The words “Even in weakness, he was strong” are etched in my memory, the only phrase I recall from my father’s eulogy. That entire week remains a haze — the floral arrangements, the somber faces, the weight of final goodbyes — but those five words cut through the fog with crystalline clarity.
If you’d asked six-year-old me to describe Papa, “strong” would have tumbled out before I’d finished forming the thought. I can still see him standing tall in our local church, his broad shoulders making him instantly recognizable among the Sunday congregation. At home, he’d playfully grip my elbows and hoist me skyward, both of us dissolving into laughter at our impromptu weightlifting routine. My skinny child’s arms would flex with exaggerated effort, marveling at how easily he could lift me.
His strength manifested in quieter ways too. The fallen tree in our yard didn’t stand a chance against his skilled hands — he transformed it into a sturdy bench that still graces our family home decades later. I run my fingers along its smooth surface sometimes, tracing the grooves where his tools once worked. That bench became more than furniture; it was physical proof of his capability, a tangible legacy of his hands’ labor.
One moonlit night, a prowler crept through our neighbor’s property right beside my bedroom window. Before fear could fully take root in my chest, Papa’s voice cut through the darkness — a single, thunderous “HUY!” that sent the intruder scrambling. In that moment, even I startled at the power in his tone, before realizing it was the same voice that sang me lullabies. As a child wrapped in his protective presence, the idea that this strength could ever diminish seemed laughable. The concept of aging belonged to other people, not to the man who could lift me effortlessly toward the ceiling.
Little did I know then how many forms strength could take, how it would shape-shift through the years while remaining equally potent. The physical power I so admired in childhood would gradually give way to other, more enduring varieties — the kind that doesn’t fade when muscles atrophy or joints stiffen. But that understanding would come later, after watching strength reinvent itself time and again through Papa’s example.
Now, when I visit that handmade bench by the window, I see more than wood shaped by his hands. I see the first chapter of a lifelong lesson about what true strength really means — a lesson that would unfold in hospital rooms and quiet moments far removed from those early displays of physical power. The bench remains solid, but the definition of strength would prove far more flexible than I ever imagined.
The Strength of Hands
His hands were the first thing I noticed about my father’s strength. Not just their size—though they were large enough to completely envelop my tiny wrists when he’d lift me up—but in what they could do. Those hands built our home’s furniture from fallen trees, repaired appliances with a few precise turns of a screwdriver, and could silence an entire room with a single raised palm.
The wooden bench by our window remains his most enduring creation. I remember watching him shape it over weekends, his forearms flexing as he planed the rough surface smooth. The scent of freshly cut narra wood mixed with his sweat in the afternoon heat. Thirty years later, that bench still bears the slight indentation where he’d rest his coffee mug every morning, the wood darkened by decades of tropical humidity and the oil from his hands.
Physical strength meant safety in our neighborhood. One humid midnight, we heard glass shattering next door. Before I could process the danger, Papa was at the window—no weapon, just his booming voice cutting through the darkness: “Psst! HUY!” The intruder’s fleeing footsteps were nearly drowned out by my pounding heartbeat. In that moment, I understood how strength could be both terrifying and comforting, depending on whose side it stood on.
As a child, I measured his power in concrete terms:
- The weight he could lift (me plus my schoolbag, one-handed)
- The speed he could sprint (catching me before I reached the street)
- The endurance he showed (working 36-hour film shoots without complaint)
That handmade bench became our family’s touchstone. When teenage me sulked after curfew violations, we’d have our talks there. When I brought my first boyfriend home, Papa’s silent sanding of its armrest spoke volumes. Now when I visit my mother, I still find myself running fingers along its grooves, tracing the physical evidence of his presence.
What fascinates me now isn’t just what those hands could do, but what they chose not to do. They never raised in anger, though they certainly could have. They didn’t cling desperately when illness made them tremble. In their prime, they protected; in their weakness, they accepted help with quiet dignity—the same bench that once showcased his vigor later supporting him as he caught his breath after short walks.
True strength, I’ve learned, isn’t about perpetual capability. It’s about leaving something solid behind when the muscles fade—whether it’s a weatherworn bench or the memory of feeling utterly safe in someone’s grip.
