Asia Tour '09 - The Philippines: Dad Found His Way Home

My Dad still found his way home...

He never seizes to amaze me. With a country this big as his playground, my dad was still able to get on that bus in a crowded Manila bus station and go home. Solsona was my Dad's childhood home and will forever be his home. It's smaller now than when he remembered it. 12 hours later, he'd arrive home.

The front door no more than 6 steps from the street. It's yellow painted exterior has started to chip away to reveal its original color underneath. It's nearly a new painted coat of yellow, but for some reason the old wood feels it needs to breathe. A newly constructed sink becomes the kitchen's mainstay but the lack of a faucet starts to worry me as a portable cooler takes its place. Before I had gotten there, there weren't any beds in any of the downstairs bedrooms where little Reggie Guillermo the Third, as well as a few other family members, sleep. That quickly changed when my mom and my Aunt Edith bought them two new beds. The staircase leading up to the second floor bedrooms seem sensitive to any touch and any step, as if to moan about it's aching back.

You can tell that a family lives here though. And it's a family rich with tradition and full of stories - stories that haven't even been told before. I wanted to hear them; the voices of this house. I can hear them through the pictures on the walls and on the shelves, I can hear them on the tiles on the floor - they're not as shiny as I'm sure they were in their prime. I see it on their faces, they look excited to see us. And I feel them. I feel the presence of everyone who's called this place home.

I am humbled.