an ode to my mom

when i was so much younger i used to be so happy when i would find something from my dad. and then it all stopped. several years later, with much help from people we were able to reconnect. i was in second year college when i got to talk to him again. he calls ever so rarely.

tonight the family got to talk to him for a longer time. i was excited for the most part of it but i didn't know what to say. when i picked up the phone i realized i barely could remember the voice. his voice. he was after all a stranger.

as the conversation went on and on, i find that i never really remembered much about him. he was papa. he did this and that. but somehow, there was something there. but i am no 4 year old kid who has built so much ideals about her dad or the world. i am a 24 year old young woman who has seen her share of reality that things are not as perfect as you would want to think.

i thought that i'd get used to the idea of broken families, spouses getting new partners and all, it's been a trend lately. you see it on television, it happens to people around you. but you never get to know how bad it feels until you experience it yourself. i grew up thinking my father was still hooked to my mom and vice versa. my mom spent the twenty years without him, devoting her time to us, maybe hoping the man she married would come back. she never tried dating anyone not even get a social life on her own. she was so focused on raising us single-handedly.

tonight, i salute my mom for being strong. she didn't break down when she heard him say he was living with someone else. the funny thing was i asked him if he lived alone and he hesitated before saying yes, with a quick, you're smart after that. my mom didn't show any emotion or give away a hint of hurt when she heard him say that. no wonder he told me, he would come back if mom would accept him. after i heard mom say this i never talked to the other line again.

i never once imagined he too would do this. it was another burst bubble for the bubble girl. i had too many ideals in mind about him and it faded when i heard this. yes, we are still his family. he even said he wanted to come back here and die here. but i don't know now how or what to feel. i know though that i feel so much for my mom. and yes, i am all the more proud of her for being so steadfast and strong when she could have done otherwise. i feel sorry for her when she had to go through everything and yet, this is what she will get from a man she loved for years. i don't hate my dad, i have long since gotten used to the idea of "a man's gotta do what he's gotta do", but it takes a lot of time to get used to. it takes a lot of forgiving and forgetting before it will truly sink in. but not now. not yet.

** if my thoughts are so cluttered and disorganized more than usual, sorry, i wrote this at a really bad time. i just wanted to share...