First, let's put some background music.
<center>
https://youtu.be/NzlZZZCn154<sub>[Sugar Hiccup](https://open.spotify.com/artist/11F8gFVvU2lnEwxNIzMEXw) - 5 Years (Youtube)
</sub>
</center>

To be honest, I don't know how to start. Not that I don't have anything to say, in fact, I have a lot. But most usual pieces like this were written to remember someone's achievements, awards, and honors either scholarly or professionally. But I doubt if you have any of that. 

Judging from how you reacted when I first brought home a medal, I realised that for you, things like that come very rarely. You were so happy and very proud of me. I intended to offer the medal to Mama but you're at our doorstep when I came home. You saw it and hogged the honor for yourself. From that time, I made sure that you will have the first dibs on my medals, if you were present and not somewhere anyway.

Also, the fact this is being written five years late, I doubt if this will be necessary. I promised to give you this back then, but for some selfish reasons, I failed you. That was one of the many times I did.

So today, I'm writing this piece for you, to remember and celebrate your life as far as I know it. There are many details about your life that I do not really know. So most of these were from personal experiences and 2nd or 3rd hand information, depending on the source or who told it.

Ladies and gentlemen, my eulogy for my father. This is his story.

You were called many names, Toto by your relatives whom I have not met or encountered; and Sulpeng by almost anyone: your wife, your bosses, your coworkers, neighbors, kumpares, and acquaintances. Your real name,Sulpicio  is so old fashion and not that pleasing to many especially to one of our brothers whom you've given the unwanted honor of bearing your name as your junior. But to your children, you are simply called Papa and later on, you were fondly referred to as Popeng by anyone within our family especially from your grandchildren who cannot pronounce Sulpeng when they were young.

As a boy, I was told that you were separated from your mom, who together with your baby sister had to jump out of the window of your "bahay-kubo" to escape another night of nasty beating from your abusive and drunkard father. They were so afraid from your father that they went so far away and settled in Mindanao. You were left behind and was forced to live a cruel childhood with my Lolo in Iloilo.

I remember that rare time that you decided to share with me parts of your childhood. As a young boy, you were almost by yourself. Your father would leave you alone in what you call a house, a small hut made of bamboo.
If you were lucky, a relative would drop by to bring some food but if not, you survived by eating sweet potatoes you dug or any other edible vegetables you could gather. Your father would be gone womanizing, drinking and gambling and would come back days or weeks later. 

As for your education, none of us know how much you really got. You never mentioned anything about it except those stories about how you would swim across a river just to get to school. I can't really tell if you ever reached high school. Mama said that you never even completed the elementary level. But you were smart and good with numbers. You read and understand english pretty well.

When you were a teenager, you went with your father somewhere in Mindoro, an island probably days away from Iloilo. He worked as a cooked for a small town carnival locally known as *perya" while you did any work given to you. 

When an opportunity opened up, you boarded a ship to Manila with a friend and against your father's will. This time, it was your turn to leave him. 

With no relatives in Manila, you stayed with friends and do odd jobs. You worked as a "barker", someone who calls for passengers in jeepneys in Tayuman. For many nights, these jeepneys became your only place to sleep. Perhaps out of your survival instinct, you saw it necessary to acquire a legit skill. Thanks to your jeepney driver friends, you learned how to drive and became arguably one of the greatest driver in our family.

With that skill, you found a job as a driver for a manufacturing company. There you meet mama and you got married in 1969.

Shortly after having your firstborn, you received a message from your father. By that time, he was old and weak and staying from one relative to another, if anyone is willing to take him anyway. Despite your life with him, you paid him a visit and brought him the only grandchild he will ever know. You must love him so much because you named our eldest brother after him - Alfredo. The next time you'd pay him a visit, he was already buried. Mama told me that his body was found in a sugar cane field and that despite fathering numerous sons and daughters from god-knows how many women, it was only you who paid him a visit. In fact, you were the only one who kept his name. The only one who accepted him.

After his death, destiny found a way to reunite you with your mother.  After exchanging letters with a relative, you picked her up at a seaport and brought her home. She stayed with you for a short time before passing away. The only relative left is your distant sister. I'm not really sure if you've met her. Up to this day, I never met any single relative from your clan.

