To My Dad On Fathers Day

Dear Dad,

Thank you for teaching me how to ride a bicycle, and swim, and tie my shoe laces. I needed all that.

Thank you for being kind and upright, for being patient, for always being there at the doorway during each first day of school, for being a good provider, a good father and husband.

Thank you for all those Friday evening trips to Quiapo Church, the Sunday afternoons at the Luneta Park after Mass, the weekend picnics at Mount Makiling, the summers in Baguio, and the annual "visitas iglesias". I needed those.

Above all, thank you for your love and your time. If I can be even only half of what you were to me as a father, then I will be a good father to my own children and a good husband to my wife.

I love you.

From your son.