“Tatay, we love you and miss you so much.” …
I am spending the weekend with friends in Hayward, but before I go, I visited my dad at the cemetery. Today was the 8 anniversary of his death. I still miss him, especially when I’ve accomplished something… whether it be something I’ve made or having a photo appear in a book or a new recipe I cooked. I wish he was here to share these experience with and hope that he’s proud of me…
I don’t recall if I ever wrote about the reason why I live at home with my Mom…
Six years ago on this day, Tatay (father in Tagalog) passed away. Since then, seems like my life has drastically changed. I moved back home to Vallejo so I can live with my Mom. My brother, who is divorced, currently lives here, but he works nights, so there would be no one here in the evenings with my Mom… and I could not let that happened, so I gave up living on my own in my apartment in Alameda and came back to Vallejo.
Looking back, I love living back here. I do miss going out several times a week after work, but once in a while I do hang out with my friends, such as last weekend. I also gained a vegetable garden which I love and I get home cooked Filipino food. Yummy… (and I gained weight because of this… hehe)
The first few years were difficult, because I had to adjust to a 1.5 hour commute instead of 30-40 minutes or so. I also had to take care of many paperwork and legal stuff that involved my Dad, which I hated doing, because I didn’t understand all that stuff… Luckily, me and my brother were able to slowly take care of stuff little by little, until most to all things were completed… I also was able to save buku money and pay all my credit card debts. Things have kinda settled though the years and things are much less stressful.
I miss Tatay and sometimes I feel like we didn’t have enough time together… in reality, we did do many things when I was a kid.
I took a half day off at work and left early to visit Tatay at the cemetery. I got some flowers and placed it on his headstone and spent a little time remembering him.
Afterwards, I went home and helped Nanay (my Mom) water some plants in the back yard. Nanay went to visit Tatay earlier today with my brother. My brother and I also finally put away the Christmas decorations, lights, ornaments, parol and other things back to the attic… I already took them down about a week ago, but they were in the living room waiting to be placed away.
Seems like a lot is going on… I’m in the process of buying a house and at times it feels a bit overwhelming. (I’ll create a post about this later.) Whenever I had a big decision to make, I would turn to my dad and see how he feels about it. Lately, I’ve been thinking about my dad and just wish I can ask him for suggestions. I’m also trying to get used to not seeing Chi-Chi in the garage or front garden… *sigh* …Sometimes I just don’t like changes.
My Dad and Chi-Chi
I went to check on my answering machine and noticed that there was only 1 message… and I had several saved. I must have erased all my messages when I called in to check my message… I’m so mad at myself, because there was a message from my father (Tatay) that I wanted to record. He was wishing me a happy birthday. That was the last message I had of Tatay before he passed away. I’m sad :(