Amnesia

There comes a point in one's life that an unseen force would bring you back to a certain unfinished period in the past to probably give one a chance to continue and finish  certain tasks that were long forgotten. An unseen force that after all the voyages over time and space in this earth, would remind you on what, how and where you came from.

In the Philippines, there is a saying that states "one who doesn't look back to where he came from, will never get the chance to reach his destination."

This particular experience happened to me this September 2012. For the past 13 years, after my father passed away, I never seriously considered going back to the house that I built for my parents or I may say our Ancestral house. The passing of my father created a huge vacuum in my humanity and prompted me to traverse and explore almost all angles of this life.

I was at my prime then and was just starting to payback my parents for all the efforts and sacrifices that they had done for me and my elder sister. We came from a very poor family wherein my parents migrated to the city and left their hometown in Tapon, Dalaguete, Cebu to try their luck and rear a family despite the fact that they didn't know what to expect in the city during those times in the 60’s.

Without any special tool except their love for each other and their love for us their children, they bravely faced life with all its complexities, cruelties, and everything that life had offered them just for us. To rear, nourish, care for, love and drove us to finish college degrees and become better persons. They didn't expect anything from us but just to be good and never forget who we are.

I forgot who we were . I forgot where I came from and I forgot about my roots. My father's death created a silent but deep wound in my life which I pretended not to have inside me. That was 1999. From then on, I forgot and became a person that is a stranger even to myself. I ventured into stints an ordinary man won't dare do in his lifetime. Name it and there's a great possibility that I've done it. I was a man in great pain but nobody knows except me and my Creator.
I became immune and numb to everything even to love, to real friendships and even to what a family should be. I never realized that I could still remember how it was to be the person my parents shaped me to be. I never thought that I could remember my way  back. I was just a man full of anger and angst and this world became my battlefield. I was at war and had inserted myself in great dangers. I was invulnerable
.
Then came this period which started this February of 2012 wherein my Dearest Mother became ill and eventually joined my father and our Creator last April. That changed everything.
Even after she passed on, I still couldn't find where I should be headed. But when I returned to our ancestral house, several series of good incidences occurred which awakened me from the 13 years of deep reverie about how my life and that of my family should be.  It took the efforts of both my mother and father from beyond and the living and unrelenting love of my wife and all kids to bring me back to where I left off earlier in my life despite of the fact that they are still not there when I forgot about it all.

This house and place reminded me on how my parents wanted my life to be and it also reminded me who I am, where I should be headed. I realized that no matter where I search for what I was looking for, it could only be found in this Home that me and my parents built. This is where I left the old me whose goal is to complete tasks for my family and for the next generations of my lineage for it was here that my father passed that unspoken tasks to me. Tasks to live a good life with the strongest love to the Creator and my family and that this life should be spent wisely for my family and nothing else. An inheritance that is etched in the corners of this house that this Home would bear infinitely and would always remind me on who I really am.

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