Nostalgia hit me hard lately. When our youngest daughter Gilary turned 21 this April, I finally realized that my wife and I are indeed finally empty nesters. Gone are the hectic days of school age kids. No more family dinners around the table, no more watching of curfew hours. No more driving to the dance and music lessons and attending recitals, plays and concerts.
All three of them, Gilda, Gilson and Gilary are gone to their own nests and into their own lives. Gilda is loving her profession in the medical sales, Gilson is a nurse and Gilary is on her way to becoming a sociologist.
Our parental roles have taken some major changes, and in some years to come, not too long from now, may even reverse.
This made me reflect on the subject of Family. How did we fare as parents? Have we prepared our children for life? Have we sufficiently provided their needs? What are my regrets if any?
As I reminisced the more than three decades of being a parent, my mind and my heart are flooded with great feelings of joy and a sense of accomplishment. Does that mean I did good as a father? I must have done something good for feeling this way.
My family has grown from 5 to 12- three kids and five grand. Our children have found their places under the sun and somehow settled. They are disciplined, hardworking and very good at what they are doing. They fear the Lord. They contribute to the society. They are fun-loving, pleasant people, well-liked and loved by many.
The challenges of being a parent were numerous and overwhelming. My initial feelings of fear and inadequacy drove me to my knees. All I know is my wife and I partnered with God in raising our three children. We could have not made it succesfully on our own. God has guided and taught us to be parents all along.
Regrets?
“I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention”. Well, I will mention them anyway. Consider the following and be my judge.
The first one is the most common among fathers. I wish I spent more time with my kids when they were little. I was so busy with career and work that my attention was so divided, oftentimes in favor of the former. Before I knew it, they were bound to college and they were kids no more and that was the start of them leaving our nest.
I would have never realized it, but my daughter Gilary brought this to my attention. “Daddy, I wish I grew up with our cousins. I feel like I’ve missed a lot of my growing years not having known my relatives.” Gilary cried a lot after having spent one month vacation in the Philippines. She was barely getting to know her cousins when she had to leave again.
Well, that’s something that our family had to deal with and sacrifice. We were OFWs (Overseas Foreign Workers) in the Middle East, then migrants to the US, so our children were raised away from blood relatives.
The biggest regret we had was one of gross neglect. What a shame on us for not teaching and requiring our children to speak Tagalog. Although they can understand it to some extent, they cannot speak it. For this, we were blamed by our children, especially when an American missionary came to visit and spoke fluent Tagalog.
I am in the season of my life where the memories of the past are the main sources of joy and inspiration; where the lessons learned from mistakes and shortcomings are shared to the next generation that they may not repeat the same.
I hope and pray that my mind will stay healthy and alert that I will continue to draw strength and inspiration from my rich experiences in the past. I will be more specific on this wish. I pray that I will not suffer from dementia or any form of memory loss that I may continue to relish and reflect on the joy of being a family man! Amen.
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In my next blog, I will share some do’s and don’ts of parenting based on my experiences.
myJOURNEY 