Cebu Philippines Trip August 19, 2022 - September 20, 2022

 Dad

After 12 years hiatus, I was able to come home to my birthplace. A bittersweet trip, it coincides my dads 1 year death anniversary. I was not able to come home in August 2021, the COVID was as it heights, and it was a tough year for me. 

Dad has been my connection to home, losing that makes me feel helpless and it severed a very huge part of my identity. 

I have not process grief well, nor do I experienced how to properly handle it. Each of us really journey this world without a guide and we figure out ourselves in relation to anything quite by trial and error. 

My best friend Jay died in 2021, same year as my dad. I neglected our whole community garden project, knowing that I was not in right frame of mind to take on anything at all. 

I saw my nephews tinkering few motorcyles are the house. I took a deep breath knowing that my dad lives on within us.

There are estate taxes to do, paperworks to sign. The month flew by and I just coast along, maybe carrying my grief and processing what has been home to me. This hits me that this is not my home anymore, I used to live here, but passing by. I know I once live here, but I have moved on for the last 30 years and made Ottawa City my home. 

All my kids were born in Ottawa City, Ontario. I struggled for years a single mom, but I also feel this is have a very careful choice to live here despite the wider and bigger provinces of Canada. I settled my roots here, and it seems coming home to the Philippines just connect me to the old trunk that I have laid my life foundation. 

It was a strange trip, it may take me awhile to process it, but it did give me a glipmse of life itself, in my own identity, and interesting conversations with me mom. I sense my anger, yet I feel at peace, some kind of understanding about who my mom is and why things happened to me as I grew up. I felt an amazing priviledge of knowing my mom - a little bit more. And she is dedicated to be just that -mom.

I have take my birth certificate with me, and with that, I will be able to get my Philippine citizenship and passport. So, it will be a new beginning as well. 

My greatest hope it that I will have enough time to tell my story, as it is, whenever I get the chance. 

As dads spirit move on to his realm, I journey on to continue his adventures. 

I love you dad.