Masayang kebaitan!

Today is my Dad’s birthday.

He has dementia. He was diagnosed a long time ago but the thing about dementia is, you know they have it way before they are diagnosed. My sister was managing his business but I had to take over immediately and abruptly (story for another time) which meant I ended up spending a lot of time with him. Watching your Dad’s mental state go downhill while fighting business fires and raising a toddler is tough, to say the least.

I grew up in a single family household so my Dad wasn’t around a lot when I was growing up. At some point my mom got pseudo-tumor cerebrii making her bed bound for a year and my Dad moved in. That was good, I guess, but my Dad was angry a lot, and my parents fought a lot. I love them both, but that was the reality of my childhood.

When I was in college my grandfather died and I thought “OH F*** I BETTER BUILD THIS RELATIONSHIP AND FAST” so I made the effort. I was already my Dad’s favorite, but now I was his favorite and we were friends.

In the last year before he went super downhill my kid, his dad, and I, shoved as many memories as we could into the time we had. We took him to Cambria to see the Christmas lights, Morro Bay to see the plaque where the first Filipinos landed in the United States, Solvang so that we could eat Danish treats in a cute Danish town. The eclipse was last year and I asked him if he wanted to see it. I love road trips so we drove all the way to Texas and back, stopping at a ton of National Parks and tiny towns. We stayed in an RV on a farm to see the eclipse and he teared up and said, voice cracking, “This reminds me of the farm I grew up in, I miss it.” The whole thing took 2 and a half weeks. On the last stretch of our trip he mentioned that he felt like he was forgetting things a lot and I told him he has dementia. I told him on occasion before, but this time he got really quiet and I asked him what it was like. He said that sometimes he gets scared when he is in a new place because he doesn’t know where he is. That sounds super stressful and scary and is pretty much constant unless he’s at his house. Even then there are a lot of other scary things because he would do things like leave the stove on when boiling water.

My Dad hadn’t been back to his hometown in who knows how long. Even when he would go back to the Philippines he wouldn’t bother going to where he grew up. His dad abandoned him and his siblings when they were super young, his mom died, and his siblings went to the States so there wasn’t really anyone to go home to. I had gone there once ever when I was 12 so for his 80th birthday I flew my Tita and my Dad and all of us so that we could spend his 80th birthday in his hometown of Santa Rita. My other Tito was already in the Philippines so we did another 2.5 week road trip all over the Philippines, with a stop in Santa Rita for my Dad’s birthday. It was the first time he and his siblings were together in their hometown in over 50 years! My Dad’s birthday is also their town Fiesta day honoring Saint Rita, the patron Saint of the Impossible. Sometimes I look at my Dad and I think of all the Impossible things he has done in his life and I find it so fitting.

My Dad can’t go much of anywhere now. I mean he can, but then it’s a constant trail of “When are we going home?” and “You should come visit me at my house” and I think of when he said that he feels scared when he is in a place he doesn’t recognize. On the plus side I bought a house 2.5+ years ago so whenever he comes over he gets to be proud of his daughter having a new house.

I think about how lucky I am to have been able to spend all this time with him. He got to build a relationship with my son and my son gets to ask about his Abuelo and even when my Dad doesn’t remember anything, he remembers him. Sometimes he will ask when it’s time to pick my kid up from preschool, even when we’re at his house, and he’ll say “It’s almost time to pick him up!” It’s heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to my Dad! Even if he doesn’t remember it, even when he doesn’t remember me! When we get off the phone I will say “Kaluguran da ka!” which means “I love you” in Kapampangan (the dialect they spoke in his hometown) and he’ll say, “Keka antimurin” which means “same to you.”

Kaluguran da ka Dad! And Happy Birthday!