My parents were never able to buy property while they were alive together. My Nanay’s dream was simple: to have a house of her own. She used to say that she only wanted a roof she could call hers. It did not need to be huge — just enough to say that somewhere in this world, there was a place that belonged to her.
When she passed away, my Tatay finally saw his shortcomings.
He was a talented man. Intelligent, even. But intelligence does not automatically make a man responsible. He loved the good things in life. He loved to party. He was a free spirit who believed that a man is born without pockets, and therefore whatever he earned had nowhere to be kept except to be spent before death arrived.
We all live according to our own beliefs. It was his life, his philosophy. If he chose that road, then so be it. It would be unfair for me to spend my own life blaming a dead man for the poverty I might suffer. As Nanay used to say, the only thing that accompanied me inside her womb was my placenta, and I never even missed that friend once the world welcomed me.
Perhaps that is one of the hardest truths in life: eventually, every man must carry the weight of his own decisions, regardless of the inheritance left behind by others.
When the reality of losing his spouse finally settled into him, Tatay wanted to end his life. He was consumed by regret over what he could have been to my Nanay. My siblings and I decided that he needed to leave Manila for a while and recover somewhere else.
A friend from the woodworking industry had established a factory in Butuan City. Tatay was invited there. He went south, to Mindanao, to begin again.
And for a while, he did.
He once again found purpose teaching the locals woodworking. That had always been his true language. Some men express love through words, others through provision, but there are men whose souls only come alive when their hands begin creating something from raw material.
Every evening he would call me long distance and tell me stories about woodworking — exciting things that only craftsmen would appreciate. Among all his children, he knew I would be the only one who truly understood what he was talking about.
The loneliness of one heart often finds refuge in another lonely heart.
A few years later, Tatay found new love. Whether he also became hers in the same way no longer mattered to me. He decided he wanted to start his own workshop once again. He told me I should come and take over the position he would vacate at the factory — not as a partner, but simply as a regular production manager. Still, he said he would deeply appreciate it if I accepted. Perhaps, in his own way, he was trying to correct some of the wrong turns his life had taken.
And so, I complied.
He bought a house.
It was around eighty square meters, standing on the left side of an eight-hundred-square-meter lot. Outside stood a deep-well siphon, fruit-bearing trees, and a fence made of bamboo.
The property was huge, yet modest.
For the first time in my life, I saw my father clean the dining table after meals and sweep the floor with a broom. The king had finally learned to serve his subjects.
And strangely, that sight moved me more than the house itself.
Somewhere inside me there was a sting of jealousy, though I tried to wave it away. Tatay was happy, and that was what mattered most. Still, there are moments when a son cannot help but wonder why certain transformations arrive too late for the people who deserved them first.
I could have chosen to stay in that house, but I decided to live elsewhere.
All my life, I never once heard my Nanay raise her voice at Tatay, not even during the nights when he came home drunk beyond reason. Nanay would simply prepare a basin of lukewarm water and gently clean him with a towel.
But this newfound love communicated differently.
There were arguments. Raised voices. A kind of friction I could not bear witnessing. One day I asked him how he managed to tolerate such behavior.
He answered that he wanted to walk on a different pavement — a path he had never stepped on before.
And perhaps he truly did.
But sometimes, a man spends his whole life searching for roads that only lead him back to the same loneliness he was trying to escape.
The house was filthy. There were ants everywhere. Cobwebs clung to the fluorescent bulbs. Despite its size, it never truly felt peaceful to me.
I resigned from work in less than a year. My girlfriend at the time was pregnant with my first child, and I realized I could not live outside Manila.
Funny enough, now I probably could.
After about a year, Tatay returned to Manila to visit us. He went back to Mindanao only once or twice after that. Then, on his final return to Manila, the good Lord took him home.
Years later, I learned that the house he bought in Butuan City had eventually been sold.
And perhaps that was fitting.
Because the house was never really the point.
The house was an apology.
A late realization built from concrete, bamboo, and regret. It was built for a woman who would never live inside it. A roof finally raised for the very person who had spent her life standing beneath storms without one of her own.
Some houses are built for families.
Others are built for dreams.
But there are houses quietly built for absence — monuments to the things men only learn when time has already slipped beyond their reach.
Originally published on Benjie's Bench - Measuring Life's lessons in Millimeters
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18SnNU6PaM/