Like This

When I was a little girl, I would fall asleep in the couch and my father would scoop me up, carry me to my room, put me in my bed. Most of the time, I would have woken up from being moved, but I would continue to close my eyes, pretending to still be asleep. I'm sure he knew I was pretending, but he would carry me nonetheless, and tuck me in. He would sweep my hair up from my nape, and I would feel cool against my pillow. He never rushed. And when he left, he would leave the light on, and the door open.

I have a memory of his shirt chafing my cheek, of the creak of my bedroom door, of the sudden warmth of the light in my room.

Years later, he would still carry me, every time our street got flooded and I would refuse to miss my 7:30 class. By this time, I was already a teacher, but in his eyes, I was still his little girl in need of being carried to a dry patch of street, seven houses away, so my schoolteacher's shoes wouldn't get soaked. He would wait for a dyip with me, and I would wave goodbye, both of us quietly laughing at the hilarity of it all.

I have a memory of the sloshing of the water, and of his back as he would slowly wade his way back home. I have a memory of the sound of his feet, and of the rhythm of his breathing.

On the day that he died, we had been laughing about a piece of pastry that had gone missing in the ref. Conveniently, of course, we had pinned the crime on the Chubby Brother, but my father's laughter was his admission of guilt. He was diabetic, and I remember the pastry conspiracy that sprung unspoken between us at that moment. It was my turn to carry him then, towards a reprieve from a hard and tedious life--towards his own dry patch of street seven houses away.

Some days, I look back and I see that we have never arrived on his dry patch. The floodwaters have caught up, and I had failed him.

But some days, I look back and I would know that this could not be true. He never allowed us to feel that we were causing him any trouble, much less allow us to think that we've failed him in any way. I could wash myself clean afterwards, he'd say every time. We'd get to a dry place in a jiffy, he'd say, assuring his girls that it was a small bother. The neighbors who saw us would fondly cheer him on, calling out to us, Palangga kaayo ni Papa o! 

Today, I brave the floodwaters on my own. But when the wading gets hard, it is still him who carries me towards a reprieve, towards my dry patch of street.

And these are what I keep, when I doubt what I deserve. When I forget that I, too, matter as much as the people I love. The memory of this service. 

"See, here," the memory says. "You had been loved like this."