The eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy.
—Psalm 33:18
The other day, I was sitting there going through the recess of my mind, searching for memories of my youth. Strangely, much of what I recalled during this exercise were not animated scenes that one may expected, but instead stationary photographs of certain episodes. What is even stranger, one central figure to my life seems to be absent from most of these photos. There were a lot of photos of my mother and me together, of my mom alone, or me alone. Yet, there were very few in which my father was part of it. I was puzzled at first, being the psychology student that I was, I began to wonder if I was suppressing some sort of Oedipus complex. They say that when you are about to die, your life flashes before your eyes; and it bothers me greatly that if I should be dying, my memories should contain so little of my father. So I sat and ponder the reason for my father’s absence, and then it came to me, it was simple. The reason my father was missing from most of my photos was because he was the one behind the camera most of the time.
Thinking back, my father was always the cameraman in the family. Wherever we go, whatever the occasion is, my father is the one charged with the camera. I say, “charged?, but more or less he volunteered for it. He has got the steadiest hands in the family (no offense to my mom), and he doesn’t seem to mind not being in the pictures. Always, he would be the one urging us to pose for a memory. I can see him now, concentrating behind those lenses, motioning us into place. Rarely would my father pose for a photo himself; he usually waves it off whenever we asked if he wanted to be in a picture. I don’t believe it has anything to do with shyness, after all, my father is a pretty good-looking man if I do say so myself. Yet, for some reason, the day he became the family man, my father took on the responsibility of being the cameraman. For him, it was important that there were memories of mom and me together, of me growing up through the years. Always, at those special events of my life, he would be there bustling about snapping pictures. Filing them away, documenting the memories, and expressing his love for his family the way he knows how. The stern man that I knew as a child became an incredibly dotting one when it comes to taking pictures. He wants us to be imprinted in the best possible way on a picture, and so he would go the extent to make sure that the angles are right. I am not saying my father is a professional photographer, but if ever there were anyone who worships his family and paints them in the most desirable and loving light, that person would be my father. My father took pride in those pictures; to him, they are a testimony of his good works. He may not be in those photos physically, but like most aspects of our lives, he is the architect of making it possible, and making it memorable. As I sit there and reminiscent, I realize what an act of sacrifice it was, a gesture of tenderness that I have failed to appreciate all these years. To be willing to take pictures of your loved ones, and risk being somehow neglected in the memory process … that speaks volumes on the duty and love of a father. A father who is forever present in low profile, but continuously demonstrating his great affection in the minute things that truly matters.
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