It’s his five times a day routine for 20 years now to wake up at four o’clock in the morning. He’s always the first to leave from our house and first to arrive in the hospital’s kitchen.
My father works as a marketer and a cook in the region’s public hospital. Before he was promoted as a cook, he served as a kitchen aide - mopping the floor, washing dishes, and delivering food to the patients.
Although his father was a very rich and prominent court judge, my father didn’t experience an inch of comfort when he was a child. He didn’t even get the chance to go to college.
My grandpa had three wives. He was married to the first and before he died, he was living in with his third wife. My grandma was the ‘unfortunate’ woman in between them.
Unlike his half-brothers and half-sisters from the first and the third wives who were enjoying all the luxury their dad can provide, my father, his siblings and their mom lived in dire poverty.
My grandma died when my father was still in highschool. My father and his siblings each lived separate lives and tried to survive in their own ways.
Papa’s way of surviving was by working in the market -carrying loads of ice or fishes and other products, selling just anything and assisting market goers to earn centavos for him to feed himself.
The market was like his comfort zone. That probably explains why he excels best as a marketer until today. Although I believe that he can do more and be more if only he had enough resources, I can’t be any prouder having a father who is as determined and responsible as he is.
Setting all personal biases aside, my father’s surely one of the most hardworking person I know. Everyone who has seen him work can attest to that. Everytime I get tired from working, I get inspiration from him to push through. He taught me that however worse the situation you are in right now, you need not a way out but a way to make it better.
I remember a story he once told me. He said that when he was still young he used to pile wooden sticks and imagine it to be a palace, imagining himself as a prince.
That story never fails to make me cry. A young boy who perseveres a lot and has great potentials, even born with an affluent father but only had himself and his wooden sticks to dream with him. I cannot decipher what his dreams are but I’m sure these are the things that will make all his struggles worth it.
He still may not be living in a palace today but he definitely is living a better life with four people dreaming with him- that’s me, my mother, and my two younger siblings.
I hope one day he’ll wake up at four in the morning not because he’s going to the hospital for work but because his dreams and what’s reality are already the same. I’ll do my part to make that 'one day' happen.
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