The fairy tale of my life

This year is the 28th year I have been living with them. We are not blood-related but they provide me a family in the city. The Dayrits are my home — literally, figuratively.

They are my real fairy tale.

God is so good He has blessed me with my Dayrit family since 1995. What started as an article I wrote in a magazine in 1995 about their Vincent’s San Mig Pub restaurant in Ortigas ended as a golden chance for me to be “adopted” by their late father, Ting Dayrit. Tito Ting loved the article I wrote so much that he asked his daughter Christine to look for me. And she did look for me.

Christine, whom I interviewed for that article, found me forlorn in Lawton after our exchange of beep messages as I was about to go home to Cabuyao. It was Aug. 23, 1995, Wednesday, the day I resigned from a now-defunct magazine after unfair treatment at work. I had nowhere to go in Manila as I had no relatives in the city. Christine came to the rescue, bearing the news that her dad was looking for me. She picked me up in front of the Met Theater like she was picking up a long-lost sibling. It was my first time to ride a Pajero. She made me feel it was also my car.

“I will bring you to my dad. He has been looking for you ever since he read the article you wrote,” she told me. She did not tell me the reason why her father gave her the tall order to look for me, except that “Dad loves your article.”

Before she brought me to their house in Makati, we visited first her sister Michelle Soliven, who, at the time, was having a “very delicate pregnancy,” at the Makati Medical Center.

“Dad has been looking for you,” Michelle, immaculate with her alabaster skin and in her all-white night dress, told me as she lay supine in a bed covered in spotless, creaseless white sheet. She also did not say the reason. Her husband Benny, then a banker, opened the accordion door and he said the same thing as I was introduced to him: “Dad has been looking for you.”

Finally, I met their father. By the foyer of their house, his six-foot frame in white shirt and ash-gray short pants down to the knee, he was waiting for me. I was 23, a certified promdi. “Where have you been?” he asked in his trademark booming voice. I was intimated at first but Christine, like a rah-rah sister, was whispering to me: “He’s the kindest man you’ll ever meet. He’s just like that. Trust me.” I trusted her. I have entrusted her with my life for 28 years now because we became best of friends.

Tito Ting engaged me in a 10-minute conversation and in 10 minutes he created a fairy tale for me.

“How do you come to Manila? How do you go home?” he asked me. This time, I was not intimidated by his booming voice anymore.

“First, I take the jeep. Then, another jeep. Then a bus to Buendia. Then LRT. Then I take the jeep again to Aduana. Going home is the same,” I answered.

“From now on, you will not take the jeep. You will have your own car and your own driver.”

I just smiled. I did not believe him. And Christine was still there beside me. “That’s true.”

In my mind, how could it be true when I just met the man? Besides, I did not know what he wanted me to do.

“What do your parents do?”

They are rice farmers.

“How big is their farm?”

Oh, they are tenants. My parents are poor. They don’t own a farm.

“What’s the best lesson you learned from your parents?”

From my father, don’t steal. From my mother, to dream.

“Why did he say you can’t steal?”

My father said my name is already my fortune. I blemish it and I’m marked for life.

He then excused himself to go inside the house. The door was kept ajar. The gleaming wooden floor greeted my sight. It was already past 1 p.m. He came back to the foyer after a minute or two, with a long white envelope.

“Here! Take this!” He thrust the white envelope against my reedy chest. I looked at it and saw a wad of money.

No. No. I can’t take this, I told him.

“How dare you refuse something that is not yours!” his voice was resonant in the quiet early afternoon. “You told me your parents were poor. So, I’m giving them money to help them. The only time you will return the money to me is when your parents refuse them.”

That moment, I did not know what was taking place as everything was happening so fast. Was it a trick? Was it a dream? But Christine always whispered into my ear that everything was for real.

And before that day ended, Tito Ting said: “From now on, you have a home with us. You and Christine will stay in the other house down the road.”

I did not say yes. I did not say no. I did not know who they were. I just knew they owned a restaurant. (Later on, I found out they own Miladay, a popular fine jewelry store, where I served as a consultant.)

I was either in a trance or enchanted when Tito Ting left Christine and me by the foyer. The wooden door closed. An imminent opportunity to live a fairy-tale life opened.

I was shaking my head when I bid Christine goodbye. I was ready to walk to EDSA from their house to flag down a bus that would take me to Laguna.

“No. No. I’ll take you home,” Christine said. She has the no-retreat-no-surrender attitude of her dad. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

So she brought me home. By our makeshift gate at home, for our house was still under construction that time, she hollered “Nay! Tay! Nay! Tay!” as if she had met my parents before and she was a regular fixture of the house. She kissed the hands of my parents when she met them. She went straight to our refrigerator — a Dayrit trait — and screamed when she saw ginisang monggo and fried tuyo. “I like these. My favorite.” My mother reheated the food and fed her. She ate with gusto as she enjoyed the breeze shooting straight to her face. Our house had no windows yet, only window frames covered by loose sacks of palay.

By the hammock under the himbaba-o tree in our backyard, I was talking to my father who was surprised to receive a visitor from Manila. He was more surprised when I handed him the white envelope. He asked if the money was “clean.” I said it was my advance payment for a job I would do. Though I was also unsure of that.

“Magkakaroon na tayo ng disenteng bintana ngayon (Now we can have decent windows),” he said as he told me to thank the family who “advanced” me the money.

After 30 minutes, I told Christine that my father was accepting the money. She was happy to hear that. I also bid her adieu and promised her that I would return to their house on Monday, Aug. 28, 1995.

“Oh, that’s too long. I already asked your mom’s permission to bring you along with me to Makati. I explained everything to her. I told her you will leave with us,” Christine told me.

I was in disbelief. I did not know what was happening that day but my spirit just coasted along.

“If that’s the case, let me pack my bag so I have clothes for the coming days,” I told Christine.

“No need. I hope you don’t mind. I went to your room with your mom and packed your clothes already. They are already in the car.”

It’s been 28 years. I have never left their side, even long after Tito Ting and his wife, Tita Mila, were gone. The whole Dayrit family has helped me change the course of my fate. They remain to be the fairy tale of my life.

Happy New Year from my always, always grateful heart!

Celebrating the recent holidays with my Dayrit family in Baguio City. The author joins architects Nikki and Jason Buensalido with their children Annika and Nadia, Christel and Mike Constantino with their children Pablo and Amaya, Christine Dayrit, Jaqui Boncan, Mark and Mylene Dayrit with their children Alex, Sam and Matthew, Julian Espino, and Michelle and Benny Soliven with their son Vincent.