Forgiving my Father

Blogging about decapitated Barbie Dolls in Cubao in my previous entry and how they reminded me of my childhood kind of brought back issues that I have already shoved at the back part of my memory closet. It all suddenly came back to me. I lost all my Barbie Dolls when my father surprised us with the sale of our house back in the early '90s . I just left home that time for college life here in Manila so I wasn’t even around to clean up my bedroom which I had plan to come home to during my 1st sem break. I didn’t know that he was selling the house that we have been calling home all our young life. I was so angry. It was all too sudden. Although I knew that my father had expressed some financial crisis in our family, I never thought that he would just pack everyone and everything up in a snap. Worse part was he also didn’t tell my younger sisters about his plan. What they thought was just a normal weekend at our lola’s house turned out to be a dreadful “forever”. I felt bad that I wasn’t there for my sisters, and at the same time I felt relieved that I wasn’t there to witness the great move that totally flipped our lives and started that long dark chapter in our life.

I was so angry at my father for being so insensitive about the memories that we, his children, have kept in that home. I found out that my personal belongings and collectibles – books, board games, our family photos, my school yearbooks, my scrapbooks, my journals, my notebooks filled with my unfinished short stories, and yes my Barbie Dolls were all gone. They all got lost in the rubble of stuff-filled boxes inside my paternal grandmother’s bodega. Since they were taking up so much space, I think my father (or my lola) sold them, or threw them out. I really don’t know what happened to all of them. If those things were just trash to him… to them (my relatives), they were in fact our treasure. I couldn’t understand why he was able to do that. If he was angry at our mother, why take it out on us? She left us too!

At that moment, I just felt that my own father erased my childhood just like that. How could he? If his intentions were to make everyone start on a new slate, then he should have at least asked us first. Even if we were all still below 18 at that time, I felt that we had just as much right to voice out about where our family was supposed to go to. If he wanted to start over again, he didn’t have to take away what was precious from us just because he couldn’t bear to go over painful memories again. I knew that he was badly hurt from the separation but he didn’t have to add insult to injury. We were hurt too. I was really so angry with him that I could not bear coming home ever again. And that’s what exactly happened. Since I thought we didn’t really have our “own home” to come home to anymore, I just decided to make Manila my new permanent address. Since then, Davao became a place of dread for me. Coming home on my very first college sem break was a pain. And so I promised never to come back again. If I did pay a visit, it was only for very brief Christmas breaks. Nothing more.

Now who would have thought that I could make this poignant connection between Cubao, Barbie Dolls and my lost childhood which ultimately led me to write about my seething and obviously unresolved despise of my father? Whew! Writing it now even makes me shed a tear.

In some way, I think I still haven’t fully forgiven my father for sort of deceiving us about that “great move-out”. It was like the end of the world for us at that time. Growing older as a young adult, there were a lot of times when I couldn’t understand why I have this unexplainable resentment over him; why there were times when he just really pisses me off for no exact reason – and now I know. And now this is the part where we can actually go Freudian about it. Hmmm…

I suddenly asked myself – Have I really forgiven him already? Did I feel so unloved by his careless actions that ultimately led to my destructive history of bad boyfriends? Aaaaccckkk! Stop it! I feel like I’m sitting on my shrink’s couch again.

Forgiveness was one of the things I learned (painfully) when I accepted Christ in my heart. Just as He has forgiven me and saved me through His grace, I slowly started forgiving the people who I “thought” hurt me all those years.

Papa is in fact is with us now on what seems to be an “overstayed” vacation. The moment he got here, I knew God had a reason. I knew that God wanted me to resolve my issues with my father once and for all. There are still a lot of issues between us that don’t sound well for public reading. I realize that he’s the last person on my list that I have yet to forgive. I thought that I have already forgiven him but it’s quite obvious that the reality is quite au contraire, given the fact that I am purging about him now. I guess that little wound of hurt is still inside, and it swells up whenever I trip upon… uhm… Barbie Dolls? Hehe. Labo noh?

So how do you forgive someone who you thought you have forgiven already? How do we really define forgiveness? Do we really know how to FORGIVE and FORGET? In my case, I think I have only FORGOTTEN but never really got around to FORGIVING.

It’s quite ironic that I have forgiven my mother far more easily than my father. Well, not THAT easily though, but to have forgiven her first before my father is quite off the charts. Everyone who knows me too well is aware that my mother drives me nuts and my father’s just… there… sort of. I guess that was it. He was just there consumed in his own strife that he forgot to BE WITH US. So even if he was physically present, emotionally, papa was more absent than mama. And that hurt me more than mama bickering from the other side of the world.

The Apostle Paul wrote with urgency about “forgiveness” in his letter to the Ephesians. (4:25-41) and I really feel convicted every time I encounter these passages. If God was able to forgive me then who am I not to forgive?

I love my father, despite the fact that I strongly associate him with a lot of sadness from the past. But sometimes, even if we declare that we are already Christians, and loving Christ with all our hearts and minds, there are certain hurts that we cannot grasp… pain that we cannot put a finger on… sadness that’s rooted in air… and the only thing that can really heal us is God’s unconditional love.