my Father's 6th Death Anniversary

"I've had a hard life, but my hardships are nothing against the hardships that my father went through in order to get me to where I started and to where I stand right now."

Yesterday, June 16, 2007. It was tatay's 6th death anniversary.

Everything seemed normal. No retreats. No recollection of memories. No tears.

But i know, every member of the family stole sometime to bring back tatay in their thoughts, reflect and gather strength once again from his teachings, rebukes, discipline, his down to earth lifestyle and his brave principles to help us continue muddling through life ahead.

Recalling the time when i witnessed him suffering hard because of the excruciating pain he met upon stepping from a shriveled Santol tree branch and falling from about 25 - 30 feet high and slamming his body right sideway like bomb on our cemented pathwalk in front of the house and saw the people who held him up, i can't help but brim my eyes with tears.

After that fall, everything seemed to be so unexplainable - enigmatice to be exact. How our world crashed down to sudden pandemonium, how the people reacted with scare and sobs, how my younger brother broke out from his reserved and silent persona and clouted our wall and threw the plastic chairs in the sala banging the tv screen - all were darn confusing, a nightmare. I thought it was doomsday. Scary.

Much more when tita Daday (tatay's elder sister) arrived at our house at about 10PM and announced - Tatay died at early 40's, around 9PM of June 16, 2001, Riverside Hospital, Bacolod City.

Though our life blunted in color for a couple of weeks, and though my siblings and I were yet young, the hopes, our faith in God, our dreams are still there, intact, unstained with the blood tatay shed, leaving us, It is because we know and I know, that he died thinking of us - nanay, manong, panggoy and yan-yan.

I am also rest assured that right now, in heaven, he uses the pen of silver ink as he continues to write more literary pieces to express her intense emotions and to inspire, build more houses with his hammer of gold for protection and shelter and teach more students through his stick of garnet enjoying every moment of eternal life with the Saviour.

And now that i am already a graduate in college, striving to help lift my family spiritually and financially, I carry the lyrics of tatay's songs, the verses of his poems, and the scenes of his stories to be steadfast still on where i stand because of him and to finish what i have started through him.

Happy Father's Day tay.