To the man who set the bar sky-high
Dear Daddy,
It was a rare sight: my son—who came into our lives during the pandemic and hardly lets anybody take him from my arms even now—giddily walking hand-in-hand with you in the mall. Seeing how much he adored being with you made my heart ache and warm at the same time.
During stretches of separation, I grieve the time he couldn’t spend getting to know you, the man who set the bar sky-high.
Manang and I grew up hearing people calling you Mr. Perfect, and we lived learning exactly what that means.
It means having Dao Ming Si good looks in your youth and managing to remain dashing even as you grew into your Homer Simpson years.
It means being a Renaissance man who can seemingly do anything—from carpentry and math to music and art.
It means being a paragon of discipline who respects time and rules, always ready long before the appointed hour.
It means being a present, protective father who’d wake up before dawn and get home late in the evening to drive us to and from school cities away every day, even as it meant I wasn’t allowed to learn to commute until my last summer in college.
It means being a home buddy but somehow a kaladkarin for Mommy, acquiescing to her travel whims to bringing us to new and exciting places. But let’s face it, even the drive to the grocery store has a way of turning into a fun family excursion.
It means having a quiet—sometimes serene, sometimes scarily stern—facade, but somehow also being an entire goof half the time.
It means being our steady rock, our anchor that set our course, but also enabled us to fly.
And perhaps it also means being a germophobe, or hating vegetables, or dancing funny, or being incredibly stubborn, too.
Well, all I know is I’m grateful to call Mr. Perfect as my daddy—not because you showed us what we should look for in our husbands, but because it taught us to strive to each be our own Ms Perfect, too.
Love,
Kinski
Kinski (nickname of Lifestyle writer Nastasha De Villa) is the daughter of Homer Verayo.
