My story began in a broken family, where I learned too soon that life offers no guarantees, but instead it can send you people who support you with a strength you didn’t know you needed and that you will never forget.

When my parents separated, I could barely stand, and my mother took me to Nueva Ecija, a place where the rice paddies blended into the horizon and where poverty was as common as the hot wind that blew in the afternoons.

I never really knew my biological father, and I grew up with the constant feeling that something was missing, as if I were always looking for an important piece that had been lost without a trace or any explanation.

When I was four years old, my mother remarried, and the man who came into our lives had nothing to offer except sun scars on his skin, cement-hard hands, and a heart I didn’t yet understand.

He would leave home before the rooster crowed and return long after the last neighbor had turned off his lamp, always covered in sweat, dust and tiredness, never asking for recognition or rest for himself.

At first I didn’t like him, because his presence was silent and unknown, but one day he fixed my old bicycle without saying a word and mended my broken sandals as if my comfort was more important than his exhaustion.

When I made a mess at home, he never raised his voice like my mother did, but simply cleaned the floor, put the rag aside and looked at me with a calmness that I still didn’t know how to process.

One day, when a group of children made me cry at school, he took his old rusty bicycle, pedaled to the classroom door and gently told me that no one had the right to make me feel small.

On the way back, he uttered a phrase that would stay with me for life:
— “I won’t force you to call me dad, but Tatay will always be behind you when you need me.”

I didn’t answer, but from that day on, I began to call him Tatay, although I didn’t yet know how deeply that name would grow within my heart over the years.

My childhood memories are built on three constant images: a rusty bicycle, a dusty construction worker’s uniform, and the hands of a man returning home late with his fingers full of invisible wounds.

Every night, no matter how exhausted he was, he would repeat the same question with a tenderness that defied his life of hard work:
— “How was school today?”

He never knew how to solve complicated equations, he could never explain difficult texts to me, but he always repeated a phrase that became the backbone of my education:
— “You may notbe the best, but you must study well so that people respect your knowledge.”

Life at home was hard, and we survived on the little money my mother earned in the fields and what he earned carrying cement, dragging blocks and enduring days under the relentless sun.

Even so, I was a good student, although I never dared to dream big, because I knew that my dreams weighed more than the money in our pockets at the end of each month.

When I passed the exam for a university in Manila, my mother cried with joy, but Tatay remained seated on the veranda, smoking a cheap cigarette while trying to hide the pride that shone in his eyes.

The next morning he sold his only motorcycle, his most valuable tool, and combined that money with my grandmother’s savings to send me to study, even if it meant walking more and working harder than ever before.

The day he took me to the city, he was wearing a wrinkled shirt, a worn-out cap, and his back was completely soaked in sweat, but he still carried a box full of rice, dried fish, and roasted peanuts so that I wouldn’t go hungry.

Before leaving, he looked at me intently and said in a voice filled with a mixture of hope and weariness:
— “Do your best, son. Study hard.”

I didn’t cry at that moment, but when I opened the lunch my mother had wrapped in banana leaves, I found a small piece of paper folded in four where Tatay had written in his clumsy handwriting:
— “Tatay doesn’t understand what you’re studying, but he’ll work to help you succeed. Don’t be afraid.”

Those words became my anchor during four years of university, sleepless nights, hard-fought scholarships, and days when I wanted to give up, but I always remembered that Tatay was working to sustain a dream that he didn’t even understand.

When I moved on to my master’s degree and then my doctorate, he continued working in construction, and I saw him age faster than other men, with rougher hands, a more hunched back, and slower steps.

I would return home for a visit and find him sitting at the foot of a scaffold, breathing heavily after carrying materials all day, while I wondered how many more hours I would have to sacrifice for my future.

I told him to rest, that he had done enough, but he always smiled and answered the same thing:
— “Tatay can still do it. When I get tired, I think that I am raising a doctor, and the tiredness goes away.”

I was smiling too, not daring to tell her that finishing a doctorate meant more obstacles, more responsibilities, and more pressure, because I didn’t want her to think that her effort had been in vain.

Finally, the day of my doctoral defense at UP Diliman arrived, and I had to beg him for a long time to agree to leave the play, ask for permission, and come dressed in the only formal clothes I had managed to borrow.

He wore a borrowed suit, shoes a size too small, and a new hat he bought at the market, trying to hide his nerves with every step as he walked toward the auditorium filled with professors and academics.

He sat in the last row, upright like a soldier, his hands clasped on his knees and his eyes fixed on me as if he were witnessing the culmination of all his years of silent sacrifice.

After my defense, Professor Santos approached to congratulate me, shake my hand, and greet my family members, without imagining that one of them would change that moment forever.

When he arrived in front of Tatay, the professor stopped abruptly, looked at him attentively, bowed his head, and his expression transformed into a mixture of surprise, recognition, and something akin to the deepest respect.

— “You are Mang Ben, aren’t you? We lived near the site where you worked in Quezon City. I was a child when I saw you carry an injured worker down from the scaffolding while you were bleeding too.”

Before Tatay could reply, the professor took another step and added in a trembling voice,
“You saved my uncle’s life. We never forgot it. My family always wanted to thank you, but you disappeared before we could.”

Tatay remained silent, his lips pressed tightly together and his eyes shining, as if he didn’t know what to do with a compliment he had been waiting for for so many years without knowing it.

The auditorium fell into absolute silence, and all the academics, students, and attendees turned their gazes toward the tired but proud bricklayer who had raised a PhD without asking for anything in return.

And at that moment, I understood that Tatay had not only built walls and roofs throughout his life, but he had also built people, hearts, and futures without realizing the impact he was leaving behind.