I Am The Walrus

On the jeep ride on my way to work, I sat beside a man who was probably
in his sixties. He was your usual old man, with the old man smell and the old
man skin. I didn’t take notice of him — the way I didn’t take
notice of anyone else on a public transport — until his phone rang.

His conversation with the person on his cell went like this:

“O?….. Anong
oras?…. O sige tatawagan ko si
(name I forgot)…”

A few seconds after his phone rang again.

“O?….. Ano
raw sabi?…. Eh nung mamatay ba
yan anong oras?….. Sige
tatawag ako ulit”

After ending the second conversation, he banged his hand on the seat
beside him really hard and shook his head. Obviously stating the obvious,
someone close to him just died.

This time, he was the one dialing his phone.

“Hello…. O, andiyan si Mama mo?….. eh patay na
si Papa mo…”

At that point, the old man’s voice started to break.

“Eh… ikaw na bahala sa Mama mo, wag mong biglain….” He finally said and then ended the
call.

The way he talked to the person on the other line made me think he was
talking to somebody young, a teenager or a young adult. So I assumed he was
talking to a grandchild of his. And their father who just died was his son.

The man started to do a man-cry — you know, choking back the tears,
wiping the eyes like it was itchy, but his bright red nose giving him away —
took off his glasses, and turned his face away from all the other passengers
who by now (like myself) have been clued in on his story.

Good fathers are becoming a rare species, you know, what with single
mom families (like the one I’m running) becoming more and more common.
And, God bless mothers, but fathers are so underrated. They have such a hard
life — they have to be the strong one, keeping it together during times of
crisis. If a mother breaks down and cries, the children would understand. But
if a father does, the children would panic.

And I remembered that this Sunday is Father’s day and I just
wanted to share this story to remind us that though our dads occasionally annoy
us, they (like all the other members of the male species) love us in their unique way. The least we could do is let them know. At the very least. You could, of course, do more.

EPILOGUE: For Father’s Day, I bought my Dad a CD of Astrud Gilberto (who I thought was a guy haha) because he’s been bugging me for months to
download songs for him. He didn’t jump up and down or cry when he got it,
but I know he appreciated it because when we all settled for bed last night, he
stayed up and the song "Girl from Ipanema" lulled the
rest of us to sleep.