Saying goodbye to Papa

In the midst of preparing for the kids' birthdays and the end of the school year, I received the most sobering news that my father passed away. He had a massive heart attack and with the inadequacy of our medical equipment in the provinces, he did not have a chance to survive this first one. Ralph had just left for the Philippines 4 days before for a 6 months stint to teach at UPV in Iloilo so the decision for me to go home was not easy because the kids still had school, finals in particular for Erin. In the end, we decided that I go home alone and leave the kids at home with a friend to stay with them. Zan, Ralph's graduate student, was nice enough to agree to stay with them in the house until Lorena and her family came for a visit a few days later. I flew on a Monday and came back the following Tuesday. It was that short a trip but plenty of time to be with family at the this most difficult time of our lives for us.

I can safely say that we are now orphans. It's a weird feeling and something that I have to get used to. When Mama died almost 6 years ago, I mourned her passing but somehow with Papa still around, I didn't feel this sense of being alone. Even though I'm now 40 years old, have my own family and have for the most part done well living away from home, I feel like a small child who have just lost both parents. It is a weird feeling that even if I have been independent from my parents for a long time, that bond that we have was still there and I still felt connected to them somehow and it made me feel good knowing that they are there. With their passing, I feel such a disconnectedness right now; loneliness I guess is how one can call it.

I miss Papa. To think that we really didn't spend a lot of time together while I was growing up nor did we even talk over the phone that much when I immigrated here, I still miss him now. Even without much contact, I knew he was there and would be there when I went home to visit. This just shows that a parent is a parent. No matter what kind of relationship you have with one, there is always a bond that will bind a child with his/her parent and you still feel that absence.

I love Papa. He was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I loved him. Unfortunately I did not say it enough but I hope I showed it on those occasions when we would be together.