dad – written November 18, 2010

So today makes 6 years since dad died, and I still can’t make it through this day without crying… maybe one of these years I will do it, but today is not that year. I love how Filipinos “celebrate” the death anniversary of loved ones every year. Instead of a day of mourning the whole family will get together and have a feast in honor of the person who has passed. It is a respectfully happy time as every one remembers the person’s life, and celebrates it together, sharing memories, hugs and love. I really really love this cultural tradition of theirs because they acknowledge the day, and really spend time honoring the person, instead of just crying for their loss (though privately, I’m sure there is much of that too). So Alex and I started our own little tradition for this day every year (starting this year) we are buying a new board game to play together as a family, in honor of my dad. He loved board games, and when I was younger we had “family game nights” every so often, and those are really special memories for me. It is neat too because since my family always gave gifts at thanksgiving instead of Christmas, I missed that part of the holiday, even though I don’t want to continue that tradition with my own family I wanted a way to remember and celebrate like we did with my dad when I was younger, so 1 family gift the week before thanksgiving is how we decided to do it, and I love it! ☺

Since Alex never met my dad he was asking me all sorts of questions about him last night, It was really nice to think through and answer them and remember him. . .

Favorite memories – I love that he could make the dorkiest thing “cool” in our eyes. I remember a time when I was pretty youngish still (8ish?) and the whole family was going grocery shopping together. Dad got a produce bag, and put it on his head, the air was trapped inside so it stuck straight up from his head. This immediately became the cool thing to do, so my sister and I followed his lead, feeling like we were the coolest people in the store, and looking down on all the poor uncool people who were giving us funny looks

I also remember this loud obnoxious song he would sing when my mom would walk into a room (always done in public places). He would throw his arms up and sing rather loudly “Oh love of life at last I’ve found you!” this would always embarrass my mom, but I always thought it was SO sweet.

Alex asked me a cool question which was – what advice would he give you right now if he could? after thinking about it I decided he would probably say to “be happy”. For many reasons of course the running joke in our house was “if mama ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy” so that would be the first reason why. But seriously I think he would want me to be happy, because I have been having such a hard time being truly happy lately, and I know that would bother him. He would probably have some words of wisdom as to how to go about it, but the short sweet version would be to just look on the bright side and be happy.

what was the most important thing to him that he pass on to you? I think he would have said that it would be to read the Bible and pray every day. though I have been falling short in this area lately, it was something he believed strongly in, and wanted to pass it along to us.

I miss him so much, but I can look back on the time that I did have with him with joy. I am thankful for the 14 years that he was physically in my life. though he passed on to me some things that were not good, I’m grateful to have had him as my dad, and I know he tried to be the best possible father that he could be.

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