Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

Father’s Day 10 years ago (June 20, 2010 to be exact) was your last. Confined to a hospital bed but pampered with love and care from Mom, your daughters and your nurses. (I visited you about four times during your battle with cancer of the pancreas, but sadly was not able to be with you on your last Father’s Day, which was 16 days before your birthday, July 13.)

During the last time I said goodbye to you in person, I told you, “Dad, I don’t think I could be with you on your birthday in July, but I will be here for your wedding anniversary in December.” You smiled at me, and in a clear but soft voice said, “That’s okay. As long as your love and prayers are with me.”

Choking back my tears, I answered, “They are, Dad. They are. And they always will be.”

Your last Father’s Day was happy. Mom, Mae, Geraldine and Valerie brought you balloons and cupcakes and you had a mini-party in your room. Everybody was in high spirits, pushing to the depths of their soul the one thing they knew for certain but refused to acknowledge on Father’s Day —  that you would be leaving us soon.

On July 6, between Father’s Day and your birthday, you left us. You were a week shy of 78. What I thought would be my birthday message to you sadly turned into a eulogy.

Ten years after my sisters and I lost you, the first man who has ever loved us, we take comfort in the fact that you knew how much you were loved in return.

Everything I had said in my eulogy during your wake in Manila, I had already made known to you. You knew how much I owed the person I am today to the person that you were.

Dad, I am still sorry I was not able to be by your side during your last Father’s Day celebration. I was working — the one thing you never cut me slack for. And somewhere in heaven, please listen again to my Father’s Day gift to you:

***

When we were little girls frolicking on the beach with Dad and Mom, Dad, who willed himself to be a good swimmer to conquer his boyhood asthma, would plunge into the sea. We had barely filled our sand buckets when we would notice Dad already disappearing into the blue yonder, swimming not just farther but further, till his head and the white crests of the waves near the horizon were indistinguishable. Just before we could ask the fishermen to search for him in their bancas, fearful as we were that he was lost at sea, Dad would re-emerge from the waters, energized and exhilarated. Triumphant. He had finished his race with himself, and he had won.

That was Dad — though “Was” is a word that runs like a knife through my heart now. To reach his goals and to fulfill his dreams, Dad would swim the extra mile, conquer both the depths and the distance, and though buffeted by waves and winds, would always emerge triumphant.

Dad had the looks of Elvis, the sterling work ethic of his post-war generation, and the strength of Hercules. His looks were but a bonus — after all, he won the heart and the hand of my beautiful mother Sonia — because he worked like all he had as capital on this earth were his education and his hard work. I would like to thank my late Grandpa Nazario Mayor and Grandma Mary Loudon for instilling those values in my dad.

If he could swim to the horizon with hard work and determination, Dad raised his daughters to believe they could reach for the stars with hard work as well. When as children and during the hard times we sometimes went through, we would express our hopes and dreams to him, he would say, “Why not? Study hard, work hard.”

Dad, because of your example, we, your four daughters, are living our dreams. We are living the dreams you and Mom dreamt for us. Thank you for being the wind beneath our wings while we were aiming for the stars. You know what, Dad, we got there. And we will go further and farther because you showed us the way.

Dad, you faced your illness like you were going to conquer it. When you were told of the grimness of your cancer, and the life-threatening options open to you, your first question was, “After all of that, can I return to work?” Because work to you was not a drudgery. It was a springboard to your dreams.

When, in your hospital bed you were later told that the operation to take out the tumor in your pancreas was not successful, and that you would need several rounds of debilitating chemotherapy to live, you immediately asked, “When do I start?”

You never blinked, you never flinched even when we asked you just last month, when you were reeling from the effects of chemo, “Dad, gusto mo pa ba ituloy ang chemo?”

You looked at us sternly and said, “Of course. Is there any other way?” His doctor then told us, “If chemo is what Frank wants, chemo is what he’ll get. Frank is a fighter.”

You were going to fight it out, my brave and strong Dad.

Did cancer win over you in the end? Did cancer conquer you? No Dad, you triumphed over cancer because you showed us that life was worth going the distance for. You showed us that life is not just worth living for. It is worth dying for as well, if only to show to us and prove to us how truly precious it is.

Farewell, dearest Dad. From Mom, your one true love, whom you strove to give the best that you could give in this life; from Mae, who devotedly took care of you at home like a  nurse for four months; from Dindin, the doctor who never stopped being your daughter; crisscrossing the US to be by your side in the last 10 months, and who I am convinced you waited for before you breathed your last; and Val, who put her life in Manila on hold for several months to be by your side till you breathed your last.

Farewell, dearest Dad. As your epitaph reads, you “have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you have kept the faith.”

Bravo, Dad! Rest now. In our hearts, you will never die. *