Dad would have been 85

That's my Dad ten years ago, 

in front of a pine tree that he planted

at the front yard of my sisters' home 

in Windy Hill, Aurora, Chicago.

***

Dad was born in the remote barrio of Santor, Bongabon, Nueva Ecija.  I've written about my summer vacations spent in that poor little barrio where  Dad made us harvest onions, cabbages, string beans whenever we went home to visit Inang.  I'm glad he never asked us to join him fishing using his bare hands in the river or harvest palay (rice). 

Dad met Nanay at the Port Area where he worked as a clerk at the Bureau of Customs, South Harbor. Nanay was following up the death benefits of my Lolo, her father, who was then the Customs Collector of the South Harbor. Dad asked her out and treated her to a dinner of "sugpo" / huge prawns.  Dad wanted to make a good first impression.  

My mother left for the States to finish her Master's Degree at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, where she was a Ford Foundation scholar.  

A few years later, she came back to Manila to marry the man who won her heart, the man who made a good impression, that dashing young man in white.  

Taken during my sister's wedding.

Dad brought Nanay to Nueva Ecija to meet Inang and the rest of his family.  Nanay had the shock of her life.  She used to tell me that she had never seen anyone as poor as my Dad. She said,  "They were poorer than poor." ... Yes, Dad came from a poor family of farmers, but they owned the land they tilled. 

Dad strived hard to finish high school. His school was in the middle of town, many kilometers away from their barrio and he used to walk to school everyday. I remember him telling me that he wanted to become a soldier and applied at the Philippine Military Academy. Unfortunately, he didn't pass the height requirement.  Dad was a WWII war veteran, a guerilla.  He was able to finish Civil Engineering at the MAPUA through the scholarship grant given to veterans or their dependents. He was a working student back then and lived with rich landed relatives in Quezon City. Dad finally ended up working at the Bureau of Customs as a clerk. Dad never made it to Collector level, like my Lolo.  He was just one step away from becoming the bureau's Collector.  Despite being best friends and tennis buddies with the Cabinet Secretary in the late 80's, he never used his friend's influence or used padrinos  to achieve the position he aimed for.  

A former dentistry schoolmate needed to interview a war veteran for her thesis.  She asked me to do the interview with my Dad.  Gave me a list of questions, a cassette tape recorder, pen and paper.  In the course of my interview, my Dad cried. That was the first time I saw him cry.  I asked why he was crying.  He said he remembered how difficult life was during the war.  He was only 12 years old then, when he and his older cousin joined the US army, carried heavy mortars (hidden in sacks), climbed mountains and walked for days bare-feet. He said the Japanese didn't bother inspecting their sacks. They were just young farmer boys carrying palay.  

***

Dad at the INS pledging allegiance to the United States of America.

Dad left for the States in July 2000, a month after my Nanay died and became a US citizen four years later.  As soon as he got his citizenship, he came home for Christmas 2004.  That was the last time he visited.  He started hemodialysis treatment in early 2005.  Treatment was thrice a week for almost a decade. He was the oldest and longest hemodialysis patient at the Renal Clinic.  

Dad is  fondly called Bentol by his peers and friends. His siblings and older people call him Benig, short for Benigno.  He is also known as Tata Ino or Tata Inong. That's how my cousins or younger people from  Nueva Ecija call him.  (A friend (Dr. R) remembered Dad's nickname.) Other people or strangers sometimes call him Doc, because he  always wore white and thought he was a medical doctor.  He had a whole cabinet of white Lacoste shirts and another cabinet for white pants. Cesbau remembers how he would always come home at noon on weekends, wearing a white cap, white Lacoste shirt and white shorts, after his tennis matches at the Ateneo covered tennis courts.  He used to play singles with young men half his age and beat them. But his closest friends, his tennis buddies, Mang Fidel, Mang Ping, Mang Gus and Mang Tony,  simply referred to him as Mang Ben.  / The Americans couldn't pronounce the G in Benigno and would call him Benign-no. So when Dad became a U.S. citizen, he used Ben instead of Benigno. / Dad's grandchildren call him Papa. He never liked to be called Lolo. ----  I just call him... Dad.

***

Funny Dad

Dad the Hunter and Sharpshooter!

Dad went hunting with his tennis buddies.

From L to R:  Dad, Mang Tony, Mang Ping and Mang Fidel

The Tennis Player, but not wearing white.

***

Dad at the Colosseum

Dad and Nanay when they brought us to Europe

when we were teenagers.

Thanks Dad!!!

***

I visited my Dad last November 2013.  That was the last time I saw him.  

Dad and me on his 84th birthday.

***

My Dad would have been 85 years old today,

November 20, 2014.

Dad's handsome photo near the altar
with four of my very recent paintings of flowers.

I should have visited you in August
 when you had a heart attack.
I planned to pray the rosary for you.
I never got to whisper in your ear.
I never even wrote it in my emails.
But I am confident that you know.
Until we meet again ....  Happy birthday Dad!!!

Goodbye Dad........