The Strength of Silence
In an industry where directors were expected to command sets with booming voices and theatrical outbursts, my father moved through chaos with the quiet certainty of a seasoned captain navigating stormy seas. The television commercial studios of Manila in the 1990s operated on what crew members called “director’s privilege”—the unspoken rule that creative vision justified explosive tempers. Yet Papa, whom everyone addressed with the respectful Filipino honorific “Direk,” never raised his voice above conversational level.
I remember visiting his sets as a child, watching the controlled pandemonium of production days. Assistants darted between equipment carts clutching clipboards, makeup artists dabbed sweat from actors’ brows under hot lights, and producers hovered near monitors with nervous energy. Amidst this orchestrated chaos, Papa would stand perfectly still at the epicenter, his calmness creating an invisible radius of order. When he spoke, people leaned in rather than cowered. “Let’s try this again,” he’d say, or sometimes just “Once more,” and the crew would reset with renewed focus.
His quiet leadership style wasn’t weakness—it was strength distilled to its purest form. Where others used volume to assert authority, Papa used precision. His directions carried weight because they were thoughtful, measured, and always purposeful. “We’ll get this in one more take” became his signature phrase, not because he demanded perfection through intimidation, but because he believed in his team’s capacity to achieve it.
This philosophy extended beyond professional sets into everyday interactions. Once, after I’d scoffed at a low-budget film we’d watched together, he turned to me with unexpected sternness. “Think about all the hard work that people poured into that movie,” he said. Having spent decades in production himself, he understood the invisible struggles—the sixteen-hour days, the compromised creative choices, the personal sacrifices behind every frame. His gentle rebuke taught me that true strength includes the capacity to recognize others’ efforts, even in imperfect results.
At home, his silent moments spoke volumes. Evenings often found him sitting alone on the wooden bench he’d built years earlier, the glow of his cigarette punctuating the darkness as he worked through ideas. The garage became his thinking space, where the only sounds were the occasional creak of wood and the distant hum of neighborhood life. His comfortable silences demonstrated that strength doesn’t always need vocalization—sometimes it’s most powerful in stillness.
This quiet confidence made him unexpectedly intimidating to my teenage boyfriends. Without saying a word, just by looking at them with his steady gaze, he could reduce cocky seventeen-year-olds to nervous chatter. Yet those who took time to know him discovered his gentleness—the way he’d ask thoughtful questions and really listen to the answers, his responses carefully considered rather than reactive.
Years later, when kidney failure diminished his physical capabilities, this same quiet strength adapted to new circumstances. In hospital rooms and dialysis centers, where many patients grew irritable from pain and frustration, Papa maintained his characteristic grace. He expressed gratitude to nurses in soft tones, made self-deprecating jokes about his “Lolo needle” treatments, and when accidental pain made him cry out during transfers, he always followed with immediate reassurance: “I just got startled. I’m okay now.”
His example taught me that leadership isn’t about decibel levels—whether on a film set, in a family, or facing personal adversity. True command comes from inner certainty, from treating others with consistent respect, and from understanding that sometimes the most powerful statements are made without words at all. The strength of silence, I learned, isn’t absence—it’s presence distilled to its essence.
The Strength of Laughter
The dialysis center smelled like antiseptic and determination. White fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting sterile shadows on the linoleum floor where wheelchair tracks made temporary patterns. Machines beeped in rhythmic intervals, their digital displays blinking numbers that measured life by milliliters and minutes. In this clinical space where illness dictated the tempo, my father conducted an orchestra of warmth.
Every Tuesday and Friday for twelve years, my parents transformed Station 7 into a living room. Mama would arrange their belongings with homemaker precision – thermos bottles aligned beside medication schedules, crossword puzzles stacked under current magazines. She’d brought the same nesting instinct that once organized our childhood home to this medical outpost, creating familiarity amid IV poles and blood pressure cuffs.
Papa’s arrival prompted a subtle shift in the room’s energy. Nurses’ rubber-soled shoes would squeak faster down the hallway when they saw his name on the schedule. The head nurse later told me they’d strategically assign their newest staff to his station, not because he needed extra care, but because he taught them how to care.
“Watch the maestro at work,” she’d whisper to trainees. “That’s how we should all face hard things.”
