Waiting in the bustling emergency room, I stared at my father. His eyes were vacant as a dextrose line was attached to his right hand, an NGT tube inserted into his right nostril, and a loosely placed oxygen tube over him.

He stopped breathing.

My feet went cold. Was my father dead? This grim thought consumed my mind.

Then he took a deep breath. Labored. But he breathed.

I stood up from the monoblock chair I had been sitting on, bracing myself for what was to come. His breathing became labored — each breath counted, sparse within a minute.

Counted.

He took another breath. I began counting the intervals between each of his breaths. I opened my mouth, whispering each count aloud to make sure I heard it clearly.

Breathe.

“One…” I began. “Two, three, four…” I would restart the count whenever he took another deep breath.

Sometimes, the interval between his breaths was just three counts; other times, it was five. Once, it stretched to fifteen. Then eight.

Until he lifted his left shoulder and moved his jaw. I thought it might be another breath, so I restarted the count.

“One…” I resumed.

November 1, All Saints’ Day. I even asked if we’d be lighting candles this year. I was excited about the traditions — it’s part of my childhood, after all. You light candles, scare each other, and watch Magandang Gabi Bayan hosted by Noli De Castro.

I know some people might call it “pagan practice,” but if it’s for tradition and remembrance, I don’t see any harm in it. Who wouldn’t want to be remembered when their life on earth ends, right?

“Remember the living,” my mother once said.

She’s right. It made me think of my father. Living alone in our old house, stubborn as ever. We’ve asked him countless times to live with us, but he always insisted on being by himself. He didn’t want anyone scolding him for smoking or drinking. He chose to stay away from the family to indulge in his vices, only happy when drinking with street buddies or his construction coworkers back when he was still strong.

During birthdays, graduations, or any celebration, my father was always too lazy to join us. He felt distant from the family. He had no secrets; his reason was simple — he just didn’t like the family he ended up with. He wasn’t close to us, but he couldn’t leave either because, to him, it was his responsibility to stay.

We had many theories about why he was like that. If you talk to my siblings, they’d give reasons like, “He just doesn’t know how to show what he really feels,” or “He loves us in his own way,” or the one I find hardest to accept: “Whatever the case, he’s still your father.”

For a long time, I found these excuses infuriating. He wasn’t physically abusive, but he was neglectful.

When he came home, I couldn’t get any advice or wisdom from him. Most of the time, he was the source of our family’s problems. He’d come home drunk and pick fights. He’d spend his entire construction paycheck on alcohol, leaving nothing for food. He’d argue with my mom, call her names, and belittle her small business, which helped support our budget.

When he was drunk, he’d throw fits and curse in our small home in Parañaque City. For the longest time, I carried anger toward him. When we confronted him about his behavior, he’d always say, “Then leave my house!”

I couldn’t do it then, but eventually, I could. We left his house and moved to another place. My mom tried to bring him along, but because he wanted to act like a tyrant in our new home and do whatever he pleased, the fights continued. In the end, he chose to return to our old house.

That’s how things remained for a long time, even during the Pandemic. My mom still felt sorry for him, so we sent him money and food. I admired my mom and siblings for their love and willingness to care for him, even though he lived apart from us. As for me, I chose to install a camera in his house so my mom could still see him from time to time.

He wasn’t a good father.

This is the conclusion I’ve reached after all my experiences with him. He wasn’t even a good person.

“Two, three, four…” I kept counting, sometimes too loudly, making some of the other watchers in the ER glance at me. The emergency room was small and packed with people. I could hear the beeping of machines and the steady rhythm of CPR being performed in the critical section of the room. The ER was noisy. It was a place filled with sadness, where everyone had their own problems, yet no one cared about anyone else’s because they were preoccupied with their own struggles.

Like them, I didn’t care either. I just kept counting.

“Five…”

I was five years old when I experienced usog. You know what that is? It’s when someone greets you after just arriving home, tired, and then you end up with a stomachache or some other discomfort. One time, when I was five, I felt that pain. I wasn’t the kind of child who faked being sick just to get attention in a big family. But that night, I have a faint memory of the pain. It was late, so my parents panicked, rushing to find any clinic that was still open.

We didn’t have the money for a hospital.

I remember my father carrying me that night. We went through countless narrow alleyways searching for a doctor. I didn’t even understand what kind of doctor they were looking for. All I recall is that the alleys seemed like a maze to my young eyes as my mother ran ahead and my father carried me.

When they couldn’t find any help, my mother said maybe my father had caused usog. He had just come from work at a construction site, and being tired supposedly made it worse.

My father then took a little saliva from his mouth, dabbed it on his finger, and gently rubbed it on my foot.

I know many people wouldn’t agree with this kind of practice. But for a couple with no money, this was all they knew. They would do whatever it took, even things that defied explanation, just to help their child.

A father will offer a prayer for his child, even if he doesn’t know where that prayer will go — even if it involves something as simple as dabbing saliva on their foot.

Not long after, I started to feel better. That’s when I noticed it was almost Christmas because I saw the beautiful lights along the streets.

