An Answered Prayer for Another Person

After more than fifty years, my aging father sought closure of the previous life he had before he and my mother lived together. He had another family prior to the war in the town of Dalaguete 72.5 kilometers (25 miles) south of the city of Cebu, and where he begot six children.

According to him, frequent fracas between him and his wife, belonging to a well-known family line in that place, caused him to leave them altogether. The war saw my father, with his new wife and infant baby girl, my sister, set sail towards the north to escape occupation forces that had tagged him as a guerrilla fighter.

I knew of his other family only after I graduated from college, and I became quite close to them, even their mother, and the respective extended families of my half-brother and three half-sisters. I met them all in Manila and surrounding environs, 572 kilometers (355.5 miles) from Cebu. Their mother had died several years before my own mother did in Cebu, where father chose to spend his retirement, and I came here to take care of him as he was already 86 years of age. He requested that I accompany him to his journey back in memory.

His main goal was to seek the burial location of his parents-in-law, both of whom were very affable and congenial to him. We have failed to find it, even with assistance from cemetery caretakers, considering the extensive damage wrought by the war and the fact that those not cared for were disposed to make space for the incoming. Having failed in his purpose, he decided that we simply take the trip back to the city.

He knew even then, however, that we were going to take the same journey again. As we were on the transportation speeding at around 60 kph, he pointed at the location we would visit next time. Only a blur of a community store and an obscure line of bamboo trees would then serve as my landmark. I kept wondering how I may find the exact place considering how common these sights were in the provinces. I recalled there was a church I could use as point of reference but that would be 2 kilometers away after we would pass the intended place.

I did not have to wait very long, because father resolved to go again the following month to that town and try to find previous acquaintances, if any. I had my eyes pried as soon as we reached the town’s boundaries, but the velocity of the bus and my own vertigo prevented me from being able to ascertain, amidst all the sameness of the scenery, where we should stop. Then I saw the church!

When the bus halted and father and I had come down, I could almost anticipate his would-be reaction should I tell him that we had 2 kilometers to walk, so I told him “maybe just 10 minutes or so”.

Out of desperation, my only recourse was to say a silent prayer, which went something like “God, please help this old man, because he has an arthritic right leg”. Just then, father saw the schoolyard where he used to dry palay (rice grains) harvest before the war. With memories flooding in perhaps, he sat down on the cement bench at the fronting waiting shed. It gave us some time to get out of the blistering sun and me to repeat my prayer.

We had resumed walking for about 5 minutes more when a man quite older than me came running towards us. Upon approaching he introduced himself as the little boy my father used to call his favorite “guy”. Eventually he pointed, and accompanied us, to the home we had planned to see. The tiredness and the distance had all melted away!

Unbelievably, as I glanced at my watch, it took us only 10 minutes or so.