"Tatay"

Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same if I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong and carry on…

Would you hold my hand if I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand if I saw you in heaven?
I'll find my way through night and day…

Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees,
Time can break your heart, have you begging please,
begging please.

Beyond the door there's peace I'm sure,
And I know there'll be no more
tears in heaven…

-Eric Clapton


Two years ago I was on a plane coming from a two week stay in Bangkok for an international event I help organized. As the plane touches the airstrip you hear several passengers mostly Filipinos, murmuring (in joy I assume), giving high fives, relieved that they made it home, some perhaps in tears. I can read in their faces the agitation to get off the plane and see their families, whom they may have missed to hug and kissed for so long.

I wasn’t that fully agitated though, but I really wanted to get home then.

Two weeks prior, the day before I left Manila, I went to visit my beloved grandfather whom we all call “Tatay”. I knew his remaining days in this world were narrowing, that it might be the last time we see each other ever again. And to touch his big hands, kiss his cheek and feel his breathe. Even with a heavy heart I have to leave, bound to fulfill a duty to my job. I talked and whispered some few words before I left him in the hospital, I have said that I love him so much and I will be back in Manila very soon to see him again.

Back to the airport, unlike the other people arriving who were somewhat confuse on what chocolate or pasalubong to buy. I just went straight ahead to exit area to get a cab and get home. I just felt that some heavy hearts were waiting for me, than the sweets and goodies I bring.

I remember when Tatay during his hey days. He was like an army sergeant, strong, macho man, has a commanding voice that can be heard many yards away especially when his mad and not to mention his baldhead and brown complexion. The baldhead is like a myth for us grandchildren, was it with the genes? Though sometime ago Tatay told me that he started losing hair when he got malaria during his mining days somewhere in mountainous jungles. He is not the man we know if not for that baldhead…

Before evening, I got home, I was exhausted of the two week rigorous work in Bangkok. I had so much to tell and great stories to share but the minds of the folks at home were a little distress I should say. Must be with the condition of Tatay, he had been battling stroke and all other complications for months already in the hospital. The pain he endured was already insurmountable, but as a strong man that he was he would not just give up.

When I was a kid, he used to carry me in his arms, offer the food he cooked or the meal in his plate whenever I pass by. In the morning I go to their sari-sari store and hand me the newspaper, which had been a routine. I read them first before he does, perhaps because he liked to drink his beer and smoke a cigarette first, which was his hobby. No one would like to take away the few fetishes of an old man.

The next morning I was wake up by my mother, I was told to go to the hospital to see Tatay. So I did, there I said I have returned from a long trip. A relief that I made it home and see him still fighting. Hurtful though, seeing him struggling. That same morning after a few hours I left and went back home. By the time I step foot to our house, the phone rang, it was my father, he just said a dagger, Tatay left to return to his Creator.

Two years have passed and I have yet to thank him for courageously fighting two more weeks from the time I left Manila. Two more weeks of struggle just to see his love ones bonded with each other before his time came.

Since then, many times Tatay re-appeared in my dreams, the last was his birthday last year. I came near to his face the closes, ever, his face became clearer and glimpses a smile.