“Tay oh, tignan mo ‘yung mga ilaw,”(Father, look at the lights) I said, pointing at a brightly lit house. He immediately turned to me, relieved to see I was no longer pale from the pain. “Ang ganda, noh?” (It’s pretty, right?)

I didn’t realize that while I was looking at the lights, my father was looking at me, his gaze drawn to the brightness in my eyes.

“Six, seven, eight,” I stared into Father’s eyes. It felt like he was searching for something. Maybe he was still looking for my mother. I had sent her out to buy medicine in Bambang. The pharmacy in front of the hospital was too expensive — 1,500 pesos for one medicine, while in Bambang, you could buy two for just 500. I never thought I’d be the one watching over Father in the hospital, given the state of our relationship. I’d always made it clear to people that I didn’t love him. With all the things he had done — and continued to do — without considering the family, my resentment for him had only deepened.

Even now, lying in the hospital bed, he still couldn’t bring himself to thank us for everything we were doing for him.

Every movement, every word, every mention of him or what needed to be done for him felt like a thorn stabbing my side, always met with sharp, hurtful words from me.

“Nine, ten, eleven, twelve,” I kept counting. Other watchers were starting to notice how long I’d been staring at Father — and how he had been staring back at me.

Neither of us was breathing.

Mine was held, my chest tightening in anticipation, as though bracing for the worst.

His seemed to falter, as if finally giving up.

“Thirteen.”

It’s terrifying when my older siblings tell stories about how our father’s family possesses an agimat (amulet). They say they can heal toothaches or stomachaches. There are even stories about how they use a simple banana leaf to locate where a sprain needs to be massaged.

There are prayers they claim can silence barking dogs or make towering trees bow.

“I have no intention of accepting any black magic,” I firmly refused when the topic of passing down the agimat to the sons came up.

“A lifetime of resentment is more than enough,” I added.

Our father’s upbringing was chaotic. From the terrifying hands of my grandfather to the indifference of my grandmother, he managed to run away at 16 and work as a construction worker. He was raised amidst curses, heavy labor mixing cement, and sleepless nights pouring concrete pillars.

He was an excellent construction worker. He could build sturdy house pillars.

But he wasn’t a strong pillar of the home.

I remember our mother taking us to our father’s construction sites so we could see the hardships he endured for the family. Mother would say, “If you don’t study hard, this is the kind of work you’ll end up doing.”

The fear I felt was unimaginable. I didn’t want to be like him in any way. So, I buried myself in my studies. I had no intention of leaving even a small chance for me to end up like him.

“Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,” I could hear the other watchers behind me starting to cry. They already knew what was happening to my father.

“Kuya, what’s happening to him?” one of the female watchers whispered to me from behind.

They also had a patient they were watching over, lying in a wheelchair patched together with makeshift chairs positioned outside the cubicle where Father was lying.

I didn’t turn to look at her; my focus remained on my father. I continued counting.

“Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one,” I went on. I had already accepted what this long count meant. I had accepted it. But still, I kept counting.

It’s easier to be angry. That had been my excuse for a long time in my relationship with Father. He was difficult to love. I wanted to love him. I dreamed of loving him.

But his attitude toward the family was always at odds with that dream. Everything he had done — and everything he might still do — was in conflict with the love I wanted to give him. The words he might say, if I gave him a chance, were like a barrier preventing me from opening my heart.

Who would want to stay angry all the time? Despite the hurtful words he threw at us — even while he was the one who needed help — we continued to support him. Even when he spread rumors that his children had abandoned him, we still gave him the love we could offer, without letting it completely drain us.

Even when he told us to just leave him alone and let him die, we persisted. We kept urging him to get checkups and took care of him when he needed it.

We loved him to the best of our ability.

As Christians, we never stopped sharing with him the salvation offered in Jesus’ name, even though he sometimes argued with us because we were no longer Catholics.

Then came the time when he was hospitalized at OsMun.

The doctor told us that Father’s condition wasn’t improving — it was only getting worse.

He was awake but could no longer speak clearly because of the tube placed in his mouth to help him breathe. Our church pastor spoke to him about salvation and the promise of heaven through Jesus.

Unlike in the past, when he would argue or joke with those who shared the gospel with him, this time, he accepted the pastor’s words and nodded.

I joked to my siblings, “Hala, may sakit talaga si tatay. Hindi namimilosopo.” (Wow, he must really be sick. He didn’t argue back.)

At that moment, I found hope. Not that he would recover — his body had paid the price for years of abuse from alcohol and cigarettes — but hope that his soul would find its way to heaven, a place of true love.

There is love in heaven, and if he accepted God’s love, he would finally understand what real love is. It was sad that he hadn’t recognized that love within the family he had here on earth, but I didn’t care. What mattered was that he had a chance at love.

After the pastor left the hospital, I leaned close to his ear. I had dreamed of loving Father, but I had been too afraid to do so when he was strong, because of the hurtful things he did to me — and especially to Mother.

