It was just another ordinary night, your mom and I were fighting over something that I could not even remember, when it happened. She felt something, and when I turned on the light, there it was. Her water bag broke. We rushed to the hospital through Friday night traffic arriving just in time. A few hours later, on the early hours of February 3, 1996, you came. We are now parents. I'm a new Dad, both excited and scared of what was to come.
It was a whole new experience for us as parents. We had to learn, and learn fast, how to juggle our schedule around our new bundle of joy. It was like learning on the job, how to prepare your milk, change your diapers, do your laundry, wake up in the middle of the night just to check on you. But it was all worth it, we were happy. Or so we thought...
A few days before your 3rd birthday, you got sick and had to be confined to the hospital. It was the Kawasaki syndrome, a rare disease normally caught by children 1 to 8 years of age. It was probably the most scared I've been in my life thinking that we could lose you at anytime. Worse still, was seeing you suffer through the medication, IVIG, while celebrating your birthday on the hospital bed. But God is good. He heard our prayers. And after 10 years of medication and constant monitoring, you are cleared of all the effects of your illness, no coronary damage.
Then came spring time, the best years of being a father. The sense of accomplishment of being able to bond with you, teach you how to ride a bike, play the guitar, handle success and failure, and to use public transportation to and from your new school. I could still remember the countless hours we spent constructing your Zoids collection, the hours of laughter or discussions about anything and everything while we were stuck in traffic and the countless number of times that we had to serve as choir members during the mass and the hours you slept while I drive through rush hour traffic. It was like spring all year long.
But nothing compares to the happiness I'm experiencing right now. Today, after 5 grueling years in the University of the Philippines, you are graduating from college with the course of B.S. Chemical Engineering. The years of sleepless nights trying to finish your reports, spending the night with group mates just to complete your thesis and getting the binders to finish your Plant Design in time are now over. Your educational journey is now complete.
I remembered this phrase I heard a long time ago that "God gave us children so we could have roses in December". I never really understood that phrase until today, when I saw you went up the stage as the head of your department called up your name.
Judi, Darren James Flores, Cum Laude.
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