Prepare yourself

Image: INQUIRER.net/Lance Uy

One afternoon, I was seated on the black rocking chair in our living room, watching Aretha Franklin’s performance of “Natural Woman” at the Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Carole King. My dad, who I assumed had just woken up, came out of his room and sat on the couch to watch it with me.

On a typical day, he would be on the rocking chair and me on the couch. As the show went on, we became so engrossed with Aretha’s soulful vocals, with my dad quipping: “Grabeng boses ‘yan.” He couldn’t believe it was his first time hearing the Queen of Soul.

When I found an old film camera lying hidden in the cabinet, I took it and declared to my parents that I would try to have it repaired. My dad, who realized he owned the vintage item, told me not to get my hopes up because it had been a long time since the camera was used. “Sinangla lang ‘yan sa akin e,” he added. So I visited a camera repair shop on Hidalgo Street in Quiapo, carefully managing my expectations as I waited for the final verdict. A week later, the shop called me to report that the Canon Autoboy was a functional unit again; my dad was surprised and amused when he heard.

I have countless other anecdotes of my father Reynaldo that I keep to myself, mainly because I wanted them to be just mine and mine alone. I know it’s stupid. But I’ve come to realize that I should share them. Not due to guilt over my illogical selfishness, but because writing about these precious memories would further immortalize the best man I’ve ever known. My mom and my sisters would love to hear these stories, as I would love to hear from them about their own — his verbal plotting of the family tree that my sister Yna memorized the best out of us three, his most unlucky day when we accompanied my youngest sister Reikka as she applied for a passport, his funny reactions while driving as my mom ranted about sibling drama. It truly puts my heart at ease.

A year has passed since my dad crossed over into the afterlife, but there is still much relearning to do. I need to learn not to look at that black rocking chair from time to time when I listen to newfound music on our television; not to look for him when I have newly-developed films; not to hesitate to sing Simply Red’s “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” when my family requests it. The latter I find the most difficult, for it was the song that played as we arrived at his resting place during the funeral. Either that or the fact that it was our last duet together. Up until now, I still don’t have the heart to sing it, although I belted it out once with my uncle during a family dinner out of pressure. I guess a part of me wants that father-and-son moment to be the last time I touched that ’80s classic.

There have also been a lot of firsts in the past year. It was the first time we celebrated our birthdays — including his — without him. And it was our first holiday season without his trademark nonchalance, which used to bother me when I was young. I thought to myself, why would he act so disinterested about Christmas and New Year’s? Maybe he was just setting expectations. Perhaps he was just trying to stay on brand, even in the most wonderful time of the year. But now I get it. It must be the growing old part, or the wanting to have a pause, even just for a day. I guess I’ll never really know. Nothing prepared me for this, but he is just gone. And I need to take a step forward.

Prepare yourself. People think these words might be the most comforting thing to say, but it’s the most difficult thing to hear and the most impossible thing to process for someone going through the most challenging moment of their life. A cousin told me this exact advice on my birthday a year ago, back when we learned that my dad had to be intubated because his vitals suddenly dropped. I knew she meant well, but I kept asking myself over and over: prepare for what? The loss? The sudden tectonic shift in our lives? Because you can brace yourself for the impact as hard as you can, but it won’t do you any good. I continued to work even though I knew I couldn’t function at my best; I kept faith even though I knew the signs pointed to the worst possible outcome. But the inevitable eventually came, and nothing helped. Knowing what to do when your loved one dies is a futile task. I doubt anyone has the answer.

Grief turned out to be a long, strange journey. The last family member we lost was our grandmother Marta, who died in 2006. Death was so foreign to us for a very long time that when our lives suddenly took a sharp turn, we found ourselves facing uncharted waters. I asked myself constantly: are we prepared for this?

But the proof is in living. Over a week after my dad’s funeral, I organized a community pantry in North Caloocan with the help of my family and countless others who chose to step up and give back. We would often have food delivered impulsively. We also did retail therapy — there were months when my mom and my sisters would suddenly drop everything to tune in to live selling on Facebook. People cope with death in different ways; these were ours. The waves came and we just decided to dive in headfirst, to let ourselves be washed away with an absolute trust that we would eventually come up to the surface.

I keep a private Twitter account that I use as a journal, where I post entries every time I dream about my dad. One night he told me to help our youngest sister with her assignments. In another, we were on the rooftop drinking coffee. But the one I vividly remember was when I asked him how he felt or what he saw before he passed into the light. He looked so peaceful in that dream, and we often had meaningful conversations about the biggest mysteries of the universe when he was alive.

I posted the last entry in February, a day after my mom’s birthday. I’m not quite certain why I stopped writing those entries, knowing that I am holding on to everything that reminds me of him — be it a real memory or a dream — to always remember the central role he played in my life. Maybe I have already accepted the finality of his death. A bigger part of me knows that those dreams do not mean he’s visiting me from the afterlife to spend time with me or give me a warning; it’s better to leave it as a mystery. Does this acceptance mean I have already completed the process of grief? I’m not really sure. The jury’s out on that one.

But maybe that’s the point. You don’t have to know everything there is about moving forward, or making sense of why you don’t get enough time with the people you treasure most in this world, to understand that you will get through, one way or another. The pain might never go away, but over time, it’ll hurt less and less. That Reddit user I read is right: the waves do come every time.

Sometimes they stand a hundred feet tall and come ten seconds apart, and they will crash over you without mercy — but when that happens, you know that somehow, you will come out the other side. And you will, every single time.

Pa, we’re alright. And if we’re not, we will be.

_

Denver Del Rosario is a social media producer for INQUIRER.net. His father Reynaldo died on April 7, 2021, just three days after the author’s 23rd birthday. Denver is still on a quest to master the songs his dad used to sing, including “Words” and “Daddy’s Home.”

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Image: INQUIRER.net/Marie Faro