Thank You Daddy

A couple of weeks ago, our family had a health scare when my dad suffered a minor heart attack.  He lives alone in China most parts of the year and he had to go through an angioplasty immediately after being admitted into the hospital.  He's recovering well these days, but that scare has made me realize how fragile and short life can be.  

My dad, (or "Daddy", as we still call him now even though we're all grown ups) is only in his early 60's.  For more than half my life, I've had a "long distance" relationship with Daddy since my family immigrated to Canada in the early '90s.  We even had a name for our family.  We were what you would call a "satellite family", wherein the members of the family lived in different places at one time or another.  During those days when the Internet and cellphones were not mainstream yet, we communicated through long distance phone calls, snail mail and fax machines.  It was quite expensive maintaining several households in different countries, but we managed to keep in touch with each other.  

Being an only girl and growing up with two brothers, I was always Daddy's girl.  My favorite memory about my younger years was that my mom would usually give us a hard time about our homework.  And I would always wish that Daddy would come home early so that Mom would tell Dad to tutor me.  And when I'm passed on to Dad, he would always just ask me "Do you already know this lesson?"  I'd say yes and he'd let me go.  Hehe.  Mind you, I really did know my lessons and I would usually get high marks for my exams.

Growing up in a traditional Chinese family, I grew up knowing that some families put more importance on sons than daughters (with sons being able to carry the family name and all).  But I never felt that with my Dad.  Of course he was a bit more protective towards me than my brothers, but he always encouraged me to be the best in everything and he told me that I can be just as good as the boys.  In school, I excelled in Math and Sciences, but didn't really do that well in Home Economics.  And when he was going to play baseball or shoot some hoops, he never excluded me from these games.  He even allowed me to buy my own golf clubs so I can learn golf with my brothers.

My Dad has also given us the freedom to explore and see the world on our own.  He wasn't a very hands-on dad coz while we were still small, he spent a lot of time at work.  Times were harder then.  But as we grew older, my mom and dad always took us to trips.  We even saw our ancestral home in rural China when I was just 8 years old.  And that opened my eyes to how lucky we were because we had running hot water at home and I could wear jeans, even if I was a girl.  My Dad was even the one who pushed me to learn how to drive.   And I'm very thankful that I can drive, even in Manila driving conditions...hehe.

Now that I have my own boys to raise, I sincerely hope that I will be able to give them the same freedom that my Dad has bestowed on me, so that they learn how to be independent and they see the world, beyond what Rod and I can offer them.  I also hope that my boys grow up to be good men just like my Dad and that they eventually love their daughters as much as my Dad loved me.

Thank you Daddy for being a wonderful father.