TOPAZ HORIZON

Papa young, always with a guitar

Papa old, always with a guitar

Papa could’ve been many things. Papa was one of the most blessed people that ever lived. He had a wonderful voice and could sing like no one's business. He could play any instrument. He floated on the dance floor. He could draw. He was funny. Funny in that magnetic, room-lighting-up way. Smart. Sooo intelligent. And he was charming. And handsome. (I have to say he's handsome because I look exactly like him!)

He had a beautiful wife. He had beautiful, smart, talented, healthy children. Eventually, beautiful, perfect grandchildren. If you just looked at him on paper, you’d think, “This man must have conquered the world.”

But he didn’t. Everyone thought he was a loser.

I said this in a post before—I don’t hate my father. I’m not even angry at him anymore. 

I used to be Papa's girl, until I grew up and started seeing Papa through the eyes of everyone else. So we had a rough relationship when I was a grown woman. When we talked at the hospital, while he hovered between this life and the next, I realized something heartbreaking: he just didn’t know what to do with me. Or with us. Or with himself.

He felt inadequate. As a man. As a husband. As a father. He was so amazing, but he told me Lolo, his father, said he can't be what he wanted to be - an artist. Mama couldn't allow him to be an artist either. She and her siblings and cousins were horrified when Papa tried to be a dance instructor, wanted to play at hotel lobbies as a pianist, a newspaper man, an actor... Everything he was good at was only good for parties, but they weren't good enough to be a respectable man's living. They made fun of his dreams, of what he was good at, what he was undeniably amazing at, what he was proud of.

And so he was ashamed. And he was afraid. Afraid to fail. Afraid to be seen failing. So he tried to be a salesman, anything really, even a jeepney driver. But eventually, he did nothing because he couldn't be good at anything that he wasn't good at. And because of that, he failed anyway.

Mama, who couldn't support her husband, was resentful at his failures. My siblings and I, we each tried to outrun the gravity of growing up with a man who wouldn’t step up. My older brother ended up just like Papa. The rest of us, we overcompensated, I think. We just keep on working, you know? I bring this to God every day: "Lord, let me have peace. Let me rest in Your promise that You are my provider. Because I grew up with a father who didn't provide. I am having a hard time believing in Your promise."

Yeah, it sucks. I have such huge issues!

I’ve spent years trying to understand how someone so full of potential could choose silence over song. Absence over effort. Taking over giving. I think, now that I'm old, I'm finally feeling compassion. As a daughter who grew up and is tired of working my ass every day, I get it now. Art is hard. But as a mother and as a writer who insisted on this unreliable career despite Papa and Mama discouraging us (repeating patterns, you see), I can't understand it. How can you turn your back on who you are? How can you give up trying when your children are counting on you?

I'm so sad for Papa. I just feel sorrow for the man he could’ve been. He was so afraid of disappointing everyone... and in the end, he did.

The grief I feel for him is for the life he didn’t live. For the joy he could have had. For the courage to be a man who made a living out of what he loved. For the pride he could've felt using his amazing gifts to make a difference in this sad, sad world.

My bunso boy was singing "Take On Me" all week last week and, like Jim Carrey's quote, this lyric made me think: "Say after me - It's no better to be safe than sorry." 

We think playing it safe means protecting ourselves or our families. But as I've seen in my father, sometimes the safest choice is the most dangerous one of all.

Because you can fail at what you don’t want. And that's a horrible fate.

So take the chance. On love. On yourself. On your dream. On the people who believe in you. Take the chance on the you you were meant to be!

Because the world already has enough sadness and wasted lives. It needs more people who choose to live bravely. 

Let's all be brave, beginning today. 

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"Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to just begin." - from the back cover of Pluto's Not a Planet, a children's book my husband and eldest son made.