Youngblood : Father and son
Volts Castillo
Inquirer News Service
I SNEAKED out of my class recently to have a bite at Ma Mon Luk Restaurant. I had been hankering for some of their noodles and "siopao" dumpling, so I thought it would be a good idea to visit their old joint on Quezon Avenue in Quezon City.
I left school at exactly 11 a.m. and got there 15 minutes later. I proceeded to order my usual fare: beef "mami" noodles and special siopao. Then two things happened. First, I began to eat. Then I was overcome by a wave of sadness. It was dumb, really, because I stopped eating and lost my appetite halfway through peeling their famous siopao. But then I had suddenly remembered my father.
There are people who peel their siopao, and there are people who don't. Papa used to do this for himself and for me when I was still a little kid.
"Papa, bakit mo binabalatan 'yung siopao?" [Why do you peel the siopao?] I would ask.
And he would answer, "Kasi, anak, marumi 'yung balat." [Because, son, the peel's dirty.]
It's one of those little conversations that cement the bond between a father and his son -- short, funny and unimportant. But when you lose your parent at a relatively young age, it's those cute Q&A's you remember most of all. Never the big stuff, the big fights, or your futile, teenage rebellion. Your mind (or my mind at least) harks back to the simple times when you were 12 and your parent was 38 and you had a lot of questions about the world.
Something as mundane as peeling a siopao shouldn't be a cause for unleashing a tidal wave of emotions. If you think about it, people shouldn't even be peeling it at all, because it's as clean as the bread and meat inside, and the fact that you're eating in a place like that…well, if you eat in a place like that and expect five-star hotel quality and cleanliness, then you're in the wrong place and you ought to leave immediately.
But a father doesn't take chances with what he feeds his son. So he starts removing the tough, outer layer of the bun to expose the softer, sweeter inner bread layer. He does this for two reasons: one, the outer layer could be dirty; and two, he doesn't want his young son to break one of his cute little milk teeth on the bun. He doesn't realize that it doesn't matter to his son if it's dirty or clean; he'll eat the food because his father does. To the child, they are just a couple guys eating siopao. He doesn't realize that he's imprinting the memory of his father peeling his siopao and that he's having fun.
In my own experience, it was just my dad and me, eating in this smelly joint. Hey, after this he's going to buy me a pair of shoes.
All relationships between father and son, regardless of race or ethnicity, have some sort of conflict roiling underneath. The father may resent the son from time to time, and vice-versa. I don't know any underlying anthropological/behavioral theory to explain this, but I've seen it everywhere: on TV, in other families I know, even in the books I read and the movies I watch. It's real.
Papa and I had exactly the same relationship as those father-son characters you see on TV: good today, bad tomorrow. The reasons that trigger the changes are endless, but most times it's got something to do with me being lazy, or hooking up with the wrong type of girl, or doing poorly in school.
You might say, "Dude, that's perfectly natural. All dads are like that."
I agree. We're not different from the rest of the world, after all.
But in times like these -- with me hitting 29 in a couple of months, married for some months, confused as to whether I'm supposed to stay or quit government service and resume the law studies I've postponed on for so long -- I miss my father's strength and his strong will. People can only kid themselves for so long about their own maturity and wisdom, but in the end, they will always ask themselves, "What would my father do?" No matter how old you are, sooner or later, you'll come running back to your dear, old dad to seek advice, whether you have a turbulent relationship or not.
Those whose fathers are still alive know and appreciate this. Those whose fathers are no longer of this world are left with just memories and dreams. No matter how stupid you think your father is, my friend, he always knows more about life and how to live than you. That's an indisputable fact.
In the Chinese restaurant, I stopped eating and just started staring into the distance because I suddenly realized that I was now without a father, and had no one to turn to "when bad things start happening." Like Marcel Proust and his madeleine-eating episode that triggered his multi-volume work, I have written several thousand words on this subject before, but it was only lately that I realized how many things Papa taught me without him actually giving me a set of directions to follow. I suddenly remembered all the things I do on autopilot, all the problems I've solved thoughtfully or thoughtlessly by copying Papa's no-nonsense habit (use your brain, not your mouth, and don't whine, just do it, silently, wordlessly, because people don't care how you solve it, they want to know when you've solved it). Like peeling siopao in one, swift, stripping action. It's there, it's automatic, and it's a habit I picked up from my old man.
You can say: "Hey, you always have friends and your mom to ask for help or advice."
But seriously, how many men whom you know "open up" (I hate those two words) to their friends when they're down? I am an old-school guy, and I think men shouldn't be opening up to anything, and those that do so are weak. As men, it's simply not our lot in life to ask for advice from anyone else other than our fathers. You're the man, everything in your family depends on your wisdom. If you go around "opening up" to your friends, hoping to win sympathy and help, then you might as well put on a dress and swish around the room for us because you're a bit soft.
Let me close this rambling article by saying that you should be thankful if your parents are still alive. There is no shame in running back to your father for help. As they used to say, you're the fruit of his loins, so how can he not help you?
A for those among us who no longer have the benefit of feeling the paternal touch, all we have left are shadows and dust.
Volts Castillo, 29, works with the Social Security System.
