Fathers' Day

I sent my father a text message yesterday during the Sunset Service. To my horror, I accidentally pressed the music button of my phone. Yes, I have a new phone--The Walkman phone of Sony Ericsson--and it's loooouuuuudddd!!! It has three speakers and it serves as a sort of an MP3 player. It's from my Tito who's currently in East Timor. But I'm not going to talk about that. Where were we? Oh yes, the text message to my father.

I borrowed the cellphone of a younger brother during the service. Using his phone, I typed "Happy Fathers' Day!" etc. When I was about to send the message, I realized that I didn't know my father's cell number. We don't communicate a lot. So I looked it up in my new phone. That's when I pressed that small horrendous wiggly letter "W" on the surface of my phone and horror of horrors, my phone started to play "Mahika" by Kitchie Nadal in full blast!!! Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. But well, I was mortified. I didn't exactly know how Mahika came to be in my phone. It has been there since I got the phone.

But anyway, I felt weird afterwards... I didn't know my father's cell number... hayy... I missed the days when I was still young. I always cried whenever he went to work or whenever he left me in school. I also cried when he was late in fetching me... I felt like he'd forgotten me or that he had left me forever. I also missed the days when he would tell stories about his childhood, his warm and weary days in the rice fields, hislunch times under a mango tree, his beloved pets: the goats, the chickens, the cows and the carabaos. He always made me laugh.

But we rarely talk now. Usually, we talk about money and life after college. But those moments last for about five minutes whenever he drives me to my Lola's house in Almeida Street. I don't live with my parents...

Last night, before I went to sleep, I sent him a message again. Happy fathers' day. I love you... even if most of the time I don't show it...