything in the vernacular. He understood everything. I read from the heart. On those nights that I spent alone on his hammock, I felt I was with him. 

Tonight, I will sit on his hammock again and be entranced by the fairy-like lights that hop from one leaf or branch to another of our 23-year-old narra tree. Ever since his cross-over, we have dressed up the tree with lights. It is our prayer that Tatay sees the dancing lights of his “Happy Tree” from up above.

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