For a couple of years now he has been behaving strangely, taking him on a path away from the meaning of his name, hence the title of this post. In this open letter I would like to ask the forgiveness of those who have been on the receiving end of this strangeness.
He was not always like that. Like me he was kind of shy and reserved around people but can be talkative at times among friends and family. As a child he was very sensitive; tears would well in his eyes when he was chided by his siblings and me even over simple matters.
[Nickname of my son], as he is known in the family, is the second child of three siblings; sandwiched between two girls. Just like his sisters he was born through natural childbirth in our little rented room in Tormis St., Sambag, Cebu City. I was then working in a regional office of a government bank while their mother was working with the Talisay local government as a day care teacher. The children were all delivered safely by Mrs. Ramirez, a midwife of Talisay LGU, who was a close friend of my wife.
We moved to Talisay, the hometown of my wife, when he was 5 years old. In the elementary (public school like the rest of his siblings) he was a boy scout and, as almost all kids do, spent a lot of time in basketball. He would oftentimes get a dressing down from me about wasting his time on a sport meant for tall people. In college he grew to be 5'9" tall; still short for my standard though he was 1 inch taller than me. Looking back at this now with regrets I think I must have contributed to his strangeness.
As an episode of this strangeness, I learned from our youngest daughter, He has been sending explicitly vulgar chat messages to a Ms Angela. His tweets to Ms Kathryn Bernardo have been rather crude. He sometimes fail to sign out from his FB and twitter hence our discovery.
I hope Ms Angela, Ms Bernardo, and others would find in their hearts a place for forgiveness for Hal. Ms Angela, I believe, is a fine young lady from the snippets of posts I saw in my son's FB account when he was not yet unfriended. Ms Bernardo is also one of the fine artists in the country. My wife, and daughters are ardent fans. So is my son despite his strangeness.
I will explain in another post what led to this strangeness. This is getting tiresome for a senior citizen who had hoped to spend his retirement years in peace.
In the meantime here are similar poignant stories from a father, and a mother whose son is as strange as mine:
A Mother and Son's Journey by Rossa Forbes
My Mysterious Son by Dick Russel
Note: As of September 25, 2016 I have edited out the name of my son to protect his privacy.
