#31. Father

My father is probably the most paranoid person I have come to know in this lifetime. His imagination is so wild that it becomes difficult to make sense of what he wants  to convey. Most of the time, his paranoia is so compelling that we would just want to drop any activity we would like to engage in. 

Our house feels like a garrison with too many padlocks here and there. Each of our bedrooms have peep holes installed, and part of opening a door would mean looking through the peep hole each and every time. There are also some doors with locks outside, particularly the bathroom, so in case a burglar comes in through the bathroom, he cannot advance further in house. These outside locks must be locked every night.

My friends would tell me that these things sound like they are from some comedy-horror film, but to me, they’re just as normal, as we’ve lived like this for as long as I could remember.

If there are micro-managers in the corporate world, then my father is a micro-reminder. He would remind me, my older sister and brother, of  very mundane details that ordinary parents out there wouldn’t remind their kids of.

Examples would be:

1.) Don’t play with stray dogs.

2.) Don’t stare at strangers.

3.) Don’t get off the bus with both feet (in other words, do not jump.)

4.) When getting off the bus, use your right foot first.

5.) When crossing the street, look left and right.

And so on.

These are just some of the hundreds of reminders he would repeat over and over and over when we are about to set foot outside the house. These would have been relevant if we were five to twelve years old, but we are adults now. I appreciate his concern to remind us that it’s a harsh world out there and that outside the confides of our home, it would not be easy, but we are already at a point in our lives when we can already take care of ourselves.

On the other hand, father NEVER reminded me not to smoke, never to drink, never to take drugs, or never to engage in pre-marital sex. He never reminded me to practice safe sex, either. He never reminded about sexually transmitted diseases. He never reminded me about HIV.

And so December of last year, we got the horror of our lives when we all found out I was HIV positive. I was not there when mother broke the news to him, but mother said that father just shed some careful tears and decided to proactively deal with the situation. You see, father has always been stern, tough, emotionless mostly, and just walled up. He was never the best husband, I know that. But he had always been the best dad- a very good provider in so many ways.

I feel very bad for bringing upon this terrible disease upon myself. But more than that, I am disappointed with the emotional impact it has caused my family, especially my father who had been very protective of us since the day we first breathed air on this earth. I would not like him to think that he had not “reminded” or protected us well enough of the world’s harshness, because he has, and God knows how much he tried to.

Since the disease came, father is still equally paranoid over things. He has been more protective of me than ever, for fear of me acquiring another debilitating HIV-related illnesses in the future. But more than these things, father has slowly opened up, has shown more emotions and concerned which are more understandable by the human language. He has begun to show affection the way I would want it to be communicated, in a way I best understand it, and for that, I am truly thankful. It’s never a perfect picture of a family, and father is far from perfect. But who is perfect, anyway? Its so ironic but perhaps, HIV was all I needed to be able to see, find, and appreciate these little things which had been lying under my nose all the time. Ironically, everything is falling into place. Not just with father, but with the entire family and everything else, as well. And since the arrival of the disease, I can say that things could still get better, but it has never been this better.

I never got the chance to say “Father, I’m sorry, please forgive me.”. It has always just been implied. And I’d probably never muster the courage to do so, for some reason. For that, I am saying this to him now in this little narrative of mine. He may never find this little story, but I would like to let whoever can read this that I am so sorry, and that if I were to be reborn, I’d probably not change a thing about him, myself, or anything else. 

I’d probably not trade this situation I am in right now for anything else in the world.

Probably not even for the most tempting cure.