Five lessons from my father

A tragic father’s day story in the newspapers caught my attention last Monday, a day after father’s day.

The story is about a soldier-father who timed his R&R to be home on Father’s Day after spending months in Mindanao. He arrived home Saturday. Early Sunday morning of Father’s day, he decided to clean his service firearm and asked his 5-year-old son to get it for him. The obedient boy who adored his father did and even removed the magazine as taught by his father. But the boy did something more that his father did not teach him, he aimed the gun at his father and fired. The father fell from a fatal gunshot wound in the abdomen.

Apparently, the father had trained his son to handle a gun even at an early age to prepare him for life. Unfortunately, the preparation for life ended in death.

After reading the story, it did not take long for me to look back and recall what my own father has taught me to prepare me for life.

Honesty. If there was anything that stood out from what people had said of my father after his death, it was his honesty. My father was a simple government employee. He started as a lowly “escribiente” (Spanish for clerk) at the “municipio” after the World War II. He then took the civil service exams and transferred to the old Bureau of Public Works (Talavera River Irrigation System) in our town and worked his way to become the Property Custodian in the same office until his death in 1969.

Simplicity. Born poor, he lived simply without the frills. He never smoked or drinked and lived a sedentary life. From the office he would go home directly and engaged in his favorite reading fare while waiting for his children to come home. On weekends he allowed himself the simple joy of watching a movie.

Love for family. My father was orphaned early and grew up in the care of non-relatives under abject circumstances. This is probably the reason why he cared for his family so much and did his best to give his children the best in life that he could afford. He must have missed growing up surrounded by siblings (he was an only child although he had a step-brother and step-sister), he produced and raised 7 children!

Hard work. There is no doubt my father worked hard. With a meager salary from the government and with 7 children to support, he put in extra hours to augment the family income. He worked as bookkeeper for his Chinese friends and played in a band as a trombone player whenever he was called during funerals, parades and other occasions in town.

Reading. How my father loves to read! Books must have been expensive then so he went to the next best thing – newspapers and magazines. So we grew up with a daily newspaper at home, the weekly Philippines Free Press, and the monthly Reader’s Digest.

This Monday, June 29, my family is remembering my father’s 40th death anniversary. I will surely not forget to thank him for the lessons in life that he taught me.

No, he did not give me lectures on how to live life; he just lived his life the way he knew it.

And then he let me watch him how he did it.