Dad, If Only You Could See This Now...

If only you could see this now, if only you could see me now, if only you could see where I am now...

I know you are not blind and you still are very much alive but there have been lots of times when I wished you were with me as you had always been before.

I sometimes find it not fair that for someone like you who has gone through so much, you still have to suffer so much more. Last week, you could barely keep your back straight and two minutes upright, talking to me on the webcam, was already a feat for you.

It was not like this a year ago. Nor was it, in any way, like this two or three years ago. If only, if only.

You told me that if only you had not made a decision to choose to stay in the Philippines out of "utang na loob" from a politician godfather, you and mom would have found yourselves raising a family in New York. And you would have been enjoying the retirement spoils of your wonderful stint in Merrill Lynch.

But here you are, barely able to put to use what remains of your severed right index finger  -  the same finger you had used so many times to document your life, mom's, your siblings' and their families and mine. You wrote  -  oh how strict but aggressive you were in your written thoughts! You had  -  and still have  -  always been my idol and inspiration even now as I write this. You took pictures  -  lots of them. You pressed the buttons of a tape recorder to capture moments.

I think I told you how much I wished you were with me on my first plane ride. But it was a business trip so what could I do? Financial problems brought about by your illness, mom's and bad business turnouts prevented us as a family to go on vacations via plane rides together. The closest you were to the planes  -  with me  -  was when you took me to the airport and when you picked me up and welcomed me back.

Somehow each time I went to the airport I wish the Philippines were like the US or other countries where relatives could wait with their loved ones until it's time for security check and/or boarding. But then I would try to justify, each and every single time, how Philippine airports were made; that they're made as such to strengthen an individual's facade, to toughen one's persona, when a separation was imminent and a goodbye was to be said.

And yet I still find myself crying once more, wishing that I could hear you say "it's cold here", "the food is good", "that was a bumpy ride  -  too many air pockets", "there are a lot of Filipinos here".

I miss you dad. So much. I now am a married woman, finally with her husband and trying to start a family. But a part of me remains a little girl, eager to discover and experience things with her father.