The Weight of Joy
The post-treatment weighing became Papa’s improv stage. As nurses prepared the scale, he’d stroke his chin with mock seriousness. “Seventy… point four kilograms,” he’d declare, knowing full well his guess would be wrong. The ritual continued even on days when edema made his ankles swell beyond recognition, when the numbers reflected not weight loss but fluid removal measured in painful increments.
Whoever guessed closest received a prize – not trophies or ribbons, but foil packets of 3-in-1 coffee my parents carried like diplomatic gifts. These sachets became currency in an economy of kindness, traded for extra blankets or the best magazine from the nurses’ lounge. The nurses played along, placing exaggerated bets and gasping at the results as if competing at a carnival midway.
During one particularly difficult session when the machine alarms kept sounding, Papa waited until the technician left before whispering, “I think we should fix the scale next week.” He mimed turning a screwdriver, his dialysis-weary hands still capable of painting joy in the air.
The Lolo Needle
They came for his blood with silver instruments, these kind-faced vampires in pastel scrubs. The largest syringe – its needle the length of a piano key – became a running character in our medical comedy. “Ah, the Lolo needle!” Papa would announce its arrival like welcoming an old friend, though his veins bore the map of their frequent visits.
He’d turn his head during insertion, not from fear but to give the nurse privacy for her precision work. His only movement was the steady rise and fall of his chest, his breath keeping time like a metronome. When the needle found its mark, he’d reward the nurse’s skill with a joke instead of wincing – “You could thread a sewing machine with that aim!”
The Soundtrack of Resilience
Between treatments, Papa curated playlists from his hospital bed. Not the expected classical music or meditation tracks, but The Beatles singing “Here Comes the Sun” while winter rain tapped the window. James Taylor assuring us we’d “Shower the People” we loved while nurses actually did exactly that with antiseptic foam.
When Paul McCartney appeared on television with white hair and liver-spotted hands, Papa didn’t change the channel. He watched with the focus of a student taking final notes, absorbing how an artist ages in public. Later, he’d say only, “He still plays beautifully,” and I understood he was speaking about more than music.
The Alchemy of Ordinary Moments
What alchemy transformed hospital gowns into capes, dialysis stations into stages? Papa never used the word “bravery” – he simply showed up. Not with clenched teeth, but with crossword puzzles half-completed to give nurses conversation starters. With extra coffee packets “just in case” another patient needed cheering. With the same quiet confidence that once guided film crews through all-night shoots.
Years later, when my own medical tests required fasting and fluorescent lights, I caught myself humming Beatles songs. The phlebotomist smiled as she tied the tourniquet. “You’re the first patient this week who didn’t tense up,” she remarked. I didn’t explain that someone had taught me how to hold pain lightly, like a bird that might fly away if you grip too tight.
Strength whispers jokes during blood draws. It measures progress not just in kilograms lost, but in laughter shared. It remembers that even machines keeping you alive need human warmth to keep working properly. My father knew this truth instinctively – that healing happens not just in cells and synapses, but in the spaces between people where joy still grows, even when the body forgets how.
The Strength of Letting Go
The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and wilted flowers when I realized our roles had permanently reversed. My father’s once-steady hands now trembled against the wheelchair armrests as I prepared to help him transfer to the hospital bed. At 5’1″, I’d somehow become the stronger one – a reality that felt as unnatural as seeing this former weightlifter struggle with a water glass.
‘Ready, Papa?’ I asked, positioning myself behind his wheelchair like we’d done dozens of times before. My hands hovered beneath his elbows where his muscles used to bulge when lifting me skyward as a child. The dialysis had left his skin papery thin, the veins tracing roadmaps of medical battles across his arms.
What happened next unfolded in slow motion: my grip slipped, his balance wavered, and for one heart-stopping second, his frail body tilted dangerously toward the floor. He cried out – not the booming ‘HUY!’ that once scared off intruders, but a vulnerable sound that made my stomach drop.
‘I didn’t mean it!’ The defensive words shot from my mouth before I could stop them, coated in the sharp guilt of failing my childhood hero. The silence afterward stretched like the IV tubes connecting him to life.
Then came the miracle: his calloused palm covering my shaking fingers. ‘I just got startled,’ he murmured, the same gentle tone he’d used when I’d scraped my knees decades earlier. ‘I’m okay now.’ Where another might have snapped in frustration or shame, Papa offered grace. His forgiveness landed heavier than any lecture about carefulness ever could.
