Lessons from Papa - Lesson 1

I have been thinking of starting my blog for years at this point, but I never thought something like this would be the final push or the topic of my first post.

My father, Rolando “Roly” Vergel de Dios, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on November 29th, 2024. Many of his friends and family know him as Rolando, Roly, or Diko, but my brother Gabriel and I know him as Papa. To say this has upended my life and the lives of everyone in my family would be an understatement. It’s been 3 weeks and I still have the disorienting feeling that none of this is real and that I will wake from the nightmare soon. Sadly that day isn’t coming, so I’m left to try and make sense of something that will never make sense to me. That my father is gone and that I’ll never again be able to speak with him or ask him for advice. I’ll never again be able to call him to share my good news or my sorrows. It’s cliché but I truly didn’t understand how large a loss this would be until it happened, despite spending a good deal of time worrying about it for both of my parents.

I decided to search his name on Google after he passed and was kind of sad to find that there really isn’t much of a digital footprint for him out there. The only thing is the generic obituary page that the mortuary created for us automatically with nothing other than his photo and dates of birth and death. In my life and in my family he is a larger than life presence. A booming voice, thunderous laughter, and always the life of the party wherever he goes. Part of this exercise is me grieving, but I also feel strongly that such a presence should have a place here, some marker of his existence.

As a Filipino family, we did the traditional 9 night novena prayer for him over Zoom, with family and friends signing in from all over the world. Each night a different group of people offered a eulogy with memories of times that they shared with him. It was amazing to hear how many lives he’d touched. I was the last to do mine on night 9, and I’m sharing an expanded version of that here. This will be a series of posts that offer up a different lesson that I learned from him depicted as little vignettes from my life growing up as his son.

I love you, Papa. I miss you, and I will every day for the rest of my life.

Hold your loved ones close, you really never know when they’re going to go.

I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles in the 90s. I still live in the same neighborhood to this day. It’s basically the ideal of post-WW2 United States. Cute minimal traditional style homes with manicured lawns on comfortably large lots with big back yards. They once upon a time housed factory workers for the booming LA aerospace industry.

I took full advantage of the big back yard. One glorious Christmas morning I awoke to a very large wrapped present in that very yard. After tearing it open what I found was a PowerWheels Army Jeep. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a child-sized, plastic, battery-powered, motorized replica of a WW2 Willys Jeep. It was slow but man was it badass. I would imagine missions to clear mines out from behind the garage, slowly making my way into enemy territory. If Gabriel and I were getting along I would let him ride shotgun, or if I was really in a generous mood he would get to drive it. I loved that thing.

I went to a preschool nearby the house, close enough to walk or bike, although given that this is Los Angeles my parents still drove to pick me up and drop me off. Papa was who was usually charged with that duty.

I’ll never forget this one time at the end of the school day. Just as we were about to let out, something unusual was brewing outside. Papa and my French grandfather, Papy (who was visiting from across the Atlantic), had hatched a delightfully mischievous plan. They’d quietly maneuvered the Jeep into position on the sidewalk next to the gate alongside the regular line of minivans and sedans in the pickup lane.

As I shuffled out with my classmates, tummy rumbling for an afternoon snack, I spotted them first – two grown men wearing matching conspiratorial grins, standing proudly beside the tan and camo colored Jeep. My heart leapt. Whatever was happening, I knew it would be good.

I waved goodbye hurriedly to my friends, already breaking into a run. Their confused expressions turned to pure amazement as I scrambled behind the wheel. With Papa’s encouraging nod and Papy’s twinkling eyes watching, I slammed my foot on the accelerator. The look on my classmates’ faces was priceless – a mix of disbelief and envy as I, a mere preschooler, drove myself home that day. I felt like the star of my own movie, rolling away from school in perhaps the most spectacular exit of my young life.

The lesson I learned from Papa that day: you can find fun in even the most mundane everyday activities.