By Manny Pinol
Today, I mark a special day in my life. It is the 24th birthday of my little girl, Josa Bernadette.
Also today, I mark the 15th year since I gave up smoking totally and it was all because of a little and gentle girl who wanted nothing for her birthday but a promise from her father to quit smoking.
I started smoking since the time I left home to search for the proverbial greener pasture and the habit worsened when I worked as a copy editor of the Tempo newspaper where the main menu when we were editing reporters’ stories were coffee and cigarette.
The smoking continued even when I won the Governorship of North Cotabato in 1998 prompting the carpenters in the capitol to install exhaust fans in the office of the governor.
That was until September 21, 1998, when I went home to the little house that I acquired in Bacoor, Cavite when I was still a journalist and where my wife and two children at that time – Maria Krista and Josa Bernadette – stayed.
I came home for Josa Bernadette’s 9th birthday, Sept. 22 and sure enough she greeted me eagerly as I arrived home and hugged me.
Josa Bernadette has always been a very simple girl, never asking for anything she knows the family could not afford.
But that day she swept me off my feet when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday.
“Wala po Papa. Gusto ko lang huminto ka ng sigarilyo. ‘Yan ang regalo mo sa akin,” the frail girl told me. (Nothing Papa. I just want you to quit smoking. That’s your gift to me.)
It took me sometime before I could react. My father, my mother and even my wife failed in convincing me to quit smoking.
But at that moment, I asked myself “How could I say No to a little girl who I did not carry in my arms as often as her older sister and who spent many nights missing the tight embrace of her father?”
That was 15 years ago and until today, not even a single stick of cigarette has touched my lips.
Josa, now a third year medical student, came three years and a half after Maria Krista, now a doctor and she has always been the gentle little girl who touched my heart as a father.
Simple and never living beyond what I could afford to give her, Josa, does not even wear jewelry and had no complaints going to school in old uniforms which my wife Emily, an excellent budget officer, adjusted to fit her size every year.
Today, I remember that day when she asked nothing for her birthday but for me to quit smoking and I thank her for that.
Seven years ago, I also decided to quit drinking totally and I did it with the same resolve as when I promised that little girl 15 years ago that her father will never smoke again.
Today, as in many years that she celebrated her birthday, the family will join Josa in a mass, a movie and a simple dinner.
I thank God for giving me a family who has stayed with me in the most difficult times of my life, especially now, and for giving me children I am very proud of.
Having them around me more than covers up for all the hardships, the pain and the other dreams I failed to achieve in my life.
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