I whispered in his ear, knowing he could hear me.

“Tay, I know you’re not asking for forgiveness from me. I know you don’t even realize what you’ve done. But if the true agimat you’re passing down to your children is anger, bitterness, and resentment, I won’t carry it.” I took a deep breath to hold back my tears. He needed to hear what I was about to say clearly. I imagined that whatever he might say to God when they met, it would include the words I was saying now, in the final moments of his life.

“You’ve accepted God’s salvation. In heaven, you won’t suffer anymore. In heaven, there is love. One day, we’ll meet there. One day, we’ll talk there. And there, I’ll love you. We’ll have a chance there.”

I thought about all the opportunities for love that Father had thrown away when we should have been loving each other. And my response to his neglect had been to throw away my own chances to love him.

There was nothing I could do now, and I knew I couldn’t blame myself. He wasn’t a person who valued love. I knew I had done everything a normal person could do to show love.

But we still have a chance in heaven. “Tignan mo ang liwanag, Tay.”(Look at the light, Tay) I whispered, praying that he would see the light of God.

“Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five,” by this point, I had already accepted that Father was gone. His last breath came with the movement of his jaw and shoulders when I began counting.

My feet felt cold. I didn’t know why, but we had reached the moment where I was the only one who could witness his final breath. My siblings had done so much for Father, but this was the one thing they said they couldn’t do.

I had volunteered to do it for them. And now, I understood why they couldn’t.

It felt like I had locked eyes with death. I had seen people die before. Just the other day, there were almost hourly deaths in the ER. But what I saw with Father was different. To see someone die before me, someone in my family — even though we didn’t share much love — I came face to face with death.

I didn’t physically see Father’s soul leave his body. But it felt as though my soul saw death itself.

My soul felt fear. It questioned me with an immortal voice: “Why is there death?” My mind knew that mortal bodies die, but my soul struggled to accept it.

It felt like I stared death in the eyes. Death, which only God has defeated. God, who triumphed over death — so imagine the fear of an ordinary person like me standing before it.

It was terrifying. Unsettling. There are still times I dream about that fear, about my soul’s encounter with death.

The only thing that calms me is the truth that Jesus conquered death by His grace.

“Amazing grace,” I whisper, as though it’s a balm for the fear.

It eases the fear, though sometimes, a shadow of it lingers. You know that feeling after watching a horror movie that leaves you too scared to enter a room alone? You can pray and push through, but the fear still clings, and sometimes it comes back.

That’s how the fear I felt was.

“Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine,” I took a deep breath. Father was gone.

“Thirty.” I called a nurse to confirm it. The other watchers who had been caring for their own patients began to cry. I didn’t cry. It wasn’t the time for tears — there was too much to do. The nurse quickly declared Father “expired.” I was asked if I wanted him revived, but I declined because our family had already agreed on this decision.

Signatures. Packing. Calls to my siblings. My eldest sibling began planning how to break the news to others. More signatures. More packing.

I was ushered out of the ER when they took Father’s body away. It was business as usual in the ER. I carried our things out, walking past everyone else. No one offered condolences except for one watcher who had been beside us with her own patient. I understood — they all had their own troubles.

Carrying our things, I stepped outside the ER and waited for Mother and my siblings to decide on the next steps. I sat by the roadside, where I watched the saddest sunset of my life.

November 30. We agreed it would be our father’s burial day. It was exhausting to take care of all the arrangements, and we barely had time to mourn together in the chapel because of the sheer number of documents that needed to be processed.

There weren’t many people, but each one there carried a genuine sense of sympathy. Close friends, churchmates, immediate relatives, and people who loved Father — some of whom I was meeting for the first time — were present.

Tears poured from our mother, my siblings, and my nieces and nephews.

Each of them had their own stories about him, their own perspective of him as a dad. As for me, I saw him as someone who, in many ways, was just a child. It’s frustrating to realize that after all my efforts not to become like him, in the end, I saw how similar we were.

I saw that I could have been just like him if I hadn’t felt love. He grew up in an environment where his ability to receive love from his family stopped at the age of sixteen. We were both stubborn, sharp-tongued, and if we had lived similar lives, our hearts would likely have been equally hardened.

I thought we were different because I worked so hard not to be like him. But the truth is, we were different because I grew up in a family that gave me what I lacked. Though we tried to offer him the same, I couldn’t help but think that he could have turned out differently if he had received love in the same way I did.

I believe that in the end, despite his hardened heart, he accepted the love of the Lord. I know this because, as I said, our hearts were equally hard. But when I encountered the Lord, I knew the kind of power that enveloped me, allowing me to see God’s love.

Even his hardened heart was no match for the love of the Lord, even in his final breaths.

When the earth was finally laid over his resting place, I looked up to the sky, gazing at the visible light of God that my soul could feel.

The light of Christ’s love.

“Kita mo yang liwanag na ‘yan, tay?”(Do you see that light, Father?) I whispered.

“Sabi ko sa’yo, maganda eh.” (I told you — it’s pretty, isn’t it?)