the trip

By Jhester Naval

It was early December of 2019, when my dad told my siblings and I that he was going to the Philippines to take care of things for his father. We were supportive of the trip and were unaware that this would cause our lives to change forever.

My mom didn’t know about this trip and found out after calling his workplace. She was devastated, and to add on to it she began to find out more concerning things.

At a dentist appointment, she began to talk to workers that she had known. They told her that they recently took a trip to the Philippines as well and ran into my dad while they were sightseeing. They described him being with a woman and a little boy.

My mom came home with the news crying from the embarrassment she felt. She showed us pictures that she discovered of them on social media and the sound of her voice was shaky. Hearing her and looking at these pictures made us all shocked. I had no words and felt disappointment and betrayal by our dad.

We already knew who the woman was, but what shocked us the most was the little boy.

Growing up, my dad introduced us to the woman but called her our aunt. The woman would just randomly show up during dinners we had with our dad after going to the park. When I first met her, I had this uneasy feeling that something was going on.

My older brother was the closest to my dad and remembers when my dad would lie about sleeping over at our uncle’s house when he would commute. At the time our uncle lived with the woman. When my brother found out about this he didn’t know who to go to and felt stuck.

Jhermaine: “I don’t think I really had the right guidance because what it did is it made me so depressed. It was just too much for me to handle. It led to a lot of negative thoughts, negative feelings, and negative actions.”

My dad came back from the Philippines around New Year’s Eve. The vibe was cold and our conversations would quickly end in silence. I couldn’t see him as the same person anymore and it was hard to even talk to him.

The thought of having another brother blew my mind and made me look back on a moment that my sister and I shared which connected to this thought.

One day, my sister and I came home from school and our dad called us. He called to check up on us and ask how our day was. My dad worked at an auto shop at the time, and the background was oddly quiet. We suddenly got another call from him, but this time it was a pocket dial.

Charmaine: “There was no background noise or anything like that and I guess it was really quiet and our dad was just talking to a girl and there was this kid in the background talking and he sounded really little, just a toddler. We were just listening and we heard our dad saying, ‘Oh, I’m going to go now, aren’t you going to give Papa a kiss.’ It was just really shocking to know that and we just didn’t know what to say after that.”

At the end, my dad realized that he had called us and ended it. He called again and acted like nothing happened. When we replied to him our responses were dry because of how shocked we were.

Several months went by after my dad’s return and I did not see him for a while due to the COVID-19 pandemic. School was closed and we were stuck at home. However, things escalated again.

My dad finally told us the truth about the woman and the child after months of lying about it.

At this point, it was not a surprise to us anymore. We already knew, but something we all regret was not telling him how we really felt.

Charmaine: “With the whole situation even though I felt all these emotions and I had a hard time coping with the whole thing I still feel like I couldn’t have the nerve to tell him everything that I was feeling because I felt like I would disappoint him and I didn’t want to do that as much as he did it to me. As I was growing up I couldn’t express those emotions with him and it’s kind of hard to do it now when I felt like I was shut out.”

The whole situation was painful for all of us. I didn’t talk to my dad for a while which angered some of my family members. They told me that I was childish and that one day I would regret it. They didn’t understand that I needed time to process it, but that was taken away from me.

I decided to just keep my emotions bottled up as well to the point where I would have breakdowns.

Something that really hurt me was being compared to his son. Our appearances are similar and family members would call us things such as twins and laugh about it. When they would do this I would force myself to laugh or put up a fake smile when I was hurting on the inside.

Our relationship with our dad was never the same and the situation made us distant from him.

Jhermaine: “I was closer to my dad because I always wanted to be like him, he was a person I looked up to growing up… Our relationship now is kind of different. I kind of see my dad as one of my really close friends, not really close to a father figure.”

My sister and I didn’t know who to go to through this difficult time, until we decided to reach out to my cousins and uncle.

We would hang out endlessly and when we did not see each other we would have long calls until our phones died.

As time went by we felt more comfortable with each other and my sister and I decided to open up about things that were going on at home.

Dylan: “We had a lot of deep conversations with each other as well as with our uncle… It brought out a lot of empathy towards each other and brought us closer as a whole because we could relate and just be vulnerable.”

These conversations were helpful to all of us and are something we all craved. It strengthened our love for each other and allowed us to create new memories that we will never forget.

Charmaine: “They take my mind off of everything, they make me feel like I have a purpose to be here and they make me feel like there is no reason to worry about what’s going on at home because when I am with them I feel like I am not alone and that there is still hope.”

I am grateful that I had my family members through this difficult time and we’ve become closer. Without them, I would have ended up becoming lost in my thoughts.

This situation impacted me negatively, but it also helped me grow. It has been a learning experience for me and taught me to persevere because there is always hope.

I now feel less weak-minded and stronger than I was before.

Purpose by Jonny Easton

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