Father's Day Twice Over

My Life,

Happy Father's Day. I remember how we would always laugh whenever I greeted you each year on the day the world would celebrate it because Australia would celebrate it some different day. I also remember how I would say that you deserve to be greeted twice in a year because you are such a good man, such a good father.

I've told you many times before and I want to tell you again -- I couldn't have chosen a better man to be the father of our girls. Because of you I realized that parenthood isn't about DNA, it's about the love and care you willingly give a child, it's the responsibility you willingly accept for a child's life. Someday when Sabrina is older, she will understand it too. You are the only father she has ever known.

The girls miss you everyday just like I do. Sabrina was just telling me last night how she misses you picking her up from school and that now she has moved to a school closer to home that it would be so nice and easier for you to walk her everyday. She was so proud of you darling, she was so proud to show you off to everyone, she was so proud to call you Daddy.

Nicole misses the good cop too. She was telling me how she missed your convys, how you were always interested in her hobbies, in her music. She realizes that you were more a father to her than her biological father ever was and that she was sorry for resisting the idea of you in our lives years ago. I think she secretly regrets never calling you "dad."

I don't know what good I might have done in some previous life to deserve a man like you but I thank the universe for the gift of you. And I thank you for loving my girls as if they were your own. Thank you for wanting to give them a future. Thank you for making them part of your dreams.

Happy Father's Day Bidong. We love you. Know that your presence is greatly missed.

-L-

x x x x x


Here's a card we sent you one Father's Day ... with it were fervent wishes that the girls and I would be able to spend it with you in person someday. Now, that someday will never happen.

Paradise Found, Paradise Lost

11 June 2004
Sydney, NSW

Beloved,

I patiently count the hours till I open my eyes and see your face next to mine first thing in the morning. Today is a month short of the day I first laid my eyes on you close to 5 years ago. 59 months seem like a long time to spend in a long distance affair. It is indeed crazy and yet here I am in Sydney typing this silly love note on your pc and there you are in bed in deep sleep waiting for me to lie beside you. It has been a long journey for me to finally get here.

My mind is running at an incredible velocity so let me apologize in advance for the incoherence of this letter.

I'm happy to be where I am today, in your arms; in a place you have made your home for more than half of your life. But what I am most happy about is that after all this time I find myself falling in love with you constantly every part of each day. I've told you many times before and I will tell you again, you and the girls are the best part of my everyday.

Where do I start to tell you about the things that keep me in this smitten state, the things that make me feel so good to be alive each day so I could love you?

Sometimes it's the way a cigarette sits between your lips, sometimes it's how you never forget to open the door for me, sometimes it's your hand reaching out for mine when we are walking, sometimes it's the way you embrace me with some pang of desperation, sometimes it's the way you look so deep in thought, sometimes it's the way you fight your sleepiness just so that you could be online to welcome me home, sometimes it's receiving an sms from you with just three words in it, sometimes it's how you always cup my face when kissing me, sometimes it's how you look at me with so much love in your eyes while we are making love, sometimes it's just as simple as you saying my name. I could go on and on, over a thousand things, over a thousand thoughts that keep me falling for you each day. It's all these little things which you probably are oblivious to but have no idea of the profound effect they have on my life

I picked up this bottle of happiness for you just to add to the thousand ways I remember you by. When I walk in Manila from now on and I smell this in the air, do know that I will be closing my eyes and thinking of the smell of your skin during winter in Sydney.

Happy Monthsarry Beloved, thank you for the wonderful past 730 days filled with laughter, quiet moments, tears and love. I love you always and no matter how the world turns and changes it ways, I will always be here for you. I will always be your best friend. And for as long as you will have me, I am yours completely ... heart, mind, body and soul.

-L-

x x x x x

Love of My Life,

How are you? What's it like where you are? Do you ever feel a little sad or lonely? Or are you shielded from all the sadness and longing? Does it ever rain where you are? If it does, then remember how envious I have always been with the rain that fell on you in Sydney as I am with the rain that falls on you where you are now because they kiss your skin in a way I cannot.

I wish I could say I have been great but I haven't and I've never lied to you so why start now. I know you're probably disheartened and feeling sad over the state of my heart. I'm sorry. It breaks my heart, too, having to disappoint you because I know you would've wanted me to be as happy as I could be. You always told me that my face wasn't made for crying and that I could light up a room with my smile. Of course, only you saw that and today I miss the way you loved my smile. I miss smiling for you, I miss smiling at you. I miss many things Clancy, but most of all I miss waking up so happy because each day was another day of living my dream with you and our girls.

As I was preparing to sleep last night, a letter I had written a year ago fell out of my old planner. I knew I shouldn't have opened it. I shouldn't have read it. I was very angry with myself for being careless, I thought I had put away all the things that would remind me of you so as just to avoid weeping incessantly. And yet, even that was a futile attempt. How I can run? How can I hide from you when you are all around me, in me, everywhere enveloping me.

Suffice to say I haven't had a wink of sleep. I just kept tossing and turning in bed, my head filled with thoughts of you. Oh darling, you have no idea how difficult the last 7 months have been. It's so tragically ironic that we used to count the months from the time we fell in love and today, I find myself counting the months since you passed away. And I know I will count many many more months and years till I'm with you again. A lifetime of missing of you. It just isn't fair. Please tell me it won't be like this everyday, it isn't right for me to be missing you this way and crying this way everyday. When will the pain of loss subside and the the joy of memories take root? I have become a very very sad person.

Hey listen, do you think if God knew I would be this broken, do you think he would still have taken you away from me so soon? I wonder. All the heartaches before you happened to me, was that not enough? I wonder when and where it stops. Am sure other people have had it harder and mangaed just fine. But I'm not them. I'm not strong despite the fact that I might've convinced others and myself that I am strong through and through. Even I am sorely disappointed with myself, with just how weak I have been. Any attempt to live, to move on has been fleeting and transient. I always feel empty in my quiet moments with you. What is living anyway? I don't think I know anymore. All I know is I need you, I need you to hold me.

I miss you everyday, you were my life. You still are.

Across whatever distance there is between where my tears fall and where you smile, I send you my thoughts and my love. Know that I am so in love with you, still.