Birthday Sentiments

How I’d love to sing with my father again.

Just like any ordinary person, fondly do I constantly hark back to both acrid and dulcet reminiscences… really it may not always end up in a smile, but tears have always been my companion in the end.
When I was young, I used to sing with ‘papa’; even dance with him. He would always ask me to listen to him and sing after. He always had a way of making me feel admired and feel special for my talent. I was not really close with papa, but I can’t explain the gladness I feel whenever I sing with him. Maybe because through the melodies I intone, I can speak right through him; that every time I echo the beatings of his songs, I resonate his love for us sonorously without inhibitions.
I could only recall moments when I was able to treat my father for very inexpensive burgers. Trivial, compared to the many mornings he would wake up early to cook breakfast for us, to the many birthday cakes he would always prepare with balloons, to the Sunday swimming days we would always recall, to the cha-cha he would patiently teach us to learn, to the songs he would eternally sing within our beings…
Papa had only one dream for all of us, to finish our education. On top of that he would always tell me how much he wanted me to be a singer. I couldn’t think of any way to please him but to excel in school since his other wish might not be just possible. For an intelligent but very people concerned doctor like him, he was not the perfectionist type whom others might think, nor the control freak who would push his kids to take things he wants. He was a man of tough character yet values freedom and independence. He’s the reason why I took up music as my first choice in college. He just so knew how much I would love to be trained and perform. But as soon as I realized that I wouldn’t just survive with my passion, he never judged me with my decision of moving on. Support was always there, that’s why I promised myself that I would do everything to make him proud. Papa didn’t tell me even once in my lifetime that he was proud of me. Not exactly, but I just couldn’t ignore the fact that he was—always.
It wasn’t easy for me to race to the top. Aside from the innate challenges in the academe, I could only work with very limited resources. Though papa is a doctor, we never had so much money. He never asked too much from his patients. People who know him could attest to his kindness and truthfulness to his oath as a doctor. We may have not been rich but we gained so much respect because of papa’s admirable steadfastness to his profession and his dedication to what he knew should be done—to make life better for the sick and for those on the breadline.
Very few months from graduation he said goodbye. Tough for someone who worked hard in school to give a sense of pride for a father who raised me, and my siblings in a well loved home. I could only imagine how tough this feeling of emptiness for the whole family. It was a regret that he was not able to witness his dream realized. I graduated with honors but that would not be ever enough to compensate his lost.
Life has never been the same the moment ‘he’ breathed his last. For a son like me, who never had so much chance to prove how much he really meant to me, life has never been this barren and hollow. Time was not really on our side. It felt like his life with us was so ephemeral and sententious—not just enough to make up for uncontainable remissness. It kept me… us from showing him how much beauty he has given to our lives.
Now that I am a young professional, I’m working with my back bent hardly to continue life for my family. I’m trying to put up the life he wanted. I’m not a singer though. But I wouldn’t stop singing the varied tunes of life. The rhythm may have been quite different but the heart and soul of it is ever present.
If I could have one final chance… one final song with him, I’ll choose the melody that will never ever end, the rhythm that would eternally remain… where I can make him hear words left unsaid and feel deeds left undone.

Elizalde H. Camaya
March 1, 2006
Papa’s Birthday