When it is time to let go

Having been out of college for just a little over a year, I was focused at finding the best possible way to enjoy my singlehood. I wanted to take pleasure from spending, for the first time, cash that was produced by two weeks of hardwork at a police station in Northern Metro Manila which I monitored for stories.

Joined by equally free-spirited single and neophyte reporters, I found myself indulging in wholesome but literally expensive lifestyle, which my monthly income from newspaper reporting in Manila could honestly not afford.

Most of the time, all the pennies that I have so diligently worked for are gone in a matter of two to three days. This forced my parents to resume my regular monthly allowance which I used to get from them when I was still in school. Only this time, the amount has ironically increased. That was sort of an adjustment to allow me to cope with the increasing cost of living in metropolitan Philippines.

I still could vividly recall how Mom and Dad argued about whether I should get my allowance back or not. Mom had virtually violently lobbied against it but Dad was very persistent, apparently aware that a single, young man could not survive the expansiveness of life in Manila with a P7,500 monthly income.

Dad won on one condition: my allowance would have to come from his own pockets. Dad gave me a big portion of his personal budget. It was even higher than the amount I was getting from my newspaper reporting job. He did all that without strict conditions except that I be responsible in what I do and where I spend my money.

But I fouled up; got into a deep trouble that threatened to rip me off my bachelorhood at a young age of 22. Discussions ensued between two families where issues that range from financial to emotional stability drew arguments. The situation reached a point wherein the elders were all ready to decide for us.

One look in his eyes was all it took for Dad to feel the anguish inside me and realize the situation was not just a matter of tainting the family reputation but allowing two, well three, lives to decide what they think would make them better, happy persons.

I still remember the exact words Dad had for me before he allowed me to speak up and make a decision: “Go for whatever it is you think is right not only for you but for the two other lives whose future depends on the decision you will make today.”

I have made an unpopular decision — something that will surely receive raised eyebrows from most conservative people whose mind-set remains enclosed within the confines of marriage even it if entails failure to meet responsibilities and the absence of the ability to sustain the family’s financial and emotional needs.

I let go of the chance of being known by a child who is every inch mine. I did that not because I was afraid of the responsibility his birth would bring nor was I so incompassionate that I didn’t have the heart to take him and his mom. I did that because I was sure their future has a better promise without me in the picture. Not with someone who wasn’t ready to give up Friday night outs and barkada in exchange for an after-office life inside the home baby-sitting him and watching TV with her.

I sure am paying for that, now that I am ready to assume the responsibility. As much as I want to have him run toward me when I come home at night after a grueling work at the field for a kiss on the cheek, it will never happen. Not now, not ever.

Five years have already passed and he now carries an Italian surname, speaks Italian and lives an Italian life.

There was not even a trace of me in him except that he looks like me. While letting him go left so much pain, knowing that he had grown up being loved and cared by the man who has fathered him since his birth November 1995 is reason enough to make me feel better. He probably receives attention from him twice as much as I could have given him had I not let him go.

Dad once told me someone has to sacrifice his own happiness to allow the people he loves to grow and live a better life, even if it takes letting go.

The essence of being a father, he said, is not measured by how you provide for your children but how much pain you can take and how much sacrifice you can make just to see them happy and successful.

Someday, he will thank me for not taking the responsibility and allowing him to live the kind of life he has now. I know that time will come. I just know.