HFD!

It’s Father’s Day but since I have made a piece for my father a few weeks ago I’d like to write about someone who’s quite younger than my father but who has been really patient and dare I say it, good, to me. He’s been in and out of my vista for three years. He knows firsthand how bad I can be when I’m angry,how selfish I can get with my dreams, how I lash out with my talons when I am fed up. Once when I walked out of our friendship, I slammed the door, and not content with that, took along his best friend and what he valued most—our barkadahan. But surprise, surprise! He’s still here. And we’re still close.

Sometimes, okay, most of the time I run to him when I am down. Selfishly, without caring about his problems. Friends always say that I am a good listener, and I pride myself that if anything, it is my one gift that I am full of empathy. But not with him. I am the talker, always asserting my voice, my words, my concerns. I think he notices when I just half-listen to his woes. When I’m just waiting for my turn to dump my worries on his plate. And he takes it. Because I think for all the anxieties I’ve caused him, he knows that I am trying my best to find my way in life. And he’s concerned enough to help me when I ask for his help. Because we’re friends, in the truest sense of the word— the stick to the bones, for better or for worse, wherever corner of the earth we go kind.

Because ours is the kind that takes the phrase “Cruel to be kind” true to heart. And we’ve gone through some serious upheavals before we attained this calmness, this assurance that what we have is pure, unadulterated kinship. The kind where what he wants is only the best for me, and all I want is for him and Ate to live happily soon, together, with their kids. And we are so brutal, so honest with each other that it hurts. How sometimes, after another of his brotherly advice I get to think, “Shit, I don’t need to take any of this, who does he think he is?” But then it’s always the truth that wounds us right? So there.

I have, I think , only three friends who are guaranteed to run to my side when disaster strikes, wherever in the world I am. The girl best friend, the gay best friend, and the cruel best friend. He’s the cruel one. The one who lives and breathes politics, the good father, and now loyal husband to my Ate. He’s the one who made me cry when he said he wished I could just go back to being the carefree, full of life, tactless girl he once knew.

I think I have for most of the time taken him for granted, really. So now, Thanks, Kuya. Kahit na sa tingin mo never akong magiging m***l. Hehe. You’ll see I’ll prove you wrong, and once that happens you’ll never hear the end of it :-P. This should really be for Happy Brother’s Day, but I don’t know if there’s even one. And by then I’d gone back to taking you for granted haha. Salamat.