Friday, April 10, 2009
To My Daddy Diding
This morning, I finally, truly cried for you. I couldn't before. There seemed to be so much more people whose pains were much more immediate, whose feelings of loss much more profound.
I saw the pain in your wife's eyes (your best friend of sixty years, and whose fate seemed inextricably linked with your own), and the sadness in the faces of your children (whose lives you held up and shaped and guided), and the tears of your other grandchildren (the ones who will carry your name, the ones who shared your hobbies and passions, the ones who saw you much more than I ever did, the so-called favorite ones), and I felt like I had to step back, and let them take their place in front. So instead, I carried the food from one room to the next, and bought boxes of fruit juices, and listed the names on the ribbons of your many floral wreaths and tallied the mass-cards. In my own small way, I wanted to watch out for them too, to help ease their grief even for a little while. I thought that you would have liked that.
But today, after everything, today, I think I can take my place. I am not Kuya RB or Jam or even my brother Niko, but I loved you too. You were my grandfather too. And this is my loss and my pain as well. So today, I will let myself cry and mourn the world's loss of a proud, independent, happy, well-loved man.
I love you Daddy Diding. I was not the most expressive of your grandchildren, nor the most responsive, nor the easiest to like. But I know you loved me, and you were proud of me. I visited you in Hamburg once, a few days before they brought you to the hospital. You called me Ms. Beautiful. And you said I was the only one of your apos you ever called that. I don't know if you were kidding, but it's a memory I treasure.
Good bye, Daddy Diding. Try not to finish all the Johnny Blue where you are, and try not to cuss out the angels too much. I'll miss you.
I saw the pain in your wife's eyes (your best friend of sixty years, and whose fate seemed inextricably linked with your own), and the sadness in the faces of your children (whose lives you held up and shaped and guided), and the tears of your other grandchildren (the ones who will carry your name, the ones who shared your hobbies and passions, the ones who saw you much more than I ever did, the so-called favorite ones), and I felt like I had to step back, and let them take their place in front. So instead, I carried the food from one room to the next, and bought boxes of fruit juices, and listed the names on the ribbons of your many floral wreaths and tallied the mass-cards. In my own small way, I wanted to watch out for them too, to help ease their grief even for a little while. I thought that you would have liked that.
But today, after everything, today, I think I can take my place. I am not Kuya RB or Jam or even my brother Niko, but I loved you too. You were my grandfather too. And this is my loss and my pain as well. So today, I will let myself cry and mourn the world's loss of a proud, independent, happy, well-loved man.
I love you Daddy Diding. I was not the most expressive of your grandchildren, nor the most responsive, nor the easiest to like. But I know you loved me, and you were proud of me. I visited you in Hamburg once, a few days before they brought you to the hospital. You called me Ms. Beautiful. And you said I was the only one of your apos you ever called that. I don't know if you were kidding, but it's a memory I treasure.
Good bye, Daddy Diding. Try not to finish all the Johnny Blue where you are, and try not to cuss out the angels too much. I'll miss you.
12:22:00 AM
