In January of 2009, months before my 10th birthday, I came home and saw Tatay lying on a mattress on the floor. He was watching the news as Nanay and I entered our apartment. 

When I took his left hand for the mano po blessing, its weight sank on my palm. I drew closer to him, bowing slightly so that my forehead touched his arm. I felt his fingers trying to brush my head but lacking the strength to move. It was as if gravity had become heavier in our home.

Later that evening, Ate Lorena, our house help, rushed out to hail a multicab. The driver and our neighbor lifted Tatay up, one by the armpits and the other by the legs, similar to how we role-played emergency drills in school. I tried to support Tatay by the hips; his midsection was sagging. Nanay told me to take the mattress instead and put it on the multicab’s floor so Tatay could be comfortable. She took over the man holding Tatay by the legs and asked him to support Tatay’s hips, like what I wanted to do. But even with Nanay’s gentle ministrations, Tatay still cried out in pain. It was nothing like the movies; it was much more surreal, much more real.

Ate Lorena was packing things—extra clothes, my homework, medical papers—before locking up. “Bilisan niyo!” Hurry up! Nanay demanded.

I do not remember what time it was, but I remember how cold it was—the feel and sight of it, the wind clasping my skin and the dimness of our travel graced by moonlight and the streetlights we passed. Yet Tatay’s left hand, the one I always held when we went out, was coldest. My nine-year-old hand gripped his thumb, like when we played hand wrestling, only this time gentler and with no reciprocating grip from him. Cold emitted from his palm, and I held on to it tightly.

“Kong-kong, kapit lang, ha? Mahal kita.” Hold on, dear, please. I love you. Nanay whispered to Tatay, cradling him and laying his head on her lap in the multicab.

In the hospital’s emergency room, I witnessed a tube forced into Tatay’s nose, and another into his mouth. Mucus burst from his nose, saliva gushed from his mouth.  A catheter was fixed inside of his boxers. Dextrose was injected into a vein in his right wrist. Blood spurted from the vein. Nanay and I stood at bedside, letting the doctors inflict more pain to keep him alive.

There are times such as this when other people induce pain in our loved ones, not to hurt them but to remind them that they are still alive. Pain can be tolerated, as what my parents taught me. It is through pain that we learn. Pain can be a great teacher. When I was wounded while at play, Tatay let me cry. Our eyes locked, he reminded me to be brave, to wash the dirt off my wound, and to withstand the sting of the antiseptic so it would heal.

Research and writing

My father, Edilberto N. Alegre, was 61 when I was born; he had left the world of teaching at the University of the Philippines Diliman to take up field research and writing on Philippine culture. I saw him as rather old. The writing that he did most of the time was for his weekly column “Pinoy na Pinoy” in the newspaper Businessworld.  He wrote his columns early in the morning, according to my mother, Joycie Dorado-Alegre.

I recall climbing to the attic of our shabby apartment to tell Tatay to give me breakfast. Nanay always left early for class; she was a professor at UP Tacloban.

When I was in kindergarten, Nanay and Tatay came during recess with pancit, puto, and French toast to celebrate my birthday. Balloons, too, were in abundance, colored blue and with prints of Obi Wan and Anakin from “Star Wars.” I was quite fond of them that year. I even wished for a lightsaber on the morning of my birthday, and I secretly told Tatay about it. When I was playing parlor games with my classmates, Tatay took me aside and gave me a package. There was a lightsaber inside, with a note in his handwriting: Happy birthday, my one and only.

It was like that for some time. Tatay and I always shared secrets. On my birthdays, I always told him my wishes, hoping he would grant them. I recall that some wishes were hard to grant, like when I wished for a live dragon. Tatay gave me a DVD of “The Lord of the Rings,” and told me there was a dragon in it. He thought of creative ways to grant my wishes. He had that wisdom to please a kid.

My classmates often likened him to an ermitanyo—hermit—one of the characters in our Filipino class. Perhaps his long white hair and sandals made him look like one. Some referred to him as Lolo—grandfather. To be fair, he did look like a Lolo, much more than an ermitanyo.

