Why My Father Said, “Don’t Cry”
Don’t Cry in Kindergarten
By Elizabeth Ann Quirino
On my first day at kindergarten, as I was getting dressed, I overheard my parents talk about me. Mom was bringing me to school.
“No matter what happens, if she cries, do not bring her home before school is over. Leave her in class,” Dad said to Mom.
I wondered why they would think I would cry on my first day of school.
An hour later, I knew why.
My first day at kindergarten was daunting. I had never been to a large school before that day. It was a private Catholic school in Tarlac, my hometown in the Philippines.
My teacher, a tall Catholic nun of German descent with a heavy accent bent down to ask me:
“When is your bers-day?” she said with her thick voice. I didn’t know then that what she meant was “when is your birthday?” I was five years old and I was scared. Tears welled up in my eyes and a lump formed in my throat. Worse, my classmates beat me to the nice crayons.
I wanted the red crayons but I was too scared to move from my seat so others got the good crayons first. I didn’t know then, that in life the same holds true. Opportunities, like the good colored crayons, pass you by if you don’t seize the moment. It took a lot of strength, to get up from my little chair and grab the sparse number of crayons left in the large bin. Only the white and pink colored crayons remained. I stared at my blank sheet of paper. I began to color, first with the white then the pink. The drawing looked promising.
Now I know why dad wanted me to stick it out and not give in to tears on my first day at kindergarten. He taught me to be strong. He knew that strength of mind and heart would get me through anything. And so, it did. I have been through much in life. I moved halfway across the world, from my roots to another country and built a life and a home, making the most of what I was blessed with.
My dad taught me not to cry on the first day of Kindergarten and for that matter, on the first day of anything overwhelming.
Ironically, later, as an adult in 1986, I saw my dad cry when I told him that my husband, my young son and I were going to Manila to join the EDSA People Power Revolution. We planned to march the streets with the rest of our Filipino countrymen to oppose a Philippine dictator.
“No! You cannot bring my only grandson. You cannot endanger your lives. You will get killed,” he said as his voice broke and for the first time, I saw him shed tears over my safety.
In the early 1990s, I told dad we were leaving the Philippines to migrate to the United States — all four of us — my husband, our two young sons, the youngest still a baby and myself.
Dad cried. He looked up from the newspaper he was reading. He was seated on his favorite corner spot on the sofa in the living room. The morning sun shone through the screened doors, reflecting light on his tear-stained cheeks.
“Why? Why do you have to move so far away?” Dad said, his voice choked. He broke down sobbing.
“You are going to have a hard time. You will be alone….” Dad said, unable to finish his sentence, overwhelmed with sadness.
He died two months after that conversation, before we left the Philippines. In a way, his death spared him the pain of seeing his eldest child leave for another country, far from home.
Today is dad’s death anniversary. Losing my father was as painful as my mother’s passing away twelve years before that. I was truly an orphan now. I did not have parents anymore.
But my father taught me strength. He told me not to cry on the first day of kindergarten. I never forgot to muster the courage to be strong since then so I could face anything. Even the pain of going through life without my parents. Sometimes, the lessons you learn in kindergarten stay with you always.
So maybe I didn’t always get the red crayons of life, but I did get other glorious colors in different shades and hues — the light and the dark, the long and the short. I knew how to be strong and seize every moment. Thanks to my dad, Gualberto Besa. Yes daddy, no matter what happens, even if I cry, I have to stay and see it through.