THE ‘I.D.K.’ DIARY: FATHER’S SIDE

..dada..papa..daddy..dad..
What is a "father"?

…they say life is like a cross-roads of mysteries, full of surprises…right?
…for me, life is also like a rainbow, comes in different colors; different feelings. And what awaits us at the end is always a mystery… they say it’s a pot of gold, but will it always be?

...How does it feel to HAVE one? A father…
...Honestly, I don't know...
… I’ve grown without knowing one…

..I don't even know what to feel, if I should be happy, sad, angry, or lonely... It’s confusing me … All the stories I’ve heard from “them”, each were different. Some that does not even make any sense at all. He was either good or bad…

Some say he was a good artist, and I’ve seen it in an old photo. So ‘that’ was true. He was there, but he was facing towards his painting the only thing I see was his back… There are three of them; the other one was his side view. And the last, he was facing front but it was blurred, the picture was blurred…

=I wanted to ask ‘Can’t they take an appropriate picture?’, ‘Were you a camera-shy-person?’... But you could never answer me, right?=

Some say he was a great composer and that he was smart. She says that he composes poems and songs for my mama. She says that he graduated at an early age…One after the other; they say these kinds of things, the good things…

But...

=There’s always this big BUT that never seem to disappear. =

There are also the bad things, terrible things… Some say that he was a bad man that he used to lock my mama up in their room… That his insecurities almost killed my sister… that he almost choked her, if not for my uncle who caught him… that he pointed a knife at her, that made my grandma kneel and beg him to spare the child…

And more…

=How much drama can you get? =
=Were these even real? =
=… I don’t know…=

Back then, I sometimes get jealous of my cousin, having a father to cling on to whenever someone hurts her. A father who would give her piggy backs. A father who would buy her sweets.But sometimes I just say ‘oh, well…’, then I pull myself together and move on…

It was hard. I didn’t know what to do… When filling up forms I write down his surname, at times deceased, and mostly I just leave it blank…
And there was a time, if I recall it; it was the time I started gaining answers for the question that had bothered me since I was little… Before that time came whenever someone asks me “Where is your father?” I’d always answer “I don’t know” like a broken recorder, again and again… Like a cycle that never stopped, but then something interfered… it was “curiosity”…

=Every child is curious about a certain thing, right? As said by my teacher=

And so I began to ask “Where is my father?” (But, of course, I did not dare ask it to my mama and my sister)… And then one replied, “You know kid… yer father n’ I went fishin, then suddenly a big shark appeared and ate yer father… even ate my leg, see? … and THAT was the day I lost my leg…” and the next, “Your father is in –name of the place-, and he has been there since…!”… And another one “…….his dead…his long gone...” (Tell me- honestly, wouldn’t YOU be confused if YOU to sum ‘it’ all up?)

=….So much for the bedtime story….=

As time passes by I learned more and more. Though there are still ‘holes’, missing pieces of the puzzle kept on coming but it wasn’t enough. Bit by bit, ‘these’ (the ones I have) entered the LOOP and the cycle went on and this time there was more to it than just a simple “I don’t know…”

And then suddenly, another thing comes up from the “unknown world”….

…What’s this about having a brother?! Suddenly showing up out of nowhere? I know I have to someday accept him but …. I don’t know what to do anymore… when I had my first chat with him on the net, I – just put on a smile like I know he existed and that I’ve known him ever since… but I felt weird…it felt weird… (Am I a bad daughter/sister/person?)… Mama – at that time she was there- she didn’t want to have a chat, not even a peek at the webcam…I guess she felt weird just as I did…

at times he e-mails me or my sister, he always ask if we were okay ( so I said ‘we’re fine’)… and if it was okay to meet up with us… how did I answer?... it’s simple, my favorite 3 words, ‘I don’t know’…
Then one day I encountered the song “confessions of a broken heart” (daughter to father) by Lindsay lohan… when I listened to it … again, the weird feeling; I felt my eyes start to tear up, my eye sight beginning to turn blurry… my throat, dried up, hurts… I couldn’t swallow even for just a minute, not even a second… it - hurts…
=you know, every year in my school there was always this program where we have to light candles for those who left… and every time I asked myself, did I buy this just because it was required or did I buy it for him?... should I light it or not?... did I do it because I wanted or not?...=

I’m sick and tired of my hesitations, you know? I just want to scream it out loud… ‘I’m only sixteen years old! What the h*** do you want me to do?!’

I don’t know - what is what…
I don’t know - what I should…
I don’t know - anything…
I DON’T KNOW all of it!!

……

You know… papa? I was wondering,
Did you - see me when I was born?
Did you love us?
…Did even know I existed?
As always…you can’t answer me, can’t you?

How long will it be for me to find all the puzzles?
If I myself don’t even have the courage if I even want to know what’s the end of that rainbow?

….It’s still a mystery to me, my father’s side….