An exclusiveness of two

When I was older, I told Nanay about how my father looked really old and how I would tell him my wishes. She said it was an unbreakable bond between Tatay and me. She referred to it as our kita—the exclusive dual pronoun in Tagalog, an exclusiveness of two, a single duality. She said it had to do with linguistics. Tatay’s analysis was this: When we say Mahal kita, it is a declaration of the I’s love for the you, but there is no separation of the two identities. I and you dissolve into a single duality. The speaker and the receiver merge into a whole unit: you-and-I, ikaw at ako, kita.

I recall my parents constantly uttering those two words to each other. When Nanay went to work, she made sure Tatay heard her: Mahal kita. When she arrived home, she said Mahal kita again. Even in school, there was no awkwardness in showing it. I’d kiss Tatay’s cheek and say, Mahal kita, Tay, before going to class.

When Tatay fell ill and was confined in hospital, Mahal kita meant even more. I was seven years old then. Tatay had gout and suffered a heart attack. Luckily, he was immediately released.

Weeks before my eighth birthday, we spent a day at Baluarte, a beach near where we lived. The sea breeze was cool on our skin. Tatay was sitting shirtless under a coconut tree with a cane by his side. Nanay and I had decided to buy him a cane because his walk seemed to be peculiarly difficult. Nanay let me choose the color; brown suited him best.

At the beach, they asked me how I’d like to spend my upcoming birthday. Nanay was discussing the menu for my classmates when I asked to spend it at home. No special guests. No grand birthday party, just home with them. Perhaps it was my father’s illness that made me decide. I was getting anxious about his health and the thought that he might be put in harm’s way if I had a party in school. I thought it best to spend that birthday at home, kasama ang mga minamahal ko, with my loved ones.

Tatay caught a fever on my eighth birthday. He tried to be nonchalant about it, but I could see that he was not, in any sense, okay. He took me to school and asked me what I wished for. I had wanted a bike. My cousin Joshua had been riding his bike at my Aunt Joji’s for months. Tatay was also telling me how he learned to ride a bike back in Victoria, a small town in Tarlac where he grew up. Although the thought of a bike was exciting, I decided to wish for Tatay’s immediate recovery, that he would eat pancit for long life, and that he would be well enough to teach me to ride a bike.

Children born to older parents are “naturally” insecure about their parents’ health. Although I was not conscious of it, life was giving me a behind-the-scene view of the end, how old age seemed to look, and how saying farewell ought to be. Departing and passing are concepts that a child would not understand well at the early age of eight, but the child may be sensitive enough to know what is going on. My understanding was best shown in my decisions and actions. I did not need to explain things by word. I understood without words.

White light

On the third night of that unexpected hospital visit in January 2009, I dreamt I was in a dark room, with a small beam of light forcing its way through a keyhole. I peeped through the keyhole and saw the brightest white light I could imagine. But I was not blinded. In that white room I saw Tatay lying down. Nanay was standing beside him, holding his hand against her cheek.

“You can leave now. I will let our son grow the way you want him to. Mahal kita,” Nanay said.

I woke up on a banig on the hospital room floor. To my left was Tatay on his bed without the tubes, the catheter, and the dextrose drip.

Nanay held me in an embrace, kissed my forehead and whispered, “Mahal kita. You are your Tatay’s last habilin.”

Mahal kita. Those were Tatay’s last words.

In his book Pinoy Forever, Tatay wrote: “Death is a concept that is best explained through experience. It is never fully understood unless felt. Never does a child think of death before he experiences it, but he is often aware of what it is.” 

I watched a lot of action movies that had death scenes, killing scenes even. But I never really understood the meaning of death. Not until I saw Tatay lifeless on the hospital bed did I feel the stunning cold presence of death.

My response to his departure was rather passive-progressive. I wept a lot, so did Nanay. We talked about it during the funeral as well as in the ensuing days, but it was my occasional decisions and my refusals to celebrate birthdays where I could most manifest my grief.