The first few years of your marriage life were not that bad. You and mama had steady jobs in that manufacturing company. Things started to get hard when that company went bankcrupt. 
With no steady job and a very big family, we really struggled hard. There were times that we skipped meals or we would wait for you to come home. If you're lucky, we will have something for dinner. If not? Well, you always made it a point to have something for us. Even if it meant that you cheated the train inspector and not paid the right fares. For that, I'm supposed to be ashamed, but honestly, I am not. I am really thankful.

As a father, you were really hardworking and responsible. You are far from being perfect and had alcohol and smoking for vices but you would always put us on top of everything.

While most of my friends and neighbors would stop schooling after high school because their parents could not afford it, none of your children had to stop school. You and mama always made it sure that all of us were enrolled every school year, every semester. And we were seven.

How you and mama did it with your meager income as a truck driver transporting milkfish from Mindoro to Manila is beyond me.

Sad to say, as much as you valued education, some of us were less appreciative of the privilege that was denied to you, especially me. Instead of taking my studies seriously, I screwed up and was kicked out of my college program and losing my university scholarship. If I were to continue studying, I have to transfer from a public university to a private institution but I'm not sure if you can afford it.

During that time, you were already stationed in Mindoro and I hardly see you anymore. When you had your trip to Manila, I went to the fishport, the place where your company is selling your cargo. We talked inside your truck and I asked you if you could support me if I would enroll in a private school. You were old that time, maybe few years short of your retirement and I'd totally understand if you'd said no. To my surprise, you said yes. So for the next two years, every enrollment and every scheduled payments, we will talk inside your truck and you will hand me the money for my tuition. During that time, you stopped coming home and there have times that you failed to give me the money. But I understood because I know you have *your reasons*. Besides, I finished my course.

When I started working, I hardly see you anymore. I heard that you stopped driving but you had chosen to stay in Mindoro. That time, I am too busy with personal stuff and I did not care or just pretended that I know nothing about it.

You went home one time when you fell sick. My brother had you confined for a few days. Later, you were diagnosed with COPD, a disease you got from chainsmoking. By that time, it was revealed to us that you already have a new family and had a new son. It was so heartbreaking to realize that after all the things that we've been through as a family, you failed in the end.

For the next few years, that would be the situation. You would come home to us when you got sick and would come back *to them* the moment you feel better. You'll just be here because we can cover your hospitalization and medical expenses.

But when you started becoming really weak, you chose to come home and stayed for good. Those were really hard times for us. You were in and out the hospital until our funds dried up. For the last 6 months of your life, you cannot breathe without an oxygen tank.

Then one day you talked to me and said something that is borderline heartbreaking and annoying: you want to see your Ryan, your son from your infidelities.

That was sometime in August and there would be a coming family day in Ryan's school in October. Ryan was studying that time in a "boystown" run by Catholic nuns who were very strict in visitation and vacation schedules. The upcoming family day were the only day allowed for parents to see their children and you were really waiting for that day. 

Honestly, I'm not really sure if you're going to see that day because you were really in bad shape already. But I saw your desire to see him maybe for one last time and I was reminded of the time I asked for your support to send me to a private school.

So I said yes. And for the next two months I took extra care of you by making sure that you are eating right, taking all your medicines, and ensuring that there is enough stock of oxygen in our house. Come October, we picked up Ryan's mother and drove you all the way to Batangas where you spent your last family day together.

After that you've gone really weak. 

Exactly five years ago, I did something that I still regret up to this day: I left you dying in your bed.

It was a Monday morning, I woke up, and prepared myself to work. Before I left, I checked to see if your'e okay. You were sleeping just like everyone else in the house. I looked at you and you were hardly breathing. You were not gasping for your breath, you were peacefully sleeping. I held your hand and said goodbye. I knew that time that you will be gone in the next few minutes and I cannot bear to see that moment. So I stood up, turned my back at you and walked out. Minutes later, I received a call from my crying sister. She did not have to say anything.

Should have I stayed? Were you trying to call me to come back? Did you try to reach my hand? Would it be easier for you if I was there?

I am missing many things about you but those questions are haunting me up to this day. I tried to downplay it but guilt can come in full force sometimes.

I feel that I failed you in when you needed me most. I hope that you can forgive me. And I hope that one day, I can forgive myself too.

You may not be that type of father with a lot of wordly achievements but you lived a colorful life worthy of sharing. Of course, you are the greatest father I could ever have. 

I might have failed to write this back then, but I am doing it now and I am putting this on the blockchain for perpetuity.

<center>![IMG_20171113_021552_269.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1510510596/wso59g8zd2oafpwxnhq4.jpg)</center>


We miss and love you, Popeng!