My Tatay owns a furniture business. He had men who worked for him. Yet there was something in woodworking that always drew him to unbutton his polo and hang it somewhere so he could work in a small secluded section of his workshop. He would build something inside that place.
It was just beside his office where he usually received clients and guests. His private workspace had a waist-high wooden partition with clear glass panels on top. Those glass panels were always dusty and foggy from the work happening inside.
I loved that place. I loved the scent of it—the smell of wood, glue, and sawdust.
I would often ask Tatay if I could tag along with him. Perhaps that was the reason I became an early riser. He would leave home very early, and I wanted to be there when he opened the shop.
I was barely seven years old at the time.
One morning, Tatay showed me how to install door hinges. To a child it seemed like a simple thing—just two small pieces of metal screwed between a door and a cabinet. But Tatay explained that a door is never held by one hinge alone.
He said the weight of the door creates a turning force that tries to pull it away from the cabinet. Because of this, the upper hinge resists the pulling force, while the lower hinge carries the weight of the door. Positioned far apart from each other, the two hinges share the burden and keep the door standing straight.
At seven years old, I only understood the mechanics.
But as the years passed,I began to understand the wisdom behind it.
Some things in life are held together the same way.
Not by one person carrying everything, but by two. Supporting and working together. One resists the forces that try to pull things apart. The other willfully carries the weight.
They do not ocupy the same place.
They do not perform the same task.
Yet both are necessary.
Separated from each other, they create balance.
Remove one hinge, and the door begins to fail.
Sometimes the lessons we carry for a lifetime are taught to us while standing in a dusty corner of a workshop, with a screwdriver in one hand and a patient father beside us.
Originally published on Benjie's Bench - Measuring Life's lessons in Millimeters
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