Nevergirl’s

Medical equipment will be my undoing. Whenever I see photos of MRI and such, I am reminded in the most unwelcome way possible that bad things happen to good people for no reason whatsoever, that people age, that they get sick, that they could die.

And, of course, no other person’s dying scares me more than that of my father’s. No, he’s not dying but it scares me that at some point, he might be. When that happens, we will technically be orphans and that scares the bejesus out of me. Not having a parent is like losing, well, yourself – at least the part that had a childhood and spent it looking up to parents.

My papa is awesome.
I miss him.
He’s the original gwapo.
He’s the spitting image of my brother Jason.
When I was in grade school, my female teachers were always asking me to tell my Papa they said hi.

My Papa is awesome in ways most fathers aren’t.
He actually reads manuals.
He loves the Beatles and Bruce Lee.
He enjoys documentaries.
He uses nanchucks.
He’s a bike exhibitionist.
He’s a chess champ.
He’s a black belt at judo.
He’s quite brainy, too.
He taught me most of the things I know.
He ‘rocks’ being poor: he made us think poverty is an adventure and that having money is a disadvantage because it doesn’t prepare you for the real life ahead.

When I was 5 and my mom punished me for scribbling through a year’s worth of pad paper during vacation, he told her to stop — she should be overjoyed her 5-year-old is writing poems while other kids her age were only just learning to write their names.

I wish I can tell him I think he rocks.
I can’t.
We rarely talk, and if we do, we talk about food and how intelligent and pretty his apos are – nothing else.

Taken in 1990. I was 8, I had bangs, and my mom was dying.

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