Three Years

My father's name is Merlin. His mother's name was Fe, and his father's name was Bernardo.

He was born on June 14, 1941, somewhere near a rocky cape with a lighthouse in Ilocos Norte. His mom didn't like him much, because he was the only dark one and had straight hair, unlike his brothers who were fair-skinned and had curly hair, like his mother and their Spanish ancestors. Sometimes, they would say he was really the cook's son, which was why he was not expected to go to college, but stay there and take care of the farm instead.

He loved to read, though: science fiction and fantasy mostly. And comics. Lots of comics.

When he was fifteen, he went to his grandmother, a rich woman, and asked for money to go to college. She gave it to him, but not before making him sign away his inheritance: one-seventh of a ten-hectare piece of land with mango trees. So he took the money, and went to Manila to study. The money lasted a month. He had to take jobs to get through college and an MBA.

He met a girl one year younger than him, the girl he called 'the most beautiful woman in the world'. He was poor and ugly, and she was a bit of an airhead, but so pretty, so he was happy to just be friends. He took care of her through all her suitors and boyfriends, the strongest contender being a good-looking politician's son whose name was Arthur.

Arthur lost. Ten years to the day they met, my father married my mother. Their wedding anniversary is tomorrow.

Sometime in the 1980s he bought a hundred-hectare piece of land that had a hill on one edge, and a beach in the other, and a creek running right through it. I asked him, why, and he said, grinning, "Because of the caves. I saw quartz crystal walls in the caves. I've always wanted crystal caves." He also laughed at how you can fit ten of their family's lands in it, and still have enough space for a racetrack.

He named the piece of land Avalon, which would be a silly name, except for the fact that it is an anagram of our family name. He also bought a white pony for my younger sister, and a Brahma bull, which he named Lancelot.

He told me stories, lots of them, about Bernardo Carpio, the strong man of legend imprisoned in the caves of Montalban; Robin Hood, William Tell, Merlin, Arthur, Fata Morgana, and how my grandmothers could see fairies. And when he was too busy with work, I had his books.

He died three years ago today. At his wake, some of his friends came and talked about how wise he was, and also how naive.

The son of one of the country's richest men came, a man he trained, and told me how he had the perfect name. "Your father always knew where the gold was, " he said. " He turned everything into gold, and never kept any for himself."

"For someone so smart, your father was an idiot, " someone else said. "But he was a good man."

We buried him with chocolate bars and cans of corned beef, and his Tolkien collection, as well as the boxed set of the Lord of the Rings.

He taught me many things: that Santa Claus wasn't real, but that magic was.

He is he reason I believe in magic. And goodness. And true love. It's kind of hard not to, when your father's name is Merlin, and your last name is an anagram of Avalon.

And if you're reading this over my shoulder, dad, I just want you to know your 'most beautiful woman in the world' is giving me a headache. See you later.