Fifteen years have passed.

Yet sometimes my thoughts still dance around the same question: What would life be like if my father had never passed away? Would I have a perfect family picture?

I don’t know. Maybe there is no such thing as a perfect family. But I sometimes wonder what our family would look like today if he were still here. Where would he be sitting? What would he be doing? Would we still have those ordinary mornings together?

I miss those early coffee mornings.

I remember sitting at the table with him while he held his favorite mug, sipping his coffee and reading the newspaper. Breakfast was already prepared, sometimes by him and sometimes by my mother.

Nothing fancy. Just an ordinary morning.

But now I realize that those ordinary mornings were some of the most precious moments of my life.

My father, Romeo had a way of taking the simplest ingredients and turning them into something worth gathering around the table. My favorite dishes were his boiled beef shank or bone marrow soup, lechon kawali ( deep fried pork belly) and sarciadong isda ( fried fish in tomato and egg sauce). I loved those meals.

Maybe it wasn’t only because the food tasted good. Perhaps it was because he made them.

There was something deeply comforting about knowing that my father was in the kitchen, preparing something for us.

He was a good man. A very generous man.

He was generous not only to our family but also to our neighbors and to people who needed help. Sometimes, I didn’t understand his generosity.

I remember one time when I was so frustrated because he had lent our tuition money to other people. We were already struggling financially, and I couldn’t understand why he would give away money when we neeeded it ourselves.

At the time, I was angry.

Looking back now, I see it differently.

Perhaps generosity was simply part of who he was.

He wasn’t perfect.

He drank alcohol. He smoked.

He had his weaknesses, just like all of us.

But those things don’t erase the man I remember.

They are part of him too.

I remember that he bought me my first cellphone after I finished college.

It wasn’t anything fancy.

But I remember how happy I was.

Those simple things made me happy.

And that’s what I understand now, fifteen years later: happiness doesn’t always come in big moments. Sometimes it comes in a simple meal, a cup of coffee, a gift from your father, or sitting beside him without realizing that one day you would give anything to have that ordinary moment back.

I wasn’t there when my father was dying.

I was far away, working.

I wonder what it would have been like to hold his hand or say goodbye. But another part of me thinks that perhaps it was also a blessing that I was far away because, I don’t think I could have taken watching my father take his last breath. Maybe, in some way, being away was how I was spared from a moment I wasn’t ready to face.

Even in his final moments, he thanked the doctors who are helping him, my mother told me.

That was my father.

And now, Fifteen years have passed.

Sometimes I wonder where he is. I wonder if he is okay somewhere. I wonder if I will see him again someday.

There is also a regret that I carry. I wish I could have given him a better life while he was still alive. I wish I could have done more for him. Sometimes I think about all the things I would do differently if I had known how little time we had.

But life doesn’t tell us when a goodbye will be our last one. That was the hardest part. I think there will always be another morning, another cup of coffee, another meal, another conversation. Another chance.

Until suddenly, there isn’t.

If I could turn back time, I wouldn’t ask to change everything. I would only ask for a few moments. Just a glimpsed of him. Because now I know that those moments were never ordinary. They were my life with my father.

He is not here anymore. I only have the pieces a coffee mug, a newspaper, memories of his dishes, and all the little things he left behind.

But these pieces are enough to keep him alive inside of me.

Wherever he is, I hope he has found the light.

See you again, Papa.

© 2026 Eorie Faye.