This became our final language – his quiet acceptance teaching me more about true strength than his biceps ever had. The man who’d built furniture from fallen trees now showed me how to reconstruct dignity from fragility. Where his body failed, his spirit engineered new ways to protect us.
The ICU machines beeped their relentless rhythm on his last afternoon. I memorized the way his silver hair curled against the starch-white pillow, how his breathing sounded like tide retreating. When the nurse nodded that it was time, my sisters and I took our positions like we’d rehearsed this moment our whole lives.
‘Thank you, baby.’ His whisper traveled through thirty-two years of bedtime stories, scraped knees, and proud graduation smiles. Still calling me his little girl even as I supported his failing body. Those three words held lifetimes – gratitude without self-pity, love without conditions, the peaceful transfer of strength between generations.
In the unbearable quiet afterward, I pressed my forehead against hands that would never lift me again. The same hands that had…
- Built a bench that still bears our family’s weight
- Silenced intruders with just his voice
- Held syringes with joking bravery
- Forgave my fumbling care with endless patience
True strength, I understood then, isn’t measured in pounds lifted or battles won, but in how gently you can let go. My father’s final lesson was this: even surrender can be an act of courage when done with love.
Paul McCartney’s aged voice sang through my memory – ‘Take a sad song and make it better.’ Papa had done exactly that. His weakness became the conduit for his greatest strength: showing us how to face life’s last transition with humor intact and hearts open.
Today, when my own knees protest or my hands hesitate with unfamiliar stiffness, I hear his voice in the creaks: ‘Thank you, baby.’ Not for perfect care, but for showing up. Not for strength, but for love. The bench by our window still holds his weight in memories, and my palms still remember the warmth of his forgiveness.
The Strength That Remains
At 32, I find myself six years older than when Papa passed. My body now whispers reminders of time’s passage — a stiffness in my knees when climbing stairs, a subtle tightness in finger joints during morning stretches, extra pounds that have comfortably settled where my younger frame once remained stubbornly thin. These changes arrive unannounced, like quiet guests who eventually make themselves at home.
Around me, time leaves its fingerprints everywhere. My mother navigates stairs one careful step at a time, her knees negotiating with gravity differently than they did a decade ago. My siblings approach their 40s and 50s, reaching the age our parents were when I first began noticing the architecture of adulthood. Occasionally, Facebook delivers unexpected memorial posts featuring college friends’ faces — jarring reminders that our generation has begun its dance with mortality.
Papa’s words echo through these observations: “You blink, and you’re older.” That afternoon at our dining table when he spoke them, his gaze drifting beyond our kitchen walls, I hadn’t fully grasped their weight. Now, as I trace the contours of my own aging, I understand they weren’t lamentations but simple truths — the kind he always delivered without drama.
What surprises me isn’t the physical changes themselves, but how differently I view them through the lens Papa left me. Where society might see decline, I increasingly recognize transformation. The tightness in my hands carries memories of Papa’s grip lifting me skyward; the extra weight mirrors his broad shoulders that once made Sunday church crowds part effortlessly. These aren’t losses, but living archives of the strength that shaped me.
True strength, I’ve come to understand, isn’t something we lose — it migrates. The muscle memory of Papa hoisting me into the air now lives in my patience during difficult work conversations. His ability to scare off intruders with a single “HUY!” transformed into the quiet confidence with which he directed film crews, then later charmed dialysis nurses. Physical vigor becomes emotional resilience; protective instincts evolve into compassionate leadership.
This realization brings unexpected comfort when facing my own mortality. I notice it when:
- My knees protest during hikes, yet I persist because Papa finished every dialysis session without complaint
- Colleagues describe my management style as “calmly decisive” — the same words used about Direk on film sets
- I catch myself making weight-guessing games out of mundane tasks, hearing his laughter in clinic corridors
Modern wellness culture obsesses over preserving youth, but Papa demonstrated something more profound: how to carry forward what matters. His dialysis years taught me that aging gracefully isn’t about denying change, but about discerning what deserves to remain. The bench he built still stands by our window, its wood weathered but structure sound — a perfect metaphor for the enduring strength he modeled.
