Best Dad! ♛

I rarely open up on things that are personal. This post is one something very personal that I’d share. As a blogger, I believe that at one time you have to share a part of you to the people that reads you. As they witness your happiness, they should at least have a glimpse of your vulnerable side.

It’s such a shame that I waited for father’s day and his birthday (last June 14) to write something for my first love:  My Dad. He was the best. We all say our own Dad’s are the best, and Daddy never failed to prove to me that he was the greatest.

Judging from all the great stories that I’ve heard, Daddy is loved and respected by a lot of people. Being a prosecutor, Fiscal Bernardo T. Simene did not make us feel that he was that authority at home. I could hardly remember him being angry. He was mostly the one to spoil. I remember vividly that as a child, every time I did something mischievous, mommy would attempt to spank me but daddy would open his arms and ask me to run to him and I’ll be saved.

He passed away when I was still in 5^th grade. I was a Daddy’s girl so it was really hard. I had a lot of questions. I could not accept. It took me so long to understand. I graduated in high school thinking it would have been better if he was the one who wrote my speech. Sometimes when I do grocery alone and I see girls asking for their Dad to buy them something, I get jealous (emotera!). But those were only a few times. Mostly, I remember my Dad and it lights me up.  He is my happy thought. He inspires me. The great memories make me smile whenever I miss him.

One memory that I hold very dear are those moments that he lulls me to sleep. Being the youngest, I would not go to bed alone since my roomies Ate Nikki and Clint would bully me to tears (oh we were human versions of Tom and Jerry!). I would stay up late and watch my mom do her lesson plans for school. Then daddy had to carry me and sing to me ‘til I fall asleep. He would sing to me a song that goes “Oh, oh Bernardine…” and it always makes me feel special. It was always like that for years and my mom would say “nilapas na ka sa tuhod sa imong Daddy, bug-at na ka”. Hahaha! My sibling would tell me my face is turning into the shape of that old 2-peso coin because whenever my Dad asks me to comb his hair, I would ask for PHP2.00 in return. Darn! *hides face* Don’t judge me.

We had this family game every night after dinner. Mommy wants quiet time in the dining room while making her lesson plan, so the rest of the brady bunch would gang up outside in the terrace to do some “question-question” as what we call it. As a wide reader, Daddy would ask us trivia questions and me and my sibs would beat each other by answering first. I was always the loser. Hahaha!  Some one-liners that make us remember him are: “question-question”, “cover-cover”, “jumpshoti ko pa lagi ah”, etc.

Waaaay before “Troy” and “Robin Hood” became such hit movies, we already knew their story. Daddy was the best story teller. Other than the question-question nights, we would have storytelling as an alternative. I grew up hearing the names of Robin Hood, Surab and Rustom, Achilles, Paris and Hector. My favorite would be Ivanhoe. I read it recently and I see Dad written all over it upon reading through the names of Reginald Front-de bouf, Maurice DeBracy, Cedric, Rowena, Rebecca, Athelstane, Gurth and Wamba, King Richard The Black Knight, Locksley, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, etc. My sibs could relate to this. He would tell the stories to us with matching actions and sound effects. The trumpets proclaiming arrival of a knight and the sound of the knights’ horses being the prominent ones.

Aaaaaahhh, I miss him. I will always be your little girl. What I wrote in my FB wall, I meant every word.

| “Happy Father’s Daddy! Loving and missing you every day. The thought of you singing “Bernardine” to me is my calm in any storm”  |

This one’s for you…