I Miss You Still

If he were alive today, he could have been 96. He left us ten years ago. Until now, there is still that void that I feel with his passing. Sometimes, I could still  imagine him reading the daily news from cover to cover. It was always his pastime  so when he was alive, I made it a point to have a daily supply of the newspaper in our place.

I miss those days when he would recall how he struggled  in early life so he could find a nice job to support the family. My three siblings and I all  went to his favorite university where he worked for more than thirty years.  I miss those afternoon when we would take coffee and light snack and he would recall the earlier days of his life, the hardship of being a working student, those times he was away from his parents and siblings  while he worked in the city. I don’t remember his mom, my grandmother.  She died giving birth to their youngest. What I only knew  according to my grandfather was that I looked like her.

We could talk about anything under the sun. We could talk about  family members who went away to find good jobs. His two sisters and a brother (through a second marriage of my grandfather) work abroad. Two are in  Spain with their families and one resides in Japan. I am almost as old as my youngest aunt.

I miss those days when I was in high school and it was only the three of us  (my oldest brother, dad and I). My mom stayed in the province with my two younger brothers until  our youngest transferred to Manila to study when he was in grade school.  The days when he would teach me how to cook…..priceless.   He would usually drop by the wet market  after office work and he would teach me how to prepare a simple dinner.  I was not just a bystander when he was in the kitchen because he would  just instruct me what to do and watch me cook.

I miss those days when we would spend lunch together when I was in college  with one of his co-workers.  Every day, he would buy food at the UST resto  before  my class ends at 12 pm then we would share lunch.

When he got sick with ESRD and had to undergo dialysis treatment, my older brother and I accompanied him to the hospital twice a week.  The days he was bedridden after each session of dialysis, the enormous medications he had to take to stay stronger.  the graceless time he had to wear a catheter for many months, I still remember them all. My dad was a fighter. It was so painful though to watch his deteriorating health. For each session of dialysis he lost weight.

We lost him one December night ten years ago.  He may be gone from us but he still lives in my heart and the memories linger.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” 

― Elisabeth Kubler Ross

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