20 days ago when I, for the last time, talked to my father, who could no longer open his mouth to talk nor open his eyes to see my mother and sisters who were by his bedside. 20 days ago I asked my mother to place the telephone to his ear so that he’ll be able to hear me. I knew he still could.  It was 20 days ago when I uttered on the telephone, thousands of miles away, that I love him very very much and that he musn’t worry for someday we’ll (all) be reunited. 20 days ago I made him cry when he heard my voice, for the last time. 20 days ago, he tooks his last breath just before 3 o’ clock  in the afternoon, shortly after my call.

It has been quiet around here because I went back to the Philippines to bid my father farewell. To see my mother and 3 sisters, to give support and get it as well from them, for this sometimes, unbearable pain. We 5 women, with the absence of my brother (in Saudi Arabia) who couldn’t get permission from work to come home, saw the man who was with us for 66 years turned into ashes like he requested.

How do you get over this? From losing your father? from losing the man who made you, you? Will the pain ever go away?

To find comfort, I have to constantly remind myself that my father who suffered pain for the past 13 years is now free from it,. Pain which he described to me in the past: “like I’m  being jabbed with tiny nails all over my entire body every single day“. I couldn’t even imagine how painful that was. Now, no more jabbing of nails…..

Friends tell me my pain will heal someday.

To be honest, I don’t mind this pain that I feel. If it’s the only way to have my father’s memory stay with me for as long as I live, then bring it on.

**That was the tiny flower I took from my father’s funeral bouquet. This flower would remind me that on that day, July 9, he was turned into ashes, that we carried on his last earthly request.

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