Happy Birthday, Papa!
It was my Papa’s birthday last September 7. I know… it’s been over 2 weeks ago and it’s kinda late to be writing about his birthday now.
It’s just that there’s so much I want to say and they’re all jumbled up in my head just waiting to be phrased perfectly.
My relationship with my Papa isn’t as ideal as I would have wanted it. You see, my parents broke up when I was about 8 years old. And as old school parenting goes… we weren’t part of the decision, nor was it made clear to us that they broke up. I don’t remember openly talking about their break up to either of them ’til I was about 13 years old.
For a while, I was waiting for my Papa to come back from the States. He told me that he was just there to visit his sisters. When I finally realized that he wasn’t going to come back, I’d ask him to pick me up or get me. And when I realized that that won’t happen either, I contented myself with his regular snail mail letters.
I knew he loved me. He wrote me to assure me of his love every time in his letters. But for the life of me, I couldn’t fathom why he never wanted to get me instead of my younger brother.
Although it was such a treat for me to get letters and the occasional phone call from him, embedded somewhere in my subconscious, I felt abandoned. Eventually, when puberty has set in, at a time when my friends and my own troubled youth has engulfed me, I took him for granted… and he may have felt that I started to love him less. I think there was a time when he believed that he doesn’t matter in my life.
That cannot happen. It did not and never will.
There may have been a time when my angry teenager self thought I hated him. Then again, I was angry at all the authority figures in my life at the time. Which includes my mother and my older brother.
I’ve always known in my heart that he loves me. Though in time the snail mail weren’t exchanged as often anymore, it was his love that taught me I deserved a man who will always stand by me no matter what. Because that’s what he did. No matter how much hurt I may have caused him, he has always been there for the selfish little me whenever I needed him.
He means so much to me more than he’ll ever realize. I’m not too sure just how to express my love for him to know that he does matter… that even though I grew up far away from him, he remains close to my heart.
He will always be the example of what a man is to me: caring, gentle, faithful, and loving.