Perhaps this is adulthood’s great revelation: that we don’t so much lose capabilities as redistribute them. The energy once spent climbing trees now fuels emotional labor. The quick reflexes that caught falling toddlers become sharp intuition in meetings. Even in weakness — especially in weakness — we discover reservoirs of strength we couldn’t have imagined during our invincible years.
As I document these changes in my journal (another Papa habit — he always carried a small notebook), I’ve begun collecting “strength migration” stories from friends:
- A former athlete channeling competitive drive into cancer recovery
- A CEO mother using her boardroom negotiation skills to advocate for her autistic son
- A retired teacher’s classroom patience now soothing her husband’s dementia episodes
These stories, like Papa’s legacy, confirm that human strength is far more adaptable than our youth-obsessed culture acknowledges. The body may insist on its timeline, but the spirit writes its own rules of transformation.
When I feel anxiety about aging creep in, I return to two touchstones Papa left me:
- His dialysis clinic laughter that turned medical routine into connection
- The way he said “Thank you, baby” during our last transfer — gratitude persisting when frustration would have been justified
These moments remind me that while I can’t control time’s passage, I can choose what strengthens with it. My knees may stiffen, but my capacity for joy needs no wheelchair. My hands may ache, but they’ll always find ways to build — if not furniture, then understanding; if not physical shelters, then emotional safe spaces.
Papa was right about so many things, but especially this: Strength never disappears. It simply takes on forms we couldn’t anticipate in our younger years — forms often more impactful than biceps or speed. As I navigate my own middle years, I’m learning to watch for these transformations with curiosity rather than fear, trusting that what made Papa strong until the end lives on in unexpected ways within me.
You blink, and you’re older. But you also become wiser, kinder, more resilient — if you choose to see those changes as strength wearing new faces.
The Strength That Remains
Papa was right. You blink, and you’re older.
At 32, I’m six years older than when I last held his hands in that sterile ICU room. My own body now whispers reminders of time’s passage – knees that protest against sudden movements, fingers that stiffen around morning coffee mugs, a metabolism that no longer forgives midnight snacks. These subtle changes arrive unannounced, like uninvited guests at life’s party.
Around me, time etches its signature on everyone I love. Mama climbs stairs one careful step at a time, her once-sprightly knees now negotiating each ascent. My siblings approach their 40s and 50s, reaching the age our parents were when I first understood what growing older meant. Sometimes, scrolling through social media, I’ll encounter college friends’ faces framed by memorial posts – sobering reminders that our generation isn’t immune to life’s fragility.
Yet in this quiet confrontation with mortality, I find unexpected comfort in Papa’s legacy. His final years taught me that true strength isn’t something time can erode. What once lived in his capable hands – those same hands that built our family bench and lifted me skyward – transformed into something less tangible but equally powerful. It lived in the way he joked with dialysis nurses about his “Lolo needle,” in his gentle forgiveness when my clumsy transfer nearly dropped him, in that final “Thank you, baby” that still echoes across the years.
This is the quiet revelation of aging: strength doesn’t disappear, it simply changes form. The physical power that once defined my father became something softer yet more enduring – a resilience that shone through his kindness, a dignity that outlasted his failing body. Now, when I catch myself mourning my own youthful vitality, I remember how Papa faced his limitations without surrendering to them. His example reminds me that joy and strength aren’t exclusive to the young and able-bodied.
Perhaps this is why that simple phrase from his eulogy still resonates: “Even in weakness, he was strong.” Not despite his fragility, but within it. Not by overcoming limitations, but by embracing them with grace. In a culture obsessed with perpetual youth and physical perfection, his life offers an alternative vision – one where true strength grows deeper roots as the body’s branches wither.
So I’ll ask you what I often ask myself in quiet moments: How does your family define strength? Is it in your grandfather’s stubborn independence, your mother’s relentless optimism during chemotherapy, your sibling’s quiet perseverance through depression? These are the stories that reshape our understanding of what it means to be strong – stories we’d do well to collect and cherish before time steals our chance to ask.
Because Papa was right about that too. You blink, and you’re older. But if we’re lucky, we’ll discover that the best parts of us – like the best parts of those we love – don’t fade. They simply learn to shine through different windows.
