To a parent here and gone!

By Jing Villamil

 

I WROTE this for my parents. My father never got to read it; he was a desaparecido during the turmoil of the last year of the Marcos era, 30March1984. My mother placed it, stretched inside a rounded frame, at the center shelf of her bed headboard. I saw her read it now and then before she laid her head to sleep. She died 26March2012. Their death anniversaries this week will be spent in enhanced extreme quarantine.

I rewrote this two years ago for a friend. She had told her children to speak to their dying father the words they had never told him but longed to.

In these times to try all souls, let us open our hearts, shut so timidly before.

Listen then . . .

Destiny wrote but it was you who willed that this one not be a pauper. Or a naive, too innocent child. Or a creature without a soul.

Both your faces are etched so deeply in my mind and heart, precious beads strung with gems of wisdom in-between. You are the necklace to the pendant that is me.

Thus, I beg you. Forgive this child, your child – for the hurts, for deeds done and not done. For words unjustly said, for what had remained unsaid.

I understand now the eyes you closed before a hug. You wished to keep that hug longer than forever. Your stern glance shielded the depth, the warmth of your love.

I felt your touch when I was most blind, when I was most numb. Now, my children shall forever see. And feel.

I love you. I whisper, nay, I shout these words to the grass to the trees to the sky that you are now a part of.

I know your heart can hear what your ears may not. Listen then, my dears.

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