Happy Birthday, Daddy!

 

Today’s my father’s birthday.  I feel a bit emotional now.  I guess it’s because I’ve just downed a 500ml can of Kirin Draft Beer in three hasty gulps.

 

He’s turning 59 today.  At least, that’s what he claims.  Nobody really knows when exactly my father was born.  You see, my grandmother died when he was very little, perhaps just a few months old.  He grew up in an old fishing village, together with his three older siblings, raised single-handedly by my grandfather.  In old fishing villages, nobody really cares about peoples’ birthdays.  When asked, one mother would claim that her daughter was born one hot summer night when the men were out fishing for tuna.  Another would say that she couldn’t remember anything at all except that she gave birth to her eldest son when the moon was full and fish was plenty.

 

My grandfather lived all of his life as a fisherman.  He was born by the sea, he died in the sea.  Just a few steps from the seashore, actually.  One rainy evening, when I was in high school, I got home and found my parents silently seated across the dining table.  My mother had obviously been crying and my father had a somber expression on his face.  Before I could ask what the matter was, my mother spoke in a hushed whisper, "Your grandfather died."  His body was found floating upside down.  He had apparently been fishing; his fishing pole was found right next to his body.  Fishing pole in hand, he had been wading in knee-deep water on a scorching hot afternoon.  People believed he suffered a heart attack, fell flat on his nose, and didn’t have enough strength to stand up or at least turn over so he could float on his back.  No autopsy was done.  There really wasn’t a need for one.

 

The earliest memory I have of my father is when I was four or five years old.  It was late in the morning.  My mother, a schoolteacher, and my sister were both in school; my father was preparing to go to work.  I was home because I didn’t feel like playing with the neighbors.  As he was putting his shoes on, I asked my father if I could go to work with him.  He glared at me and said no.  It was the answer that I expected but I cried anyway.  I followed him out the door and through the bamboo fence that used to surround our house.  Out on the street, tears blurring my vision, I trailed him, maintaining a fair distance so I could run back home if he decided to turn back and give me a good beating.  Everytime he turned around, I would stop in my tracks and bawl even louder.  In an irritated and threatening voice, he would shout, "Go home at once!" or sometimes, "Don’t follow me!"  But I did, anyway, until he broke off a twig from one of the ipil-ipil trees that lined our street, held it firmly in his hand, and made as if he would indeed chase me back to our house and give me the lashing of my life.  Bawling, I ran back home, turning around every so often and watched his back until he was finally out of sight.

 

These past few days, I’ve been thinking about what to give him for his birthday.  Last Christmas, I sent him a brand-new Abu Garcia (his special request, actually) and two bottles of Scotch.  Now that he’s retired from his job as a police officer, he’s spending most of his weekends fishing with his fishing buddies, sometimes on a boat that they would rent for a day or two.  During one of our phone conversations, he mentioned how nice it would be to have a cool Japan-made helmet to go with his sleek "big bike."  I thought, why does he need an extra helmet when he already has two!  Apparently, fathers have no idea how much cool Japan-made helmets cost.

 

Anyway, here’s to my father!  Good health and a hundred more birthdays!