No more pain, Tatay!

Ninety Three (going 94), just some six years short of being 100.

But we know that you had to go, and you have prepared enough to pass on into the light.

Thank you for helping me finish a personally most difficult family systems paper last sem. I will never forget how you readily sat by me on the long table and recited the names of people I’m not sure I’ll even get to meet in this lifetime, and then you told us about the exact day you migrated to Negros from Iloilo, down to the hour you arrived at the pier.

It was your birthday that day, and I realized, just now, that it was the last one you had with us.

I’ll miss the political rants on family lunches and the giant crabs & shrimps, which I don’t really eat but enjoy seeing everybody devour. I’ll miss your gentle, and proud and welcoming smile, and warm hugs every time I go visit you & nanay (in whatever form— hideous or angelic— I may be in).

You left in the very fashion I imagined you would’ve wished to go— quietly into the dawn, so unceremoniously, and peacefully holding on to the rosary until the very end.

I guess I’m lucky to get the “nonchalant” & “alcohol metabolic” genes (which are very useful btw) haha. Thank you for being that person who never talked too much and who, I think, made the most of your ripened years not only repairing junk cars or machines but also mending relationships that time has somewhat warped.

I’ll always keep that as a Patronus.

Love you, Tatay!
I’ll see you again where there’s only love and lots of light. 💖