Hello beautiful people!
I hope you all are doing fine amidst of the shortcomings and uncertainties we may feel day by day. Always remember that a positive life is a happy life. ✨
9th of how many.
6 years. 6 years ago. I haven't seen my papa personally. He's not gone. He's just miles away from us.
You know, he's a very good papa to us. He actually built a good family back then. He's really an ideal father. He always make sure that he can give everything we need and want. He always makes us our family connected in any way possible. We always go to church completely. We are an ideal family. We are not rich but we have the essence of a family. It was a nice memory we have created back then.
Way back 2012, he needs to go abroad to support our needs as his earnings were not enough as we are getting to school already. Then we in our end needs to go to province to take good care of my mom's father. It was okay way back. I mean, we misses him so much that we always sent him letters of whatever is happening to us. We are sending him the results on our exams and quizzes. Yes the papers that was checked by our teacher was sent to him. That was his only therapy to keep himself sane for being home sick. He was alone there and I know how hard it is to be away from your family. We know it was expensive to send letters overseas, but that was alright. It was the only thing we can do to help him, as video calls were not available back then. It was hard, but we kept it that way.
2015. He get home as he was allowed to do so. The longing we have for him finally came to an end. We finally hugged him personally. We finally got to talk to him all the achievements we have at school. We got to go to church again. We got to enjoy his presence with us. That was memorable. That was unforgettable. However, he needs to get back, to again support us.
When he get back overseas, some things have changed. The amount of messages we received from him was not the same amount back then. The calls were different. It was different. But we choose to believe that there maybe something more important to get done there. And we understand. My mom just kept on praying that everything will be alright in his end as he is alone there. We seldom received calls and updates from him anymore. Then seldom became nothing. In a snap of a finger. No communication anymore. No updates. My mom was getting paranoid, but she kept on praying. That's how a believer she is. And one time, my papa called saying he will getting back to the Philippines, but will meet us only at the airport. The airport is 4 hours away from our home and we need to get back home the same day. So what happened was just, we just spent only 3 hours together. To be honest, there's a very huge difference. I wanted to ask him why. I wanted to ask him what happened. I wanted to know. But nothing came out of my mouth as I know I will burst to tears. I just treasure those 3 hours with him. Three hours is very short when you are with someone you love. Then, there we bid our goodbyes. I did not cry as I still see him. I did not cry even when I see him getting his feet on the plane. I even did not cry when I can't see him no more. I burst out to tears when we rode our way home. That's when reality hit me. I am not sure if I will get another chance to see him again.
2016 passed.
2017 passed.
2018 passed.
3 years. 3 years with no communication with him. 3 years when we did not know what is happening. 3 years that I got to question, if he is still alive. He was not there when I graduated with elementary and highschool. He was not there when I got to receive my achievements that I supposed to be bragging to him. He was not there during the happiest time of the year. No Christmas and New Year with him. No birthdays with him. He was not there when we should be needing a father. My mom already asked for help from embassy and OWWA, but got no update. We honestly thought he was dead already. We did not lose hope, but we are almost losing it. We asked his brother that is working overseas as well, but as well got no response. It was difficult. It was a hell for all of us. It was unexpected turn of time. I never thought I will be experiencing such. Not even once. Rumors are circulating that maybe he's dead. That maybe he's having another family. And many more reasons that can possibly be. We are in the peak of giving up waiting for him. We almost give up.
2019. He called. He called us again. Cannot talk properly. Cannot move his body. Cannot look straight in our eyes. He was stroked. You know, all the accusations we set for him for not reaching us for three years, all the pain he brought to us for not saying what happened, all the madness we felt for what he did, vanished. I can't be mad seeing him suffering there alone. I can't be mad seeing him having a difficulty in saying our names. I cannot be mad seeing him that way. After all, he was our father. It was the time I have been waiting for. That he will reach us back. The only thing my heart said was thank you. He is alive. Thank you Lord for keeping him safe throughout those years. I told him to just come home so that he will be taken care of, but he said no. He said no, because it guilts him that he never contacted us for years and will just come out of the box looking like that. I know its his pride that's controlling his self. But I understand. I need to understand as I can't stand seeing him like that. God is so good that he has a friend there that he can call to when he really needs to. That is one of the reason as well why I flew here in Cebu to work and to save money for me to get my papa back home and build our small business. I wanted our family to be complete again.
From then on, I always make sure to contact him everyday. To always check on him. To always know what he's been up to. To know if he's doing fine. After another year, he became better and better. We always have a communication almost everyday. I always make sure to greet him everyday and say I love you to him because again it is not easy to be living alone. I wanted him to feel that we are still waiting for him to get back home. That we are still praying to have this complete family we have back then.
Up until today, we always talked everyday. And things are getting better and better. I hope it will turn out to be the way I always pray it to be. To complete us again. If you want to know if I already asked him about what happened way back, I haven't yet. I do not want to break what we are having now. To be honest, I am super grateful that little by little our family is getting closer again. I have been praying for this for so long and I wanted to treasure every bit of it. Even if we are just talking through video chats, it is more than enough.
Maybe you are wondering why I easily forgive my papa after all those years, it is because my tito has been teaching us that no matter what happen he will be forever our papa. And nothing can change that. I let that sink in my mind. And there's nothing wrong in forgiving him. That's what I have been praying.
I am sorry if I make this too long and unorganized. I am being emotional while writing this because this is the time I talked about this again after how many years. So please bare with my mistakes on grammar and the article as a whole.
That's all for today beautiful people. I hope you learned and get something good about my article for today. If you have any thoughts and take away about this piece, feel free to leave it in the comment section below. Let's interact. Stay safe always! Xoxo ✨☺️
- MissJo 💜
Awwww. A father-daughter story. I am glad that he is getting better and better each passing day. For a moment I was also thinking about a lot of things on why he lost contact with all of you. There are people who really do not want to share their pain with other people especially with their family. Again I really am glad that he was able to share about his health with all of you. I pray that your dad will be stronger and that you can have that business that you want. Fighting. We can do it.