The birthday after Tatay’s passing felt peculiar. His absence was a presence felt strong. I was turning 10. Nanay and I did not discuss any party. There was no theme, no new guest, no new wish. But there was a cake with a candle. Nanay lighted the candle and sang me the happy birthday song. I knew that the end of the song was my cue to open my eyes and blow out my candle. Instead, tears fell down my face. I was clenching my hands into fists, knuckles down on the table. I could not open my eyes for I did not know what to wish for. 

Nanay held me and guided me to the living room. “Cry it out, anak. I’m here for you.”

I told her how I felt. I told her of Tatay and our birthday ritual, how I secretly told him my wishes, hoping he would grant them. I told her of the many times I felt insecure about Tatay’s health and what I dreamt on the morning of the day of his death.

Only our mother-and-son-conversation filled the quietness of our house. My birthday candle melted on the cake and its fire went out as I told Nanay my memories of Tatay. I told her the wish I made on my ninth birthday.

Tatay was then helping me study for a quiz. Eventually, our conversation led to me asking him what he wrote about. He did his best to explain and simplify culture, linguistics, and literature to me. Before we called it a night, I told him what I would wish for. I told him I wanted to be just like him: a writer.

Nanay showed me Tatay’s books, I was 10 and did not understand much of the contents, but she explained to me how Tatay got his brilliant ideas. She knew much of his ideas because she was his student in college. She told me of Tatay’s many adventures in Mindanao: how he climbed mountains and visited the Lumad; how he eventually went to Tacloban to visit her, his former student, then already a professor. He was on field research. He needed data on Waray culture and she was the best consultant for it. She was no longer a student, and he was no longer her professor. They had labelled identities prior to that meeting, but when they met again, the labels dissolved into a single duality, the kita. 

Mahal kita, Nanay concluded.

Lasting memories

It is both strange and amazing how the imagination feeds the mind with moments like these—a word, a conversation, a wish, a passing. Treasured moments are lasting memories. They stay in the heart. They conjure sadness and longing, but eventually dissolve into healing. What is most important is the memory. It stays. The act of reminiscence reminds the self to go on.

Birthdays are much like memories. They are milestones, occasions of significance that soon turn into past events that are recollected. A birthday may mark a year closer to one’s death, but it is always welcomed with happiness, as a celebration of another year of life. Perhaps it is not the movement towards death that I was concerned with; it must be the movement into the future alone, into the continuous flow of life, that I feared. But Nanay taught me I am not alone. I am with a kita in our family which will forever be etched in me. Wherever I go, I take these memories and birthday wishes with me, as a reminder that life goes on even with the passing of loved ones.

On the night of my 13th birthday, our house in Tacloban was quiet. I was lying in bed when Nanay entered my room and gave me a compilation of newspaper clippings. They were Tatay’s pieces in Businessworld. She said they were the most important ones that Tatay wrote in the attic. They were accounts of my birthdays and developments as a child. 

Tatay wrote, “You assume me. I don’t resent that. You should be able to assume me. I should not, however, assume that you would always be here for me. Not for me. That is not right. It should be enough that you are here. Believe me, for that I am deeply grateful.”

Tatay’s quiet and wisdom are more than what I could ask for as a birthday gift, more so, as a wish fulfilled. Nanay granted me a wish I thought not possible. She may not have known, and I may not have told her, but I was yearning to talk to Tatay that year. I believe that it was not a coincidence that she gave me those pieces. It was a natural occurrence, one that is formed by the kita: unexplainable yet understood. Nanay and I continue to move forth, into the continuous joys of life.

My wish was fulfilled. The ritual was done. In our new house in Tacloban, Nanay and I were at the dinner table. She sang me a happy birthday song for the 13th time. I closed my eyes, trying to decide what else to wish for. Nanay was beside me, her arm gentle on my shoulder. I blew out the candles and laughed at her enthusiasm. I looked at Tatay’s picture on our altar. Nanay and I lit a candle for him.

All was well. Everything would be okay. There was nothing else to wish for.