Disclaimer: This essay was first published on June 2, 2011 on my Facebook profile’s notes. So, the 16-year old me had grammatical errors so now, I’m proofreading my own work. Man, this still brings me to tears.
Days like this bring back the hurting that I have long kept deep in my heart and senses. It was hard, really, harder than my on-the-brink-of-failing algebra and trigonometry.
For in my young age, I was six years old then, he left us; my mother, my two younger brothers, and I. I never really understood him. The same questions kept bothering me for years. Is there a need for him to go away? Why did he do it? Is there something I can do to make him stay?
I had sleepless nights and I cried myself to sleep. No matter how hard I tried not to, it was not that easy. Being the eldest, I needed to look after my younger brothers. I needed to constantly monitor them if they had eaten on time or not, if they had took a bath on time, and I needed to provide some of the motherly care that I knew they need to have at their very young age.
My mother is a nurse, and she was not always at home. And my father? He’s an OFW, and I hated myself for hating him so much.
I realized that he never really left us, physically, yes, but now, I understand better. He did it for him to provide our daily necessities.
My father is my happiness. A mere thought of him brightens up my day. My father is my best friend, my confidante. Hearing his voice completes my day– though he was not there at the times I needed him to. Those times, I knew I hated him because I was missing him.
I hated him because I got jealous every time I see my classmates being carried by their father, playing with them, making them happy. I hated him because five days a week, I see children being driven to school by their fathers. I hated him because I missed those times when he does the same thing with me.
He was my companion on going to school and every 4 in the afternoon, I will run to him, because I know he is waiting for me outside my school to pick me up.
I hated him because I missed those times that he would carry me home and leave his motorbike in school for I demanded him to do so. After he left, I became a loner. I never talked to other children, even my best friends. I went home alone, crying in the middle of the road. They understood why.
But after what seems like an eternity, I regained myself. I became the happy-go-lucky girl my father taught me to be.
My father is my happiness. He knows my story. He knows my ups and downs. He knows why I am this way. He knows my deepest and darkest secrets. He is my joy. And though I [still] call him late at night, after his very stressful work, he never gets mad at me. He understands me. He loves me. Now, I became the lady he always wanted me to be [I hope and pray].
It’s been 11 years in my 16 years of existence that I have loved the same man all over again. As the November breeze caresses my face and drifts me back to the times I hated my father, I am regretting. I just look at the sky, as I always do, and thank God for giving me a father whom I can lean on to; a very loving father who will always be there to guide and protect me; a father who became my best friend; the best father among his three children and a father who became the best husband to my mom.
No matter how that experience kept on hunting me, I thank it for making me who I am now. I will never hate my father again. I love him and I always will. After all, he is my father– our protector, our provider. He will always be my Hero, he’s the best and he makes me happy.
I am a daddy’s girl, I am his princess. I will always be happy and contented because I will always be his baby.
Writer’s addition: It has been 15 years since he left the family for a greener pasture but there was never a day that I long to see and hug him again because the baby girl is in need of her comfort zone. Yes, because I’m forever his baby.
Neyziellewanders 