Checkmate

Checkmate

Feb. 10, 2021 12:37pm

Today I remember how my father taught me an important lesson in life. We were playing chess where he would usually beat me easily, but during this particular game it appeared that I have placed my pieces on the right places overwhelming his approach. I credit my own improvement about the game through the endless matches we have played over the years. I got thrilled and deeply excited as the W was inevitable. As he made his move which would trigger my penultimate response to the fall of his king, he glance at me and caught a smirk on my face. What followed swiftly was his unexpected move, but not on the game we were playing. He commanded me sternly to stand up, and then he punched me on my abdominal area. He said to never insult your opponent on a game or in life. I won that game, but I lost a brilliant mentor of the game forever as I never played chess with him since that incident. I was young then, and I hated him for what he did that day. Times pass by, he would occasionally ask that we play chess, but I made alibis to make sure we will not be able to sit down and exchange moves. I did not understand the wisdom behind his move that day. It lingers, the lesson he conveyed as vivid as the action exclaiming it, but I know I have forgiven him quite soon after that day although the chess matches never happened again.

Now I am older and have been through a lot of life experiences, wrong decisions in life, redemptions, failures, challenges and successes. Life indeed comes around trying to teach us moves that beat us only to prepare us to win in the end. People have dignity, something that not even his captor can deny him, not even his oppressor can shutdown. In surrender, we owe our enemy the ultimate respect. Sounds like a war pretext, but I think that was the lesson he wanted me to learn that day. Never to add injury to an already soring end. The way he did it maybe unorthodox or to some was just right, but I’m no psychologist to interpret its morality. Pain some people say make the experience unforgettable. I did not feel much physical pain that moment maybe because of the ambivalence of the surprise of the sucker punch and the endorphins of winning, but then as the moment faded I feel a deeper sense of emotional and psychological pain. I try now to make sense of all that now that I can reflect with maturity. He was a man of few words, but stern and serious every time he speaks. He is used to that way maybe because of his work as an officer in the Philippine Marines that became the focal point of his life. While we sleep at the comfort of our homes during the night, they endured life in the deep jungles of Jolo, Sulu and other parts of Mindanao to go after the lawless elements. This is something people in general enjoy courtesy of the brave men in the Armed Forces, but for us as his family it applies literally. I think back then we even wish he is not home. It sounds so selfish, but that was true because we don’t understand his sacrifices during our innocent young lives as kids.

My father died, but not in the battlefield, a couple of years short for a decade after his service in the AFP, he succumbed to cardiopulmonary arrest as his doctor documented. I regret that I stopped playing chess with him. I could have been more expressive towards him now that I realized what we lack back then was an open communication.