Ozbots

                In the everyday’s of our lives, I believe that we receive an abundant supply of love and care from a handful of people. In the present time, most people consider love to be the last hope of light in an already crumbling world, filled with building busting tanks and armor piercing AK47’s. However, what does it mean to really love someone? Is love just being romantic with, singing a song for or giving roses to that special someone in your life and at the same time expecting him or her to do the same? Is love that addictive drive we get when we are playing our favorite sport or video game, where we endure and persevere in them till our bodies collapse and our eyes pop out? Or is love that ever eluding world peace where everyone is equal and have that give and take relationship with each other? I guess we would never really know, because as I think of it, one can never really tell what love truly is. Everyone in the world has their own definition of what absolute love is, and I just happened to formulate mine because of this one particular episode in my life.

                 There is this one special person in my life who has shown me what loving truly is, and he did this in the very way that a real loving father would. Yes, he is none other than my dad. For me, my dad is the greatest person in the world. Like most dads he was always there when I was sick, especially the time I was confined to the hospital where he stayed up all night taking care me. He was there when I needed someone to talk to about my love life and my problems with school, he was there when I needed help on projects and relationships and he was there when I needed protection and security from a fight or even a heartbreak. Basically my dad was always there for me, he always gave me the feeling that he would always have my back and he would catch me if ever I fell down. He had this magic with him that always made me feel that whatever wrong I do, I can always fix it. You may say that my dad is just like every other dad, doing what they should be doing; but you are dead wrong! There is something about my dad that separates him from all the other good dads you can find, and when I say this I say it with all the love that he deserves in return.

                During my adolescence, I would say that I wasn’t the most obedient child you could find, and neither was I the most loving. During those days I really didn’t want to listen to what my dad had to say, for I always knew that he would always contradict to whatever I wanted. When I wanted to go out with friends he would always argue his belief that it’s more fun to stay at home than to go out and spend more money on pointless whims. He was a very persistent man(guessing that it came from his being a Chinese businessman) and I only knew one way to shut him out, and that was through fighting fire with fire. We usually fought with each other by shouting, screaming and creating the worst father and son duet in history. I being the naughty kid that I was always contradicted what he had to say. When I was younger he would always say, “you have to eat your vegetables.(with a Chinese twang)”, and I on the other hand would get a bag of chips and start devouring it in front of him. Everyday I would just lock my door so that every time he wanted to talk to me, he would be forced to leave his message the same way he would leave it in an answering machine. However, one of those days, it hit me that maybe I had shutout my dad for too long, that the love he had for me would diminished with time. Eventually time went by that way, and on a very unfortunate turn off events my dad suffered from an emotional depression with the collapse of the Philippine economy. During those times I would see my dad lying down on his bed, in the most helpless state that I have ever seen him, where he didn’t talk at all and he had this very disgusting smell of old people. The man that I looked up to as my childhood hero lay in bed looking as though he were a brain dead patient in the last days of his life. He couldn’t even get up to watch his favorite Korean telenovela show, he couldn’t even go to the kitchen and eat his favorite chocolate bar and worst of all, even though he was already lying in bed, he couldn’t even sleep and dream those painful nights away. Seeing him in that helpless state hurt and destroyed me completely, I felt as though god has struck his fist on me as a punishment for all those times that I have neglected my father.  Therefore, one of those days I went up to my dad and tried my best to comfort him. I expected him to tell me what he wanted so that I could get it for him, but instead he told me that he just wanted to talk to me. He told me how much he loved me and that he is sorry for all those times he argued with me and yelled at me, he also said that he was sorry if things don’t work out well for him. This statement somewhat shattered the big wall that separated my dad and me for so long. I burst into tears because I have felt that my father had no reason to be sorry for anything, and yet he was the one saying sorry. Before that incident I thought that my dad had given me a great deal of love already, but at that moment I saw that he had already been giving his everything to me, and on my part what have I done to deserve his love? . . . Nothing but shut him out of my life.

                Now, in the present I can say that I have matured a lot and am trying to make up for all the times that I wasn’t there for my father. My father changed me by molding me into a better man with the unresting love he had been bestowing upon me every single day of his life. I dream of one day becoming like my father, of course without the belly and the very naggy attitude of traditional Chinese men. I dream of loving like my father. I want to love so much that nothing could ever stop that love. I want to share with others what I felt through my father, and that is none other than true and pure love. A love that just keeps on giving and a love that never asks anything in return. Through this experience I had clearly seen what absolute love truly meant to me. It is not the puppy love that we feel for crushes and nor is it the love we have for the important and valuable things we like, but rather it is the love that knows no bound, the love that is patient and the love that lasts forever.