Lighter

I had never seen my father cry. He had a straight face that indicated the hardness of a childhood spent in the Philippines. His eyes were a lot like mine, except when I would look in them I wasn’t quite sure how deep his story went. But in the emotional history of the Santos family, there was a lot to uncover about my father’s life. I knew from a very young age that he had lost his folks earlier than most people. I had even heard that when we would go to the Philippines on those month-long vacations, he would get away from the family in the early hours of the morning. In the fog – before the hazy sunrise of Baguio stretched out and compelled roosting chickens to proclaim a new day – my father took the the gravestones of his mother and father. It was in those secret moments, away from us, where I believed that he had cried.

Healing was never the goal in a military unit. I had been a sensitive kid, one that had cried over spilt milk most times. Literally, when I would pour myself a cup of orange juice before plopping down on the couch to watch Barney on weekday mornings, if I was clumsy, I would wail out to the Gods over my mistake of dropping my sippy cup all over the kitchen floor. I wished for a while to correct some of those mistakes, but the one that has struck me in my more recent years is my inability to see a mistake like a crashing wave. A wave slams down on the berm and causes for beach dwellers to disperse, escape the treacherous consequences of unwanted debris and aquatic whiplash. But like nature, not all waves are chaotic. Some roll in calmly. Some remain die before they reach the shore, transforming from brilliant heights and become as flat as a concrete pavement. Like healing, some days the waves have different personalities, different shapes, and different ways of returning to its home out to sea.

Patterns, mistakes, and other things that ruminate on my mind perhaps have been shaped by the inability of the men in my life to let loose the waterworks. I’ve yet to let the tears fall like rain, as with most days I default to that of an android. It’s not only the cold empty motherboard where the heart is located that is often not beep-booping. It’s the need to rush through the day. It’s the feeling of the wave, and wondering when it will hit the sand on the beach. When the going gets tough, I want to run away from the shore. I want to never return to the comforts of seeing the blue reflections of the sea with the horizon line creating an illusion of some mysterious world beyond it.

During those days in Hawaii, I used to love going to the beach, because I was able to get away from the controlled environment that I called home. I was free and roamed wild with all of my other friends. I felt the warmth on my toes, and I was what those documentaries about dead folks referred to as bubbly. But I knew that when the sun would set, I was headed back to an old familiar place. The smile that I wore the entire day would fade. I would become sullen. I would start dreaming of the day I would be able to be my own man.

So today, I think about the man that was in my life then. What would have happened if he had come to me in tears, telling me about how he had missed his life back in the Baguio? What would have happened if I had been able to go with him on those mornings to see the sunrise illuminate the patch of grass where his folks rested? What would have happened if I had not learned not to be afraid of what I was feeling? If I had stayed on that beach and watched as the world began to fade and fulfill my soul, all at the same time.

In a way, I see that my father had that graveyard. I had that beach. So when I run away, with my tail between my legs, unable to see what is in front of me because all that had been bottled up begins tumbling down, I see that I have been hurt.