An almost perfect dad

I wanted to write about a perfect father. I sat staring at my computer screen for a long time. What is a perfect father, a perfect mother, perfect parents? I could not come up with any answers. The closest one gets to perfection is when your children are all over 50 and you are an old retired parent who doesn’t live with them. Then you can no longer do much wrong. Maybe once in a while you will still manage to say the wrong thing, but never mind. You don’t live together anymore.

But today is Father’s Day, and this grandmother who grew up fatherless wants to write about perfect fathers. Mine died when I was six months old at the end of World War II. Our family lost all our men so I grew up in a houseful of widows. No men. But we lived in Sta. Mesa when I was growing up in what seemed to be a compound. You turned right into a stony street that had four houses that looked alike.

The first house was occupied by the family of Alfonso Calalang, Conrad Calalang’s father.

The second house was occupied by Nicanor Tomas and his wife, Mercedes Arguelles, who was my grandmather’s youngest sister.

The third house was the Cosculuellas, whose little children my age were my childhood enemies. We were always sticking our tongues out at each other from our windows.

The fourth house was my grandmother’s, with whom we lived. But before we moved into that fourth house, we lived in the upper floor of the second house, the home of Nicanor Tomas and his wife.

During that period, I claimed Lolo Nick as my Daddy. He and my Lola had no children. I had no Daddy. It was a match made in heaven.

I remember one Christmas when I was around eight years old. I ran on the stony street that connected our houses, fell and scratched my knees. I cried out loud, calling for my Daddy who came out, carried me home. We sat on the steps, me bawling and wetting his shirt with my tears, while he kept consoling me, telling me not to cry anymore, as my mother cleaned my wounds and put mercurochrome – remember that? on my knees. That’s one trait of a perfect Daddy. He must have the ability to carry, console, and make his little children feel loved always.

We loved going to the movies together. His wife and I would pick him up at the Far Eastern University (FEU), where he used to teach at night, then we would go to the movies. I would sit between the two of them and we would hold hands. Nobody cared then what kind of movies a little girl of 10 would watch. We watched Gigi together. I had to grow older to realize it was about raising a little girl to become a mistress. I didn’t understand it but I liked the music. Every Sunday morning after Mass we would listen to Broadway musicals we had watched. The music from Gigi, The Student Prince and The Merry Widow, we played and sang to on those big 33 1/3 records on his hi-fi.

That’s another sign of a perfect Daddy: Take your children to the movies. Hold their hands while you watch. Play the music from the musicals on Sunday mornings and talk about the movies you saw, the things you plan to do. Of course I realize that good musicals are rare these days. But there must be other activities you can do that will make you hold your little girl’s hand. Or your little boy’s shoulder. These are moments of intimacy that make your children feel cherished. Of course I don’t know how you will manage to do any of that if you have eight children, either. Just think of the need to make your children feel loved and cherished and you will find a way.

Finally my Daddy became Daddy Toot, the name my younger cousins and I began to call him when they were old enough to talk.

Daddy came from me. Toot came from the little ones for number two, because their real Daddy was alive, so he became number two.

My Daddy Toot was very dapper. He always wore suits, neckties, bowties. He always sprayed on perfume. He used Green Water by Jacques Fath. If anyone can tell me where I can find that perfume now I will buy it immediately and be profoundly grateful.

It’s a fragrance that brings Daddy to life for me. I will wear it for always.

And you know what?  The man I married when I was 18 used Green Water by Jacques Fath. He is the one who identified the scent for me. That’s when you know you were a close-to-perfect Dad — when your daughter marries a man because he smells like you did when she was growing up.

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