My father died almost a year ago but the truth is, life doesn’t feel any different at all.

Before he died after a secret elective heart surgery that had gone wrong, I had seen him maybe only once a year, if at all, and not by design. I’d usually bump into him around Christmastime at my grandma’s or when somebody died. Other than that, nada.

We didn’t see each other on our birthdays or on Father’s Day, we didn’t have random lunches. We’d text maybe three times on a good year. He never really made a point to make time for me or my brother or his grandkids. He didn’t even go to my brother’s wedding.

He spent the last years of his life building his world around his girlfriend and her family—he had the tendency to be consumed entirely by every woman he had been with after my mother.

At his wake, which my younger brother and I organized, we kept hearing things about him from virtual strangers. “He was always there for his godchildren,” said his supposed best friend, a man I had never seen before in my life.

“He sent his girlfriend’s relatives to school,” people whispered. Well, isn’t that nice.

And that’s not pure sarcasm. It is kind of nice. Because at least, while he was absent in ours, he did have another life where people thought he was a great guy.

My parents split up when I was 12. My father sat me and my brother down for one of maybe only three serious conversations we’ve ever had. “It’s not your fault,” I remember him saying. “At hindi ibig sabihin nito na hindi namin kayo mahal.”

Those months and years after their separation, my brother and I got to know our father a little more as a person. Sundays were mall days for the three of us, as we’d eat lunch, watch movies, joke around. He did have a good sense of humor. Those are still my favorite memories of him as a father.

Sundates

But those Sundates stopped when I was a college freshman, when the first girlfriend entered the picture. It was like he didn’t have enough space for all of us. He moved out of our childhood home, basically stripping it bare, leaving just the furniture he had shared with my mother.

Over the years, we drifted further and further apart, to the point where I started joking that he had become like a distant uncle. (I might have gotten my sense of humor from him.)

After our father’s death, my brother and I talked about why this had become the case. Did his love for us disappear along with his love for our mother? Did he blame us for the end of their marriage? I think he did. One time, he told me and my grandma how he thought my mother’s love for him went to us instead the minute we were born.

Years later, as I stared at him in his casket, all I could do was sigh. “Hay, Papa,” I thought.

Later, I would write, “Usually, when people die, you mourn what was. But sometimes, when people die, you mourn what wasn’t and what could have been.”

What could have been

We grew up with so many examples of what could have been. Like Lolo Bojie, who technically is my step-grandpa, but whose steadfast love for all of us feels stronger than blood. Or Tito Jojo, whose devotion to his kids and unconditional acceptance moves me to tears. Or Tito Luis, who cared for his family so fiercely that years after his death, they still mourn him like he just left. Or Tito Vill, a strong and silent pillar, the very definition of a cool dad. (Last week, while my cousin Felice and her husband were in Japan, he went over to their house every day to feed their cats, even sending them daily reports about his growing friendship with the felines.)

Did I wish Papa was more like them? Not really, no. Sure, there were moments when I wondered what it would be like to have a father you could run to when things got tough, or to know the security of having a dad who wanted to protect you from the ills of this world. But I didn’t spend too much time thinking about that. Papa was the card I was dealt, and I accepted that. I couldn’t lean on him so I learned to stand on my own two feet. In his absence, my mother loved us doubly, triply hard. While he wasn’t there, my brother and I bonded.

These were gifts from my distant dad—independence, overflowing love and an unbreakable bond. Not all dads are great, but even the not-so-great ones will leave lessons and gifts behind.

When he was in the hospital and knew that his surgery hadn’t gone well, he asked his girlfriend, “Does Pam know? Is she still mad at me?”

“No, she’s not mad. She’s been asking how you are.”

That was a lie. At that point, I don’t think I even knew he was in the hospital. But it’s a lie I’m grateful for. I told his girlfriend, “I’m glad you said that because maybe, hopefully, he went peacefully.”