Memoirs of an Amnesiac

His morning visits to the market to buy fish and vegetables (the only food he was allowed to eat) would not be complete without his ever trusty bike. He said the first one (that got stolen in church when he chained it near the prayer room) was way older than I am. It had been his companion while he was yet starting his apprenticeship as an upholsterer somewhere south of Cebu. The new bike that he recently got was with him when a taxi cab accidentally hit him last September (because the driver got drowsy).

But during that fateful day in December 2011, I’ve seen him like an apparition in that street where the trisikad I was riding and he on his bike crossed each other’s path. There had never been such episodes as stretched as the moment I saw him and our eyes met in an unusual way. I had never looked at him in the same manner as I had before. Somehow deep in my heart, I knew that meeting would be the last.

My heart aches for longing at the mere mention of the word “father.” He who never misses a day to ask me how everything went at work. “ Why do you look so stressed? Did you ever get mad at your students? How are the new teachers? Did you have dinner already? Shall I make you one?” These are only some of his list of questions that for some reason had become his litany since I started working as a teacher. I don’t know whether he realized how much warmth and love I felt each time he asked me those questions.

When my brother got married, his heart bled for worry at me. He aired his concern like a sinner about to confess his sins to my mother (who also told me the same way) how much worried he was that I hadn’t found a partner in life. When I learned about it, my heart knew no resolution and I cried myself to sleep. For how can you reassure a father who wanted only the best for his child that his child had not chosen the path that most ladies had trudged on?

He told me once how much he had secretly wished to have a son for a first born. Yet the moment he saw me, he thanked God all the more for he had seen somewhat a part of him in me. Yes, we share the same things about each other. I was like his female version. I could say I mostly inherited his wits, tenderness and foresight. With the examples he gave in living his life, I was made stronger and more resolute in dealing with life’s troubles and struggles.

His faith in God had been his strong armor against the sickness that we so nonchalantly paid little attention. I remembered having quipped in the hospital, “Pa, I think you should better stop smoking. Don’t let God show you one day how destructive it is and it is already too late.” For someone who once said that he’d rather leave his wife rather than quit smoking, quitting was a huge feat and yet he did it.

Days before his demise, he was already expressing how ready he was to face his Creator because he had already accomplished what he so wanted to accomplish in his life – to see his children successful. But he did add, “I had already seen my grandchild with your brother. How I wish I could see yours.” And he instantly cut me open right then and there, willing him not to say those words again as if some unknown force would hear it and find its fulfillment.

I know he is somewhere out there, carefully watching us. There had never been a time that I quit longing for him. He had been a part of my system. Since he left, I had never been the same again.

Yet with the loss comes the assurance that he’s happy where he is. I find myself assured with these thoughts.

But until now I still can’t help missing that man on the bike.