The bittersweet meeting of Kap and his apo

Poolside rendezvous with Lolo Kap

Some ten years ago, my father reached out to me extending his wishes to see me and my son. Estranged as I have been for a good many years, I was overjoyed with the thought of the two meeting up for the first time. 

Their first meeting was bittersweet, because it would also be their last. Short of two years later, my father died from illness. 

Frail and ill as he may have been when they met the first time, they bonded like no other grandfather and grandson. They sat and talked like they have known each other for the longest time. My father looked at his apo with that twinkle in his eyes - full of love and warmth and adoration for this little man. Simply enthralled, mesmerised even. "I wish I could live longer to see him grow up as a young man", he said. My heart broke inside knowing though his heart meant it, his body was too weak to see this through. My son and I did the best we could to savour this meeting and I know for a fact it had a lasting imprint on my son - he remembers my father with great fondness and memory. He remembers his grayling white hair, white beard and white eyebrows - and his sad smiling eyes. At one point my son told me, "He hugged me so tight I couldn't breathe." I smiled and cried inside. 

My father's memory will always live - in me and that of my son.