It’s interesting how your ideas of the people in your life evolve over time. How experiences can sharpen vague forms of what you think into something more real, and reveal what people really are.
When we were little, I remember how Tatay, like every other adult, seemed to just tower over us. He was a stern disciplinarian, an enthusiastic gardener, a diligent baker of pandazel. And that was it. Just someone to listen to and obey.
And then I remember when I heard him call my name one day during the summer and I found him in the attic, on the ground, panting, breathless, asking for water as he suffered his very first stroke.
I remember when he started using his walker, and later just his wheelchair, and became bedridden and in the care of all of us and other caretakers after a few years of undergoing cancer and treatment.
Just one summer ago, I remember when he cried out in pain one night and my mom and I had to take him to the emergency room, and stay the night while we waited for his official diagnosis and treatment. I remember watching him with his eyes closed, his mouth agape, his body convulsing, just in constant pain through the dawn. It was heart wrenching.
And wasn’t just watching him age before our eyes and suffer medical ailments that’s made him less of a fuzzy authority figure and more human and real to me – to me, it’s also the stories.
When I was in seventh grade, I interviewed him for a history project about World War II, and to this day, I still can’t get over how he and his fellow guerrillas took in some Japanese prisoner, fed him rice for a few days, and then… just let him go. While the Empire of Japan was occupying the country. In World War II.
When I had to have neurosurgery just a few years ago and recover for a semester, I remember my mom and I driving back to Boston together and her stories of what he did, how he fought fiercely for fairness for his kids in school, against teachers who were biased in favor of the richer kids. How he and Nanay had to work hard everyday on the farm and didn’t have much for their kids except the books that he had them read to him and Nanay every night.
During Thanksgiving that year, Tita Nini and I were talking about the family. She told me how when she was going to school in Manila, my mom checked up on her, looked after her, took care of her, while Nanay and Tatay were still in Mauban – basically acting like a surrogate mother. And then when she briefly mentioned what Nanay and Tatay had to do to help her go to medical school, she stopped and paused, and I’ll always remember this: how she turned her face, only barely keeping back tears, her voice tightening. She stopped short of divulging details but just that reaction, the visceral emotion I could feel from her, spoke volumes to me about the sacrifices Tatay and Nanay made for her. For all of us.
And yet, for everything that he’s gone through, everything that he’s had to do to improve his family’s lot in life, I just find it amazing how he’s still retained his idealism, his sense of wonder about the world, his optimism, his faith over the years.
I remember when we were in Florida for Christmas a few years ago, we were eating out on a dock at some restaurant. And as we were sitting and just conversing idly, waiting for our orders, I remember how he just pointed up from his wheelchair at some bird in the sky and said, “Chirp! Chirp!” with these wide eyes and this expression, this unabashedly happy smile, that made you think he had just discovered something so new and profound. Some bird in the sky, flying over the dock in Florida.
I remember also when I interviewed him for another school project, this time for medical school right before I was about to start. I was writing a brief essay on his experience with cancer, and I interviewed him to uncover the biopsychosocial aspects of his illness: how he felt about the diagnosis and during treatment, how he regarded his doctors, how he coped. He initially had a prognosis of maybe just a few weeks left. And now that it’s under control – not in remission, but under control – he told me for my paper that he genuinely believes he’s getting better, that he has all the time in the world left to keep on living. And if he doesn’t, he accepts it. “If God wills it.”
And so now, to me, Tatay isn’t just another grown-up to obey, the way I used to see him when I was little. He is human. He is vulnerable. He is the most extraordinary man I know. Because he embodies all those virtues we’ve been taught to prize in the purest way: hard work, fairness, curiosity, optimism. Love.
Every time I think I’ve run a good time for my 10k, I remember how he walked for miles and miles everyday in sweltering heat with pounds and pounds of rice on his back to make a living.
Every time I think I’m doing such a good thing in the world by working in the free clinic or going off to some exotic location in pursuit of global health or social justice, these lofty goals of mine, I remember my aunt’s reaction to what he did at home in Mauban, just to give his kids and by extension, us grandkids, a chance at the education he never had.
Every time I look up from a textbook in the library, weary and tired of studying, I remember his reaction to that plain bird in Florida, the sense of wonder he still has after all these years.
And every time I ever feel uncertain about what I’m doing, the odd path I’ve taken – the fear and doubt I sometimes feel, that it isn’t worth it, that it won’t pay off, that I should give in to cynicism, that things are just about to fall apart – I remember Tatay’s deep, unabiding love, for everything he did, for his family, for the life he’s lived.
Tatay’s purity of heart, his hopefulness, his unshakeable conviction, his curiosity for the world, his capacity for love – these are all the things I would use to describe his soul. Things I seek to emulate, everyday.
Mahal kayo namin.
Happy birthday Tatay.
