When Work Means Leaving Home

Everyone was called to do a mission. Salaries for professionals here in the Philippines are not enough to finance a kid in college. So parents applied for work abroad and endure being away from their family.  It takes a lot of sacrifice and will to hold on and wait. As they say money is hard to earn, easy to spend.

Few weeks ago, I’ve talked to a mother of a batch mate in high school. I asked her, “Uwi po ba sya this Christmas?” And she answered, “Makakauwi naman sya, naawa ako sa apo ko sa computer na lang sila nag uusap ng Papa nya.” For a Lola, seeing their Apo’s longing for a father is saddening. My father like some of the rest was an OFW. A father who has a great plan for his family.

Good thing there is technology. Way back our time, we rely on letters, postcards and voice tapes. Telephone lines were installed in Zambales on the year 1990s. That was the year when I was still in college. My father told me this story that he had to go out  and find a telephone booth on a negative 0 degree  Celsius temperature just to make a call.

 

This anecdote is Papa’s favorite. It happened when I was 4 year old. I still remember it though. It was a very memorable one. Papa left for abroad when I was still a baby so when he came back when I was four I don’t recognize him. I’d rather stay then in my Nanay/Yaya’s house than stay home. For a little girl it takes more than a picture. The children of today are a lot more blest than us way back then.

 

It had always been difficult to have the most important person of your life on the other side of the world. And it’s hurting more when people whom you consider as friend tend to take it a joke and would not understand such scenario. They cannot even understand why they invest on some businesses just to increase their cash flow. Blessed are you when your immediate family, your husband and your kid is just around after an 8 hour work. My challenge then, can you leave then for not just mere months but rather for a few years just to earn. Don’t you feel that longing, to be hugged and kissed? Try putting yourself  in our shoes.  We tend to judge them addicted to social network and the internet, but did you ever know that the internet is their only view deck outside of their work. My heart goes to them. And so it had always been my heart belongs to one among them.