Papa’s funeral was a little chaotic. i’m really thankful for our friends and family who stepped in to help us with organising it, but when it came down to saying a few words for my Dad, it didn’t come out the way i wanted it to.
in any case, this is what i wanted to say:
when i was ten years old, we used to say the Rosary in our house every evening. even though i would pray with the rosary in my hand, i’d always lose my count, and it was Papa whom i silently turned to to find out how many Hail Mary’s were left in the decade. Papa always counted on his fingers, but Papa never lost count, and i can still remember the mischief and love in his eyes as he’d help me get my count back.
this was only one of the many, many instances when our only response was to look to Papa for help. when Didi got caught by the cops for breaking the signal, it was Papa who spoke to them on the phone, and somehow convinced them to let her go. when our house got broken into while Papa was in an entirely different country, it was Papa we called first, and he had the presence of mind to call the right people who showed up at our house even before the police did.
we looked to him in the big things, and in the small things. when the geyser sparked, i called Papa. when i lost my bike keys at college, i called Papa. when i caught the wrong train and ended up in the wrong city, i called Papa.
but he wasn’t just a fix-it-all. my father was a charismatic man. i got my gift of speaking and writing from my dad. he never passed up the chance to share his views; if there was an open mic at any event, you could bet it would be Papa on that stage thanking the organisers and sharing his pearls of wisdom. even during his last moments, Papa made his presence known in the ICU, joking with the nurses who anxiously urged him to keep his oxygen mask on at all times.
my father was also an honest and principled man, and he stood up for what he believed in. once, on the way to the airport to catch an expensive international flight, he found a young man being hassled by airport authorities for no good reason. my dad couldn’t help but step in, and it cost him a confiscated passport, and a missed flight.
my father was also a man who grew up in a world that told him that when men suffer, they must suffer silently. so Papa suffered silently. he never shared his anxieties with us, and because of this, he was always distant. my dad was not a bad person, but over the past year, a few big revelations made it very difficult for me to speak to him, so i stopped doing that.
i do regret it. but it is a fact of life that we just can’t bring ourselves to treat the people around us as if they will die soon. i did not know that Papa would die soon, and if i’d had that knowledge i would probably have behaved differently, but that knowledge belongs only to God, and for good reason.
i love and miss Papa. even when things were difficult at home, and he couldn’t provide financially for us any more because of his health, he would help us out by doing the laundry, and filling up our water bottles. even this he did silently, always loyal to what was expected of him.
it’s so difficult to be a father, and Papa was not a perfect one, which is not to say that he didn’t try.
what hurts the most is that it won’t be the four of us any more. our family is incomplete without you, Papa.
in his last moments my dad had the privilege of sharing in the suffering of Jesus on the cross. May God our Father have mercy on his soul, and may he enjoy the fruits of everlasting life in his forever home in heaven.
i will pray for you every day, Papa. rest in peace.
the eulogy i couldn't give my dad
this is beautiful. thank you for sharing. hope you're doing okay<3