Last week, I saw a globe lamp in a store in Geneva and felt something tug at my heart. I bought it.
To me, a globe is less about geography than it is about memory. Every time I see a globe, my eyes well up with tears.
You see, the second to the last face-to-face conversation I had with my father involved a globe.
I went to my parents’ place to borrow a weighing scale. I was traveling to the US for an academic fellowship for a year. I had to make sure I would travel without excess baggage.
In the family area near the dining room, I saw the globe. It used to belong to my brother’s family who moved to Canada.
My daughter, Kathlea Francynn Gawani was then 9 and was fascinated with geography and the capitals of countries. I asked Dad if she could have the globe. Dad said yes so I brought it home. That day, I also gave Dad bread I bought from a bakery in Agoo, La Union where I had a court hearing.
Two days later, I drove to my parents’ house to return the weighing scale and to say goodbye. Mom was there.
Mom said, “So it was you who got that. Your Dad said a woman came and took the weighing scale and the globe.” I also learned Dad put the bread I gave him under the kitchen sink. Maybe, since the bread was given by someone he thought was a stranger, he did not want to risk anyone harmed from eating it.
That was amusing, although a bit hurtful. Mom and I had a good laugh.
Dad would die five months later. It was winter. I flew to the Philippines for his funeral. When I was on the plane, I withdrew from my memory bank my last conversations with him. I remembered the globe and sadly thought that I was practically circling Earth to be with Dad. I wrote a poem.
That was when my memory of the globe evolved from amusing to poignant. The sight of a globe now makes me sad and happy at the same time. Sometimes, it reminds me of my grief at its worst.
A few weeks after we buried Daddy, I returned to the US. My sorrow reached its pinnacle when I was alone in my apartment. There was a protracted time I who, by nature, draw energy from being with people, preferred solitude, turned off my phone, and shut the world out. I kept going back to that day I got the globe and, even if I was no believer in the existence of ghosts, kept praying that Dad would show himself to me. I would force myself to sleep, hoping I would dream of him. I alternated between sleeping with the help of tablets, and remembering the globe, crying, and grieving.
My friends got worried when they could not connect to me and decided to call 911. But they thought of doing a wellness check first. Of course, Kuya Judge Philip Aguinaldo and Desmond Kaunda found me alive but distraught. I told them about the globe, my last conversation over the phone with Daddy when he was struggling to remember me (“If you are my daughter, why are you not here?”) and my pain that he died when I was away from home. I was in another part of the globe.
Yes, Daddy had Alzheimer’s as did his siblings. He was a man of intellectual brilliance . Yet, in his final years, his brain shrank. Asking him what his children’s names were would make him draw a blank and, later, recognizing them was a wrestle he could not win.
I may suffer from Alzheimer’s when I get old(er), too. I may forget what a globe is for or what it means to me these days.
But for now, I will always cherish globes, even if they make me sad. They also remind me of my father’s smile on that day when he received me in his house and I assumed he knew it was me he was smiling to (It took some prodding for him to recognize me - or so I thought.) and not some strange woman whose bread offering was suspicious and should not be put on the family dining table.
That day, while I knew he had trouble remembering his children, I forgot that. He made me forget it with his welcoming smile.
