It’s been a week since Father’s Day. Enough time to chew on thoughts and reflections for this once-a-year event that supposedly was meant for the male half of the adult population, the more mature side of that half anyway. So how does it feel? After all the hype has died down, what does it all come down to?

This year is the first time in over twenty years that I spent Father’s Day away from my family. I was about eight hours’ drive away in Daet, Camarines Norte for the Pinyasan Ferstival. No, I was not just “nami-miesta.” I was there because I was working. My company was appointed marketing arm for the 17^th edition of this annual festival celebrating the Queen Formosa pineapple, the sweetest variety in the country. Not too many people know about that, or that there is such a thing as a Pinyasan Festival. Most Filipinos are not even aware that Camarines Norte had pineapples.

So I was working on Father’s Day. Not exactly the ideal way to celebrate the event. It was actually a long weekend for us who were there, but a working long weekend. We had a beauty pageant Friday night, Miss Daet and Miss Pinyasan. Saturday we had an eight-hour marathon street dancing competition participated in by 18 teams form all over Daet. We had an off-road 4x4 challenge Sunday morning, and a grand float parade in the afternoon. It was an exhausting long weekend. I do not know where the people of this normally quiet town get their energy for this grueling festival. It lasts ten days: starting with the anniversary of their foundation day, June 15, and culminating on June 24 on the feast day of the town’s patron saint, St. John the Baptist. There are dozens of individual events spread throughout those ten days – including trade exhibits, culinary events, a classical music concert, street parties, beach parties, and water sports events in Bagasbas Beach – at 15 kilometers, it is one of the longest stretches of fine grayish-brown sand in the country. Plus a visit from the Virgin of Penafrancia, Patroness of Bicolandia.

We drove back to Manila Monday because I wanted to be home on Tuesday when my wife arrives from abroad. Our kids had spent Father’s Day fatherless and motherless. It is the curse of modern-day living. Parents are working so hard for their families that we find ourselves rushing to places here and there and cannot even be together on a once-a-year special day like Father’s Day. Mother’s Day was not much different. They were all abroad while I was left to mind the store.

I suppose this was the very reason Mother’s Day and Father’s Day were instituted. Somehow the previous generations foresaw that parents of the future would be so busy going about their business that we had to set aside one day a year to force the family to be together for a day. They’ve succeeded insofar as getting everyone aware of it, especially since both events became more and more commercialized over the years. But it still doesn’t guarantee that families actually observe it or should I say, enforce it upon themselves. Everyone is a victim of circumstances beyond our control.

The most we can do is, well, make the most of it. So technology helps – phone calls, SMS and MMS, email, chatting via instant messenger. Webcams are especially helpful for those families who have been apart for long periods of time, like OFW families. Some bonding experience beyond mere remittances is needed if you want to keep these families together while they are physically apart from each other.

Going back to Daet… I had some time to myself the morning of Father’s Day. An hour or so on beautiful Bagasbas Beach. Being alone doesn’t have to mean utter loneliness. I prefer the concept of solitude. And I do appreciate having such moments of solitude. It allows me to be with myself, my reflections, my thoughts.

I lay face down on the fine sand with the waves crashing at my legs, washing the sand onto my skin. I feel the rush of the water carrying the fine sand rustling by my hands and feet, in the spaces between my fingers and my toes, as it gets drawn back to the sea, only to be brought back by the next splashing wave upon my back. I hold up a fistful of the sand and let the rushing waters wash it out of my palms. I later turn and face the sun, lest I burn the skin on my back and shoulders. Fortunately I managed to get in the water early enough so the sun is not yet so hot. I can lie on the shore face up for another 15 minutes without worrying about getting sunburned. The whole experience is a very pleasant tingling sensation. A natural high that beats a trip to the spa.

I like my solitude because I like to tinker with my thoughts. More than putting them down on paper, I enjoy tossing ideas around in my head. I eventually end up writing them down, though not always. Many are lost once I get un-lost in my thoughts and I am dragged back to reality. And today that reality is that it is Father’s Day and I am far away from the children I have fathered.

They are in my thoughts and I am sure I am in theirs. It is a comforting thought and we warm ourselves in the hugging arms of such warm, comforting thoughts… in the absence of real hugs and buzzes from the people closest to our hearts. But a reality check quickly tells us that 21^st century urban living is not so kind to our kind. The drive to excel, career paths we ardently pursue, the required time and attention exacted by our business interests, not to mention the imperative need for a certain level of material comfort, imposes impossible demands on our time, whether we are father or mother.

So we make do with what is at our hands, literally – mobile phones and laptops. Thank heavens for wi-fi, GSM, 3G, GPRS and all the other alphabet soup-named new-fangled technological innovations of late that enable one’s presence to be felt by another many miles away.

Thankfully there are options. If anything, it is the multitude of options and alternatives that modern living affords us that makes the big difference between life in the here and now versus the middle ages, or even the more recent eras, such as pre-internet, pre-mobile phone and pre-cable TV days. So today I am exercising my options: I am spending this weekend with my family intact. This weekend is my Father’s Day. I worked hard till late Friday night. But yesterday I made sure we had time to be together, for mass, for meals – and every single meal at that – and even had time to visit the mall and watch a movie. And today, we are all just relaxing at home. Sure all three kids are each glued to their respective computers/laptops, as are my wife and I. but hey, we can always YM each other from the next room. Right?