When Apologies Are Not Enough

What comes after the apology is greater than the apology. 

When my dad passed away, his superiors wanted him to be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. He did achieve a lot of brave feats of valor in his career. But our grandma, his mother, refused, and everyone conceded. She wanted to be able to see her son's grave every day, so my dad was buried next to her house. Literally right next to her house. Just a few steps away.

Photo by Love Joy Basilan Lawagan

As my father's child, I will always be proud of him and his great deeds as a public servant. But I will not deny how imperfect he was as a father despite how great he was as everything else. He was physically abusive toward me as a child. Even though I've forgiven him in my adult years, it will always be a sensitive topic to me. Of course, he thought that was discipline just like how he was "disciplined" extremely growing up, but it was violence and abuse. I believe now that my rebellious actions growing up were the universe's way of holding him accountable. 

Then and now, after years of working on myself to heal my inner child, I still will never excuse the beatings, floggings, and fits of unmanaged or displaced anger, nor will I ever look at any of it as acceptable for whatever reason. Abuse is abuse no matter the backstory or one’s ignorance of the concept. It’s one of the many harmful and traumatic generational patterns that need to be abolished regardless of which generation one belongs to.

Thankfully, in the final years leading up to his death, he apologized to me. Not just once but a couple of times. But here’s the most important thing: he followed it up with actions of sincerity, redress, reparation, and restitution. He was an imperfect father who used to have fits of violence when he was angry, who came to himself one day and knew he had to make amends for the damage he had done.

He had untreated/unaddressed issues that were suppressed all his life. I didn't understand that then, but I do now. One time when I was sixteen, after my classes at uni, while Dad and I were waiting for my mom outside the uni building, a car drove right into our rear bumper and sped away. In a fit of rage, my dad ran after the driver/car owner, screaming at him to stop. When the car didn't stop, my dad took out his gun and fired a shot into the air. When I tried to stop him, he said he just wanted the driver to approach us and apologize. As I was going after him, I ran past the entrance of my college building and one of my professors and some of my classmates were there. My prof asked me if that was my dad. I remember saying yes reluctantly. I was so embarrassed, angry, and fed up. I never let Dad pick me up at school again.

This was the same guy who gave away food, money, and shelter to the needy. The same guy who let random strangers, church mates, and relatives live with us. The guy who loved to take pictures and do calligraphy, both of which require a lot of patience, discipline, and control. The man who led his unit to win awards and be number one in the country for consecutive years, promoting the ideology that a victorious war needs no bloodshed. The man who merited being buried in the resting place of national heroes. 

Left to right from top: live radio broadcast for the blind community of Baguio and Benguet; relief operations for typhoon victims; mediation between workers and their management; distribution of some produce 

I think life messed up my dad's psyche in ways he never even knew. Like in a bipolar kind of way. In all my years of knowing him, I never once saw him sleep at a reasonable hour or take an afternoon nap. His insomnia was bad but he could accomplish more in a day than I ever could in a week. He would stay up all night and go about his business helping people the next day. Whenever my insomnia was bad back then (and even now sometimes), you wouldn't be able to talk to me. Don't get me started on my rage issues. My point is, having all the issues he had, he was still a decent, warm, loving, and generous person toward others. I could never. I like to believe that I try to do right and be kind whenever I can, but I am nothing like him. I have stories for another time about the dark history of my rage that only my family knows about.

After many years, I came to accept and understand all these about him. In fact, I even felt despondent for not knowing more about mental wellness when he was still alive. Accepting his apology and seeing him compensate for everything were liberating for me.

New Year 2015

Do I wish he could have lived longer or long enough to continue the healing work within himself that he’d started? Yes. Do I wish he could have realized his mistakes sooner? Honestly, yes. But am I grateful he realized them before it was actually too late? Absolutely.

I am now free from the anger and hatred I had for him growing up because one day he decided not only to apologize but to man up and do right by me.