GOODBYE, GOOD LUCK GIRL

(For Lili B. Llaneta)

Eleven months and your mother and I couldn’t have known

everything

about you. We have just begun to rejoice

about your arrival. Everything else could wait.

You were here to stay, weren’t you?

I remember you and your mother had a difficult time

at the hospital the day you came. Even that early

you already showed a Shakespearean heroine’s

dramatic streak.

Fear and uncertainty, no small measure of them,

attended the ceremony of your coming.

But you proved the oddsmakers wrong.

After what seemed an eternity

you made that first cry.

And thus the world cried with joy.

And thus, too began the days of your brief sojourn.

Had I, your father, known you were here merely to say

hello and goodbye to a world

Now made more uncertain and bereft of joy

Because of your leaving

I could have pleaded with time and the stars

and even with God

to spare you one more moment

for us to know everything there was to know

about you and why

You had to go.

There’s no sadder ma, Lili, than a father

left to stare at an empty cradle.

Your little pillows are still there.

The red-and-white rattle whose joyous sounds

made an otherwise dull day last long

and filled with meaning are still there.

Even the tiny dolls that were meant for later days

are still there in all their perfect mimicry.

The toy musical instruments that were meant to let you

learn all the familiar sounds of home

are still there waiting for some conductor’s

tiny hands.

And I, your father, was there

beside that cradle.

The day you were brought to the hospital.

Of course I made sure that when you returned

Everybody and everything would be in their proper places.

The wait was rather long

And even when I was told

that you weren’t coming back anymore

I still waited beside your cradle

Hoping that the doctor had just made a mistake

And I wasn’t there to tend empty space.

Reprinted from FOCUS Philippines

(Editor’s Note: Like any father, he mourned the loss of a daughter)