Blogging Chums Award!

Big thanks to Ashley of Mental Health @ Home and Eve of Revenge of Eve for nominating me for the Blogging Chums Award!

The Blogging Chums Award is given to particularly brilliant bloggers who are really providing something special to the community, either through their writing or the way they engage with other people: they’re just brilliant! The award was created by Robert at The Non-Alcoholic Student.

Here are the rules:

1. Be sure to use the award image!
2. List the rules & about paragraph!
3. Thank whoever nominated you!
4. Write a letter to someone who means a lot to you to spread some positivity around the Internet – anyone will do!
5. Nominate 5-10 more people for the award and go let them know about it in their comments!

My Letter:

Dear Papa,

I miss you so much. When my parents left the Philippines for the US, you and Mama took care of me; it was like the two of you were really my parents.

Tita Gin recently told me that you and I were inseparable, and reminded me that on your mahjong nights, I would hide your shirt while you were in the shower thinking you’d have to stay home without a shirt to wear! Apparently, I even begged Mama to buy you a mahjong set of your own so you wouldn’t have to go out to play, not knowing that you already owned one!

You indulged me so much that most people would say that you spoiled me. I think there’s truth to that. It’s hard for me to hear the word, “No,” then, and even now. When someone tells me “no,” I fret and fidget and huff and puff ’til I blow someone’s house down — metaphorically, that is! When I was a toddler, you always turned those “noes” around to “yeses.” Probably not a good thing, but that was our relationship. I guess you loved me so much that you couldn’t stand not seeing me get what I wanted.

I was 6 and living with my parents in the US when you died of a massive heart attack. I’m not sure I even knew what death was, but I knew that you weren’t coming back. I was devastated when my parents wouldn’t let me go to the Philippines to see you one last time because I was in school. I silently raged about that for a long time. I remember punching my pillow, and crying myself to sleep every night for a month. In August, my mom took me to the Philippines so we could pay our respects. It wasn’t the same without you there.

As an adult, I wonder what type of person I’d be like today, if you hadn’t died. Would I be an insufferable (except to you) princess, would I have been the doctor I wanted to be (because you were one and I wanted to be just like you). I don’t know.

But please know, that I have NEVER forgotten you. I love you so much, Papa.

Love,

Chic (my Filipino nickname)

Nominees:

Thanks again to Mental Health @ Home and Revenge of Eve for nominating me. Happy blogging everyone!