Journey of the Soul

by JonLimjap

(The author is a daddy. Find out what he felt when his baby did not recognize him. To know more about this author, view his profile).

Last night I went home at 1 AM.

It was starting to be “normal.” For the past month I couldn’t blog or read or do much anything because of work. I’ve been going home at 9 PM the earliest, and sometimes I go home at around 2 or 3 AM. In one of those four weekends I spent my Saturday and Sunday night in the office.

I thought there wasn’t anything wrong about it. My wife Melynn has been supportive and doesn’t nag me about the fact though she complains about it once in a while. I thought it was something that “we could all get used to.” Besides, my work pattern has been like this when we were still courting. Then, overnights were “normal” to me.

But last night the matter was shoved right into my face.

As I entered the room and changed clothes, Melynn woke up, greeted me, then got up and told me to watch over CJ who was sleeping soundly on her side of the bed. She had to go to the bathroom. As she left I continued changing without turning the lights on. I didn’t want to rouse CJ.

However a few minutes later, CJ rolled over, apparently looking for her mommy. She usually notices it when mommy gets up, and that was normal, since Melynn still breastfeeds her in bed. Then, I would only have to pat her tummy or her butt and hum a lullaby to put her back to sleep. If that didn’t work, I’d pick her up and lull her in my arms. It worked a hundred times before, specially during her first six months.

So I tried patting her. It didn’t work. Her thrashing around trying to grope for mommy in the darkness only became more vigorous. Finally I decided to pick her up. That’s when things turned worse. She didn’t recognize me, and her sobs were getting louder and louder.

I decided to turn the lights on to see if the sight of her daddy carrying her would stop her from crying. As I turned on the light she squirmed with the sudden brightness, but what pained me was when she looked at me. She saw me, and looked as though she didn’t recognize me. My baby, whose signature smile always brightened my long tired day after coming home from work once I entered our front door, squealed this time. It’s as though she doesn’t know me. She squealed again, then cried harder, struggling to free herself from the arms of the “unknown” man holding her.

As the minutes drew longer and her squeals grew louder, my sister in the room beside ours and my mother both rushed to our room to see what was happening. At that same time, Melynn entered our room. Upon seeing mommy, CJ extended her hands towards her, and then quieted a bit, still sobbing while mommy, tita and lola all tried to calm her down.

My baby didn’t recognize me. That stabbed me right through the heart.

My baby didn’t recognize me. That stabbed me right through the heart.

When I woke up this morning CJ was already doing her thing. She’d roll around all over the bed, waiting for mommy and daddy to get up and get her. When I said goodmorning to her, again I saw her signature smile. We played a little bit; tickling her always did wonders. She was smiling at me again. But I know that that smile will last only as long as she knows that I will be there for her.

I guess I need to work on doing that, and set my priorities straight. Perhaps it’s time to ask myself whether the price I am paying for some things I deem important are worth it.

I love you CJ. We’ll find a way to bring daddy home earlier.

For more of this author, visit his webpage.

Parenting

Pinoy Ka Ba? - Part 2

ViaPapemelroti

(The author is a CPA and an NPA (Non-Practising Attorney. She may not have kids of her own but she had thousand of children, her former students. Read her profile)).

You remember that TV ad where a young boy was about to sweep dust out of the door at nighttime and somebody stopped him by shouting “Ibalik ang swerti!”? (SwerTI, as it was pronounced in that ad, instead of swerte meaning luck.) That was based on the Filipino belief that it is bad luck to sweep the floor at nighttime and especially if you sweep the dust out of the house.

It is also believed that if you are getting married, you are not supposed to see the betrothed a day before the wedding (because you might change your mind?), that you must put a coin in a shoe (I forgot what it was for) and that when you rise from a kneeling position at the end of the wedding ceremony, you must make sure to step on the foot of your spouse to ensure that you will be the “commander in chief” of the household. If a family member dies, siblings must not marry within the same year. Malas, bad luck. Are these purely Pinoy traditions or superstitious beliefs or are these also practiced in other countries?

This is getting to be a post on superstitious beliefs but I cannot help but write about the practice of pinning on baby’s clothes a small piece of ginger supposedly to drive the evil spirits away.

What is so Pinoy is our concept of family - one big happy extended family. I guess we’re not unique when it comes to this because I know that the Spanish and Italian concepts of extended families are almost like ours. It’s not surprising for us to have someone in our household who is the granddaughter of your dad’s third cousin and no matter how “financially challenged” we are, we always want to accommodate a relative, especially one who “comes from the province”. Of course, when the relative’s relatives come to visit, they bring all sorts of gifts - live chicken, fresh seafood or vegetables, a homemade jam … our distinctly Pinoy way of paying utang na loob (a debt of gratitude) which I had been taught since childhood is “a debt that you will never be able to repay.”

Our “hiya” is also legendary, perhaps as well-known as our sense of humor and our hospitality. I remember when I attended a teacher’s seminar in Manila. Our resource speaker was a multi-awarded teacher from a Catholic university and she talked about a student who was a valedictorian of a public high school in a remote province. The student was given a full scholarship in the university. Unfortunately for him, he performed so poorly in math that the teacher was worried that if he continued on failing his quizzes and exams, he would lose his scholarship. The student begged the teacher to help him because he said he could not go back to his province if he lost his scholarship. When the teacher asked for an explanation, the student narrated that when his small town learned that he was going to college in the prestigious university, the townsfolk were so proud that they gave him a big send-off party that was almost like a fiesta. So typical of the hospitable Pinoy!

I like best the Pinoy sense of humor. I like the joke about the TNT in America who made an operator-assisted call and when he heard the operator say, “AT&T, may I help you?” He put the phone down, shocked - “How did they know that I’m a TNT?” Or take this one: a friend warned her cousin - another TNT in the US - to better come home because the immigration officials were getting stricter. Her cousin’s reply: Don’t worry about me. They won’t find me … ni hindi nga nila makita si Saddam, ako pa kaya? (Roughly, how can they find me if they cannot even find Saddam?) Of course, when Saddam was arrested, the witty Pinay changed the name in that statement to Bin Laden.

Who, but only the Pinay, can come up with that kind of humor even when she is in dire straits?

All this make me very proud and happy to be a Pinay.

For more articles of the author, visit her webpage.