On Papa again

Today being a Sunday, we went to hear an early morning mass. There could have been nothing to write about it, if not for one incident that caught me off guard.

You guessed right. Who else could effortlessly do that except for dear Matt?

The mass was in near finish and everyone’s standing. I was also standing while holding Matt when in a quiet voice, he said “Papa.” For a moment, I didn’t quite grasp what he meant by that. If he hadn’t repeated the word again, I would have dismissed that as random babbling of a verbally groping kid. But he repeated the word again.

And because he was not pointing, all I could do was to follow the direction of his gaze for some clue.

His eyes were fixed on a man, having the same profile as my husband, who was standing couple of pews ahead of us. The man would sometimes turn his head, giving us fair glimpse of his face.

Slightly thrusting his body forward, Matt said the word again. And it didn’t take long for me to figure out that Matt has mistaken that man to be his Poppa.

I could have been grateful when the priest asked the congregation to be seated so as to put that man out of my son’s sight. But as some luck would have it, there were just a small number of us churchgoers, and the big gaps and spaces still gave us a good view of that man and his kids. It didn’t help one bit that he was PDA-ying (read: kissing and hugging) with his kids as Matt looked on.

He softly whispered the word one more time and then he was silent. Did I sense yearning?

Even if firm was the last thing I could be deep within, I said firmly,"No, Matt. It's not Papa. Papa's in Cebu."

Though uncommonly silent, he continued to stare and observe the man’s every movement with his eyes.

I honestly felt like crying. And I was so concerned what he was actually thinking while he gazed straight at him, at his kids.

And GOD forgive me because I also felt like I wanna cuss. Dang!