A letter to my father, who died too soon

The writer with his mother and sisters at his father Joselito Diaz's grave in the Philippines. One Carlo Diaz / The National

Dear Dad,

There's a four-hour time difference between Dubai and Manila, so whenever you sent me a good morning message I was usually fast asleep. When you told me about your lunch, you always asked for a picture of what I was having, but at 8am I'd only be half-awake brewing my first coffee of the day. And when it was midnight in the Philippines, you'd send me a message asking why I was still up, but it would only be 8pm and I would have just had dinner.

It was like this from 2017, when I first moved to the UAE. But when you got sick earlier this year, the time zone conundrum got even worse. You'd start your day earlier. At 2am in Dubai, my notifications would start going off with messages, pictures and videos of your road to recovery, beating the Philippine sunrise to jog at a nearby park. Once you sent me a selfie after getting a haircut. Another time, you sent me one with your face swapped with that of a famous Filipino celebrity.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't annoyed about the constant messages and your habitual disregard of the time difference. But over the last seven years, I got used to not replying immediately. And yes, there were many times when I purposely ignored you.

You pointed this in out in a six-minute voice note in September last year. But the truth is, I was using the time difference as an excuse to fault you for our imperfect relationship. We didn't have an easy one, and I found comfort in that deficit – four delicate hours of our incongruent realities further mismatching. It's not that I didn't want to live in your version of it, but that I created one that's allowed me to survive being away all these years.

That voice message got me thinking long and hard, Dad. It made me acknowledge my feelings, and how I should have confronted you and Mum to resolve my issues. We all missed the family crisis resolution workshop and I didn't have the courage to admit that I was enjoying being away a little too much. When you were admitted to hospital in June because of a rare medical condition, I knew it was going to change our dynamics as a family. It was embarrassingly late, but I promised myself I'd change.

Your incessant messaging stopped and you weren't looking good. Hospital staff would come in and out of your room and hope was wearing thin by the day. I couldn't even begin to imagine the pain you went through as well as the fear you had in that little isolation room – your stubbornness dimmed by this disease Mum couldn't even pronounce.

After a month in hospital, you were discharged and, almost immediately, the messages came back. We agreed to see out your recovery in the hope that you could visit me here in Dubai, see the life that I've created here and finally merge our realities once more.

At 1am in Dubai on July 29, just about sunrise in the Philippines, you told me: “Maybe we won't see each other in person any more.” That really hit me, because the last time I saw you in the flesh was five years ago. You're one of the most dramatic people I know – my friends would agree I inherited this trait from you – so I brushed it off. “No,” I said, and your response was just: “I love you, son.”

I slept with a dull ache in my heart that night, only to be woken up to see you fight for your life over video call. I was angry and confused, Dad. You were only 47. You weren't supposed to die so young. We were supposed to reunite for Christmas this year, fulfilling your dream of having a picture taken with the Burj Khalifa in the background. You were supposed to wait for me and give me the chance to finally reply to your six-minute voice message.

“I know I haven't been the best father to you and that's maybe why you are not talking to me any more,” you said in that audio recording. All I can do now is listen to it again and again, with no real resolution.

I'm not sure if there's a time difference between Dubai and wherever you are right now. I stare at your voice recording, hoping for another out-of-time, out-of-context message. But it never comes. And now, with my heart broken into pieces, all I can say is: “You were the best father to me, Dad. And I will never, ever forget you.”

Your only son,

Carlo