Questions, Truths

1999. I remember every time we'd pass by the road somewhere in Mabolo to and from college, my father would point out to me the young tree he planted just recently with his civic group. He was around 68 years old that time. What was most vivid in my mind was how it seemed so important to him. I felt he was talking more to himself than to me. Was he somehow convincing or validating himself as somebody who did something as good in the suburbs of Cebu? In his life? I thought to myself.

If that was indeed the case how badly I wish to tell him had he been alive today that he need not prove to himself what a good, generous and kind human being he was. Because he truly was.

I was born into a family nothing short of conventional to say the least. Despite and in spite of the unconventionality of our circumstances, Papa made it a point that my brother and I had nothing to want for and provided for all our needs, materially and emotionally. He called me his "princess".

2013. To this day, many of my questions remain unanswered as to the many years of his life where I remained both vaguely aware and unaware of the real stories. Stories of how he loved, of certain depths of his own pain and renunciations. Of his motivations. Of how he worked, how he dealt with friendships, what lit his fire, what moved him to tears, what made him laugh. My uncle, his brother who he sent to school told me how he wrote poetry. Where was his poems? How I would have loved to read those and maybe I could figure out some of the answers to the queries resounding in my head and heart.

I do ask myself whether I really need to know the answers. Do I really need to know the stories unrevealed? Maybe all I really need to know is the man he chose to show to me, his being an affectionate father to my brother and me, his being a good provider, an understanding life partner to my mom, a kind, wonderful, generous man. And yet, during crucial moments in my life, raising my two very special boys, being a wife, the questions stir me and leave me searching still.

They say life is more about the questions you ask and less about the answers you find. I never really understood this adage until only in the past couple of years. With the hubris I so proudly wore before and maybe even until now, I was all about the answers. And "ora mismo". But slowly, I'm beginning to understand the value of reflection, pondering, waiting, discernment and letting go--what I should have done in place of my brazen decision-making in the past. And oh how I badly wish Papa were alive today. Maybe not to answer my questions but more to listen to them and maybe we could have delved into conversations that eventually led me to my own answers. I remember how when we talked back then, he always spoke in carefully thought of words and nuances, his voice a comforting tone, a soothing alto just a notch higher than a smooth baritone, with an unmistakeable Chinese accent in his Cebuano. The quality of his voice and his thoughts always provided a solace for me and perhaps were the very things that satisfied the confusion warring in my juvenile mind back then.

But more than finding the answers to my questions to help me with unearthing certain truths in life, my truths, writing this makes me wish he can read this. Maybe writing this is my way of affirming whatever questions he may have had in his mind. the questions I think he may have had as I understood it in my utter naivety back then, that he didn't need to plant a tree to prove what a good person he was. He was beyond that. I wish I could tell him right now, "You are amazing. And the only proof you'll ever need is standing right in front of you. Your princess, doing the best she can, embarking on an everyday journey of questions that shape her fate, doing the best she can to be a good mother, wife, human being." And maybe, writing this is a self-affirmation as well, something to the likes of my father saying to me, "You did good, are doing good."

It has been almost 13 years, 5 months and 17 days since Papa passed away. And I thought the pain of losing him would get dull over the years. But it doesn't. It somehow gets clearer by the day, perhaps brought about by the clarity of insights and emergence of life changes as I have become a parent and a spouse myself. The missing certainly doesn't get better in time. On the contrary, I miss him more now than before. I believe every pain must serve a purpose. I can only hope it is in this pain of losing and missing him that I shall finally find my truth, whether the truth be answers or more questions, it doesn't matter. What matters is how it will lead me to where home truly is.