Dad hated heights. I was never more aware of this fact than on one summer day in Baguio, when I was about eleven. We were in Mines View Park, overlooking what seemed to be the entire cosmos. Brazen tourists were taking jump shots by the edge of the observation deck, but Dad was as white as a sheet. “Let’s stay here”, he said, finding comfort in a lone bench situated at the safest spot of the lookout point. I ignored him. There was something about those Cordillera mountains that made me want to go to the very edge, lean forward, and yell, “I AM INVINCIBLE.”
I was not about to be lame and sit on a bench with my middle-aged father who wore white socks with his loafers.
I don’t know who took this picture, but I still remember every time I see it, I remember the urgency of his tug on my ugly-ass windbreaker. I remember the look on his eyes that said: “My reckless, impulsive little girl, I will not let you fall.”
Happy birthday.