I want you to hold my hand

What happened after lagos - Daniel Diary entries

November 25 2019

I arrived back in Colorado two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago I picked up a call from an unknown number.
Two weeks ago my father, Emmanuel Dela Cruz, died.
There were many times in my life I had wished death upon my father; times when I had prayed for Gods grace so not to end his life myself.
My father was a callous man.
His greed rivaled the length of the river nile.
He suffered from a serious lack of morality, empathy, and responsibility.
Since the day I was born. my father made sure he destroyed any sense of individuality I could have possibly had.
He spent years attempting to mold me into his replica but According to him, I was too strong willed so his only other option was to beat me down.
He made me into a cowardly child.
So I left.
Five years ago, the night I left home, I snuck into his office.
The things I took with me were my American and Filipino passports, one of my fathers burner phones, and $20, 000 my father had stashed in his safe.
The combination number of his safe was my birthday.
Why would a man as vile and hateful has him use his sons birthday as his combination ?. I guess I'll never know.
After I left home I went to my mother's.
I stayed with my mother for three nights before I left the Philippines.
They had been divorced since I was three.
My mother hated the man more than I did; The only reason she allowed me around him was because she had always wanted me to have a father.
Her father died before her birth and she and her brothers grew up without a father figure.
She saw how that could affect a child and didn't want that for me.
My father attempted to teach me many lessons but the only lesson he thought me was to distance myself from men like him.
After the three nights at my mothers I said my good byes, then boarded a one way flight to America swearing I would never return while my father still lives.
Two years have passed since I left.
I gained my own sense of identity. I got my GED then went to college. I graduated with a B.A in comp science. I started a tech startup with my dorm mates. I made my first million. I traveled and fell in love. And my father died.