To Catch a Gust of Wind [COMPLETE]

Chapter 2 - Kingdom of the Child [#4]

"...to brainwash him with boring repetitions."

Rafael went home when Thea Marie gave birth to their baby daughter. It was more than that actually. The birth gave him the opportunity to sort things out between him and Thea Marie; between him and his father, Tay Paeng Senior. He did not expect that what happened between Thea Marie and him would change his view of the world and eventually he would see his father's words in a different light.

Tay Paeng had talked to Rafael before he went back to Manila. He told Rafael the words that his son had heard countless of times before, giving the effect of reminding Rafael forever. Words of a father to a son who was already a man, capable of carving his future. Rafael had heard these words since he was a child. They seemed meaningless to him at that time, with nothing but hollowed relevance to reckon with at some future time. Nevertheless, the words had sunk deeply into his being as he grew up, even during his manhood and ultimately turned into something a part of him, like a mantra popping out from his subconscious, day and night. Tay Paeng had talked about ideals, like something had to be right or someone had to do it right. This developed in him strong principles of what was right and wrong, as if the world depended on it. But Tay Paeng never mentioned the whole world in particular. For him, the hacienda was the world and the ideals he espoused – hard work, education, success, sacrifice – had to be applied to one thing or goal he had been dreaming all his life: to lift oneself from the quagmire of poverty. And to achieve this, Rafael had to leave the hacienda. Like what his grandfather had done a generation and a half before him.

"Your grandfather came from Bicol," Rafael heard his father tell him one time. "From Sorsogon. He left with nothing in him except the clothes he wore. He was eighteen at that time, that was before the Japanese came. He was in search of work, some sort of a vagabond, and he found odd jobs in cities and towns around Negros Occidental until one day he was introduced to a caretaker of a hacienda." His father paused as if to check whether Rafael, twelve or thirteen years old at that time, was listening or not. This was a routine his father had loved to do so much after supper when they were alone in the balcony, his siblings still too young to care what his father was talking about.

Why his father was telling him about his grandfather's life was lost on Rafael. Perhaps it was to stress his father's ideals, of sacrifices, of relentless drive to overcome poverty. He didn't care to delve deeply on the importance of his father's story. It remained on the back burner for years. In as much as it was interesting to hear for Rafael, for him, the hacienda was a happy place in his time as a child; his childhood was a happy one. And even in his youth, surrounded by friends who shared with him unique experiences worth recalling when you're starting to feel melancholy in old age.

Who is it who said 'childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies'? You only come to realize it when you have grown up. And when you do, you want to go back to where it happened. Your happy place, where you never grow old. Like Peter Pan in Never Land.

However, lately, for Rafael, the words had been stripped off their meaning. The words only slowly crept back to him because something had happened with which those words could be measured against. How often he thought his father was just trying to brainwash him with empty repetitions. But not before he was indoctrinated into it. However, he admitted that his father's words did help him greatly to become what he was now. It transformed him into a man capable of facing the world and improving his lot, of helping his siblings, his family. But it seemed not all ideals turned out to be perfect. Some you just discarded away when obviously they seemed to be out of place. And he viewed his father's words in a new perspective.

Endless repetitions can be boring especially if they are characterized by ideals you hardly know because they exist in your future. Like study hard to achieve your ambition. Never let go of your goals. Dream big and aim small at a time. What for? Get out of the place that had raised you in poverty. Never go back once you stepped out of it...