My Greatest Hero

One of the things that will get into the mind of some us when the “hero” gets along the discussion is the person who we consider a great personality who died fighting for a significant social concern which all of us had great benefit from, such people who cried for independence and worked for changes in the society where they belonged.

I once believed that those people who died fighting for an indispensable matter were the ones who we should emulate not in a way that we have to die like them but rather to reckon the things which we as a race are considerably affected, and as much as possible to work for it in order to elicit products which would uplift our standard way of living. But as I go through different circumstances in life in which I have exposed myself to different characters from different corners of the world, I have realized that it is not really dying and working that we should associate with the word hero but rather it is more appropriate if we relate “affecting” to it - affecting in the most basic yet the very foundation of a human being. I am referring to the moral, emotional and even in the intellectual outlook of a man which a corpse can affect not that much compared to how a living person affect them significantly. In other words, the people around us, the people who dwell with us in this worldly planet are the ones who have more impact to us as human than those people who we just read from the pages of the past on the ground that the people who we come in contact with are actually the people who affect us and perhaps the people who we can consider as our heroes. And if I am to give the word hero and pin it up to a person who, I think, has affected me so much, I will give it to my father.

My father is my greatest hero because he has done a lot of things to me. And if I had to fill these pages of the good things he has caused on me, it would take such great effort; hence, I have come up with these reasons of why I consider Dominador E Tan Sr, my father, as my greatest hero.
First, my father loves me more than I have expected. I always feel that he loves me and I do not have any doubt about it. I was contented with the amount of love that he showed to me and I saw no disparity on that until this day came when suddenly all his feelings summoned and poured over me that I almost got drowned and at one point made me think that I was numb enough not to feel that he loved me more than I was thinking. It was when it was only days that we counted before I would travel approximately 400 kilometers away from them and spend my college days in a place that sounded not that pleasing to his ears. He kept on saying that it would be tough for me but as I could see, it looked that it was a lot tougher in his part. His emotions were that extreme that he continuously asked me if my decision was already fixed. He even reprimanded me that after all it would be his decision that would prevail and he would never send me here as per his decision. But it did not go out like that because at the end of the day, it was my choice that came out. Although I could see that he had that hard time to fathom that I would be leaving him and create my own path, he eventually showed me his support and he asserted that he would always be right next to me in case I stumble along this choice that I had made. In the edge of that squabble, I saw directly in his eyes the love, so extreme that I did not expect would pour out like that.

Secondly, my father makes me happy through his existence. Every time I see him or every time I hear his voice, I am always glad. His very existence is like a drug that I almost depend on it especially when I feel emptiness in me. He fills up that space and pours it with his smile until it gets to the brim and overflows. I am always happy whenever I know that he is just near to me even though we are distance apart. As long as I know that his existence never fades, I can always meet the day with a beam on my face. Basically, his existence is such a heroic act of him.
Finally, my father is my greatest hero because he saves me from troubles. He keeps me off from the danger zone. There were these instances when he saved me from embarrassment. It was when he took me from the scene in abrupt pace when he had felt that I was being degraded by what his co-workers had said to me. One night as we were on our way home, he fought against a drunken man who tried to hurt me through the knife he had in hand. My father saved me even from the burdens in school. He took my project and made it for me when he had seen that I still needed to go over my notes for my exam the day after that. And one time, he took over my job when he had found that I had difficulty in my project in drawing. I said no but he insisted that he could do the job. I had no choice then because the works were piled up and I had to meet the deadline so I gave it to him. In the end, I got such undesirable score on that project; however, I never frowned yet I was proud because my father made it for me and he had done it as best as he could.

Dominador E. Tan Sr. is indeed my greatest hero. He may not have fought in the battlefields and cried for changes through reforms, still he has done the greatest things one can already be contented to live with - the love, the happiness and the security that are all off questions. And I bet, you would also see a hero in your father only when you feel how they edify you from your feeble existence in this temporary land.