When I gave birth to our youngest child, I woke up – groggily but happily – to a big basket of giant red, red roses. All unabashedly in bloom, filling my hospital room with the scent of… what else? Roses.
I knew the roses didn’t come from my husband because I had told him, countless times, that I was not a flower person. I was more of a chocolate addict. So he wasn’t in the habit of buying me flowers. Except chicharon bulaklak.
Back to the basket of roses…I asked someone in the room to give me the card – and what I saw gave me quite a shock! The note was signed by two women who claimed to be my older sisters! Half-sisters who were ten years or more older than me.
One was a lawyer, the other had the surname of a wealthy family. None of them carried my dad’s surname. I had never heard of them.
The lawyer left a calling card. So after I had gained some sort of equilibrium and inner poise, I proceeded to call the lawyer who I didn’t know.
She had this firm, modulated, scary voice so I immediately regretted that I called – but, too late! The cookie had already crumbled. To make matters worse, I found myself bamboozled into saying yes to them visiting me that evening when all my visitors had gone home – and only my mother-in-law was left with me. (She was the sweetest MIL. She’d always volunteer to watch over me every time I gave birth!)
So after dinner, in walk my two half-sisters. The moment I saw them, I knew they were telling the truth, not scamming me or anything. I immediately saw my dad’s features. Both were about his height. Both had his nose and his wide, impish smile that made their eyes crinkle into slits. And yes, there were the dimples that disarmed anyone who dared to be suspicious of them. In this case – Me.
I don’t know if it was anything generic or biological or a God-sent instinct, but I was elated to see them! It felt like they were my best friends who I suddenly remembered after years of amnesia.
We chatted excitedly, three of us fighting for air time, cheerfully interrupting each other when one had a question that needed to be answered…fast. We were a gaggle of girls frantically trying to out-talk each other. I don’t think my poor MIL slept a wink.
In the flurry of it all, I forgot that I just recently had a Caesarian Section and was supposed to be in some kind of profound pain. I forgot I shouldn’t talk too much lest I get gas pain. I forgot my stitches might tear if I laughed too hard. All caution was thrown to the winds.
Of course we talked about who our three different mothers were. And what years were those that our daddy dearest went out dating with our mommy dearests. We all had three different mothers, you see.
I’m sure it wasn’t funny at all to our mothers, if they only knew – but it was unbelievably funny to the three of us. Why? Because our dad wasn’t exactly tall (he was, in fact, short).
He was dark, definitely. And he wasn’t handsome at all. Not at all.
And yet, the hysterically funny part of our dad’s romantic escapades was this: he had dated three tall, beautiful, apparently intelligent women who were successful at what they were doing!
So the 60 million dollar question that evening was: How in the world did our daddy dearest get these tall, beautiful, intelligent women to fall in love with him?!!
How?!!
Well, after backbiting our dad a bit, we kind of figured it out by 2am. He was quite a character, our dad. What he lacked in looks, he certainly made up for with his charm, kindness, soft laughter, humility, and intelligence. He was a perfect gentleman. He said thank you to the house help, his drivers, the waiters who served him at restaurants, the shoeshine boy who collected his shoes every evening – and brought them back, bright and shiny the next morning, before he ate breakfast.
That was our dad. But sadly… and much, much later, they knew him to be a different person. Aloof, distant, always formal, always in a suit. Like he had just come from a meeting or was about to go to one. He was unapproachable. Very business-like. Someone who didn’t stay very long whenever they saw him.
While me – I knew him in a very normal, domestic, boring sort of way. In fact, I grew up shooing him away whenever he wanted to give me a hug or kiss because I didn’t like the smell of his cologne.
He’d always come near me with a toy, a book, a cold bottle of Chocolait, or a pack of stationeries. As if he had to bribe me to stay put. He didn’t come near me without a present. He raised me to be a brattinella.
My half-sisters, on the other hand, grew up fatherless until their moms got married. So they plied me with questions about our dad. Why was he so cold and distant to them, yet so normal and playful with me? Why didn’t he visit them more often? Why didn’t he go to their birthdays, graduations, etc.? Why didn’t he spend time with them? And did I know that we had around 10 half-brothers and half-sisters scattered around – here and abroad?
I said I didn’t know that. I was clueless. I was the youngest of them all. Still, they kept asking me – why was he a normal daddy to me but not to them?
I said – Well. Maybe daddy was old already by the time I was born. Maybe he finally wanted to settle down and have a normal family. Maybe he finally wanted a child.
So many maybe’s. They obviously envied me all the years I had with our dad – but they weren’t bitter about it. They said it wasn’t my fault. It was our dad’s.
Here’s another strange thing – our circumstances, our lifestyles, and family backgrounds were all so different. One of my half-sisters looked a bit mestiza. I looked a bit Chinese. My other Ate, the lawyer – lived abroad for a long time, and looked very Filipina. But we all had one thing in common: our dad.
Fast forward – after our instant volt-in at the hospital, we three sisters saw each other almost every month. They became the godmothers of our youngest child. They doted on her. They took lots of pictures with our family. They visited our house and slept over sometimes. We’d go on short trips together. I met their families.
When I introduced them to my mom, she didn’t know about their mothers, so it was awkward at first. But then, my mom took things maturely, took things in stride, and she finally warmed up to my half-sisters like they were family.
One time, my mom was coming from a 3-week holiday in Europe and we agreed to meet up in New York. She was flying in from London. Guess who met us at the airport? The stepfather of one of my half-sisters!
She had arranged for my mom and I to stay with her mom (my dad’s ex from decades ago) and her husband. They lived along Broadway so it was perfect. My mom and I wanted to watch as many plays as we could. And many touristy sites were walkable from their place.
So, for many, many nights after dinner, my mom and my new aunt (my dad’s ex) talked about my dad – how and where they met him, what was his job or business then, who were with him, and of course… why they fell for him.
It was a very weird conversation for me to listen to. But by then, I already knew that life can be awfully stranger than fiction. And here I was, right in the middle of it.
I mean, how was this happening?!! That my mom was constantly laughing and chatting with, and was apparently having a grand time with one of my dad’s exes?!! You’d mistake them for sisters. Or best friends.
They were both tall and beautiful and fair-skinned. Statuesque, even. And here we were, their daughters. We weren’t tall at all. Nor even as lovely as them.
Much as I could go on and on, I must end this happy-weird story here because there REALLY are happy, good beginnings that have happy, good endings.
Suffice it to say that one of the best surprises God ever gave me was my two half- sisters!
When I meet my dad again in heaven, he’s really going to get an earful from me.
