FOUR

"FOUR"

I was young, barely capable of speaking coherently, when I decided I hated him.

He was never there. Only a stranger who appeared once a year, bearing gifts that did little to fill the void his absence left. I knew his face, his voice, the way my mother’s eyes lightened when he called, but I didn’t know him. Not really. He was nothing more than a distant figure, a name on papers, a voice over the phone. And despite the time we spent together, I always felt distant, guarded, resentful, filled with an unshakable anger at the way he had fooled my mother with promises that never came true.

I remember being so excited when he came, running to the door as he handed me presents like Santa Claus. But the excitement faded fast, replaced by an unfamiliar discomfort. I’d sit there, holding new toys I had wished for, yet feeling hollow. And then I’d cry, asking my mother to take me home. Growing up, that became our routine, him trying, me unconsciously pushing him away. Eventually, I matured enough to appreciate the gesture and include him in my pyramid of heroes. Hesitant but hopeful, I slowly opened the door to my emotional edifice for him. I learned the lessons he imparted by heart and shared my daily achievements with him. But despite my efforts, deep inside, he remained in my catalog of “strangers with memories.”

He would always tell me to be optimistic, to view life through the lens of positivism. He’d teach me the joy in the simplest things—like painting, writing, and playing an instrument. I would see him smiling while doing all that stuff, looking content in the refuge of his hobbies. And yet, I couldn’t erase the scars the sharp nails of my contempt instilled. Despite my admiration to him, I hated how he would always see the flaws in my mother's Filipino heritage, how he would act so entitled just because he was raised in a well-off country where making ends meet is not as relevant as attending tea. But still, at times, hesitation gnawed deep in my bones, the guilt of not understanding an entire book before judging its contents.

There were moments when I caught a glimpse of a storm brewing in his grey eyes, something beneath the surface—something heavy, something painful. A story I never wanted to hear but somehow already knew.

And then, I learned his story.

He was four when war became his reality.

Eastern Germany was collapsing, the West a fragile dream, separated by the great Berlin Wall, pushing apart control from freedom, and he stood in between, caught in a life where survival was a gamble. There was no tea time nor peace, only war. In the dead of night, his mother’s trembling hand was the only thing keeping him grounded as they crawled on muddy grounds, hid, and ran—ran from the only home he had ever known, ran toward a western future that could mean freedom or death. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t cry. He simply held on, matching his mother’s hurried steps as they joined the other refugees escaping into the darkness, hoping the silence would keep them invisible from the Soviet Union guards of the East.

He told me once, in a rare moment of honesty, that the night was cold. That the air smelled of damp earth and fear. That his mother’s grip was so tight he thought she might never let go. But she did.

At fourteen, she was gone.

Just after his father returned from being a prisoner in Russia, broken beyond recognition, she slipped away, as if the war had finally caught up to her, as if the bombs he used to see rain down outside their window finally screamed their condolences. He never spoke much about her death, only that it happened. That some losses were too deep to put into words.

I should’ve felt something when he told me. Should’ve reached out, should’ve said something comforting, but I didn’t, my feeble mind incapable of shielding him from his past.

I didn't realize it then, but I do now, he was never trying to be distant. He simply carried a history too heavy to unload.

I know somewhere deep inside, the little boy he used to be still lives—somewhere long ago, where hundreds of bombs fell from the sky, shadows signified danger, and survival meant watching his mother scrub floors and toilets in different houses. I know he still feels the ache of watching his dad remarry a woman who got jealous when he achieved far greater than her son. Perhaps it’s why he always felt the need to control and judge my world, because he wanted the best for me, far from the monsters under my bed, the same ones who introduced him to helplessness and chaos. He’s been there, and he doesn’t want to weave my life with the same tapestry.

He’s been the most optimistic person I know, a father who loved his children deeply. He might’ve been the worst lover, but he’s a great dad - someone who, despite life’s failures, stood tall and learned from them. And his past might have felt like a world away from mine, yet somehow, I found pieces of myself within it.

I look at him now, at eighty-five, and wonder how he does it. How he carries so much dusty, scarred scripture and still manages to find magic in the air during the storm. How he can be so content, despite fate’s harsh design.

It made me question a lot, how, amidst the typhoon in his grey eyes, he was able to find an anchor to keep afloat. Perhaps, his unrelenting spirit was born from a past that demanded he find beauty in survival. Or it was when life gave him a family - a reason to strive every single day.

He’d always laugh at me in these moments, when my mind was filled with the cacophony of my thoughts, trying to look for all the answers to my wonders about his optimism.

And there, as his crinkled smile and eyes reflected me, I shockingly found the reason I was searching for.

It was ME all along, who brought the happiness he lost, back when he was four.