Dagita Ket!

For most of my adult life, which started way too early, I had worked on being the best version of me for one thing: my father's pride. Sure, we siblings did not lack in encouragement, in affection, and in the deep belief in who we are, from Papa. He was a generous man. Which is probably why we all wanted to push ourselves to be better than the last, 'ang galing ah!', or 'dagita ket!'. 

So when he passed, and our already chaotic life took the worst turn, each step, each milestone, each crisis, I found myself pausing at nights in prayer asking for his reassurance. Or his forgiveness. My Auntie Mae put it so aptly when she wrote in tribute to him on one Father's Day: 'We often wonder how life would be if you were still with us...we miss you.' 

I miss him terribly, each day. I allow myself to be tortured with the question, 'would it have been easier, my life, if you were still alive?' Oh yes, life without him was difficult. Still is. I tread on with the absolute fact that he is gone, the pain of regret not having said or done which could have made him more proud, the angst of the 'wondering' and never-ending 'what-if's'. 

After the early celebration of my sister Maevic's birthday, (which was completely unplanned), and that fifteen-minute-surprise we put together for her done in a room of a small resort somewhere in a remote town in this province,  I am definite about one thing Papa would have been proud of:  that we have kept it together, the four of us siblings, despite the battles we fought, whether wisely chosen or not. We survived this life, decades after he passed, which hindsight would have been something most unlikely from our viewpoint. I know now, for certain that he would say, 'ang galing ah!' or 'dagita ket!', from the heavens.