It's not that I have forgotten about him. In fact the first thing I did when I woke up last Tuesday was pray for him. And at the same time he passed away three years ago.
Not a day would pass by without me remembering my dearest Tatay, and everytime, I would say a short prayer for him. It's not Catholic mandate, it's my spiritual instinct. Somehow, to use the worldly term, I idolized my father in many ways. He was an excellent provider-- not in a manner that he loaded us with all the life's material blessings-- we were amply satisfied with whatever he brings home, everytime. Three years passed and I can still feel his lips kissing the back of my palm as he struggled bending up on his bed in a gesture of gratitude and goodbye. How I miss him.
Two weeks ago I got a frantic call from my sister in Escolta. She narrated how, from nowhere, a reservation she made last year with Cebu Pacific popped up her monitor. She said she was doing her usual encoding, went out to get something and in a few minutes an officemate asked permission from her if she could close the window that just popped up from her monitor because she wanted to type something. Weird but just as my sister has decided not to come home on July 10, our father's death anniversary, that thing came out. She was crying narrating to me the
incident. With the high fare and the salary she's not receiving when on leave, she resolved to just talk to our father, a bargaining of sort, hehe!
By the way, as I write this entry, I can read my site bar of Today's Verse saying: "Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old."(Proverbs 23:22). Coincidence? I dunno. But what a nice way to communicate with us his children! We love you Tatay! Yeah, we will always take care of Nanay!
After more than a hundred cups of Starbucks-- combine hot and cold beverages since I started visiting this branch-- my loyal patronage with this coffee company named after a Mody-Dick character has paid off. No, I wasn't paid off deliberately, it was luck that was kinder to me when the random cash register squirted a promo receipt with a costumer code for www.mystarbucksvisit-ph.com.
Then after encoding and answering some questions (page after page, the kind that management wanted to hear out from customers-- they were easy, yeah!), my complimentary beverage ID came out. Not really an ID that has my picture and name tag on it, but a numerical ID my answer choices must have generated.
I copied it to the space provided at the promo receipt and presented it to Thines-- though I would have loved to present it to Lhyne (yes, I practically know all the crew in this branch and they know me by name, too!)-- for my choice for any tall beverage. I chose Mango Passion Fruit, their current product offering. Well, that was after I had a hot Tazo Tea, a Kettle Chips of Spicy Thai (ginger chips-- anghaaang!) and a sampler of Raspberry Black Currant cold drink. All, in the guise of doing my client proposals in this free wi-fied nook of Makati!
