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Sunday, June 21, 2015

MY FATHER AND I

By: Norberto Betita

My father Millan Guhiting Betita
In the patriarchal order of heaven, fatherhood is a calling given to all men in mortality to train for a more glorious and divine responsibility in eternity. Our earthly family organization upon which the father is given the responsibility to preside, provide and protect is designed after the pattern of heavenly household in which Heavenly Father is the head. A righteous family is an eternal unit. As such our being a father is a most noble and sacred calling, and our most important accountability as fathers is our family. Whatever vocation we have in this life, “The greatest work [we] will ever do will be within the walls of [our] own home” (Harold B. Lee, Strengthening the Home[1973], 7). We are warned by a prophet of God that “No other success in life can compensate for failure in the home” (David O. McKay, in Conference Report, Apr. 1964, 5).

My father and I have both passed one common responsibility of fatherhood. During the most demanding days of our paternal routine, we mutually believed that there is no greater task that affords immeasurable joy and gladness than being a father to our children. 

I love my father, Millan Guhiting Betita. He may not be perfect as a husband and father. He may have some annoying and undesirable vices which to some may not be worthy of a father, but as a son I cherish every memory---bad or good of my father’s personality and his love for thirteen of us his children. He was born October 11, 1909 to Jose Betita and Nieves Guhiting. His father Jose was known in our small town as “Dalan” (road), because whenever he was heavily drunken with wine, he slept on the road. My father became an heir to such a vice although it was surprising to me that his elder brother did not as to even taste wine. He also is involved in gambling. In our small town there was no other past-time than a drinking spree with friends and neighbors, which sometimes result in quarreling between the same members of the group when already drunk. As a young boy I have been observant of these things.

My parents with my young family
My father is a good carpenter. His level of education equivalent to grade five was already highly educated during his time. He always took pride of his English speaking ability specially when drunk. Whenever he did not have carpentry work, he joined with my mother in selling fish at the Surigao market. He and our mother have to work together to provide for our daily subsistence.

I have the best memories of my father as an unruffled cool man when not drunken with wine. His sobriety is exceptional. When there are chores that should be done at home, he did it himself even if the children are available, such as fetching water, gathering and chopping firewoods and others until we came to the rescue. He did not want to disturb us, especially when we are doing our school assignments. He understood best the value of education in our lives. But he trained us to work. He would ask his friends to allow us to plant and harvest rice for a share. He taught us to peddle and market fish around our town. He wanted us to learn and understand that in order to survive and eat the bread of the laborer we have to sweat our brows.

Many times during my boyhood when we are on the seashore waiting for fishermen to dock he would tell me stories about his life. He told me about his being an expert horse rider. During his younger days he owned horses which he used for his mobility as a carpenter. He related to me some of his experiences during World War II and how difficult life has been during those times while they live in places of evacuation in the valleys and mountains, hiding from the Japanese Imperial Army. From the mountains he would ferry some of the fishermen into town during the night in order to go fishing, and he would come in the morning to fetch them back to the evacuation center. He told me of the great battle at Surigao Strait which is just right in front of our town, when General McArthur’s fleet and PT-boats bombarded and eventually sank the Japanese warship. He heard bombs and artillery fires. As a young boy, I loved those stories which he related sometimes together with my friends at the beach under the shadow of moonlight early in the night or before the crack of dawn.

Seldom did I hear him shout at us his children. I am not sure though during the time when he was a young father for I am the ninth of thirteen. I have gotten a hard whip of a stick from my mother as an act to discipline, but never once was I hit with a rod of discipline from my father, not even when he was drunk. I am both very grateful of my mother’s discipline and my father’s sobriety for they taught me lessons of good parenting.

My father and I are like chalk and cheese---he is a winebibber, never once did I taste wine; he gambles, I don’t---while a young boy I tried but as I grow up I realized it was not for me; he has thirteen children, I only have five; he is sober and cool, I am temperamental and disciplinarian, particularly during my younger days. I thought that to spare the rod is to spoil the child, but I later realized that it is so much better to spare the rod and love the child. As I became a parent myself, I came to realize that there were many lessons learned from my parents which eventually guided me in my own parental responsibilities.

One thing that reminds me most as a young man was that every time my father was drunk, my mother or sister or brother would call and request me to go and fetch him. Once he was in altercation with a big and sober man, and he wanted to really fight although he was already groggy. Even my mother and elder brothers could not pacify him. One of my brothers directed me to go for him. I went and escorted him home without so much of an effort. That is one good thing about my father and I. We respected each other. Many times he would try me as a young man if I would truly stand on what I believe to be right. But I firmly believe what I stood for, especially as I learned from the scriptures that “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1). And the scriptural warnings “Be not among winebibbers…: For the drunkard… shall come to poverty. Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder” (Proverbs 23:20-21, 29-32). And he respected me even more. I treasured very much the fact that he believed in me.

My father and I have also many things in common---he loved his wife very much, I loved my wife as being the best thing that ever happened to me and ever will be; he loved me dearly as a son, and I as well loved my son so much; he loved his children unconditionally, I loved my children absolutely; he told me stories of his experiences, I told my children about my life; he taught his children to work hard, I taught my children about work as a ruling principle in life; he taught his children the value of education and supported them according to his limits, I sent my children through college even beyond my limits; he is loved by us his children, my children always loved my company; he is a poor father and he has every reason for it with thirteen children, and I too am poor with only five.

Despite his difficult life, he was not envious of his elder brother’s affluence. He refused to covet the fruits of his brother’s efforts. He told me that the very rich coconut plantation which contributed to his brother’s affluence should have been shared by them as an inheritance. But he knew that it was entirely the product of his brother’s labors and so he deserved to have it. Hence, he chose a tract of unplanted land, which he later sold because of the distance. Once his brother suggested that he be allowed to send one of the twin brother of our family to go to college and be a lawyer, but my father refused for reason that he did not want our family and his brother’s family to be disaffected and experience hostility out of jealousy. I love his belief that family relationship is more to be treasured than silver and gold.

In his later seniority he would love to visit his children and their families in the City together with my mother. Many times I would invite him to come and visit us, but he jokingly would tell me “there are no vitamins in your home”---referring to wine which ostensibly was giving him strength in old age. I would tell him you can have all types of drinks, except cola and wine and he would just laugh. During our visits with my parents I cherished the joy and gladness that I observed of them as they saw and embrace their posterity.

Once I shared to him the gospel of Jesus Christ. He and my mother were taught by American missionaries. In the course of our several appointments, he was challenged by the missionaries for baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For the first time in my life, I saw tears roll down from his eyes as he sincerely told us that much as he is willing, he could not do it without my mother---who is very much devoted to her faith. I shed many tears as well as the young missionaries. We respected very much his predicament and understood his sincere concern. His decision showed his great love for my mother. To me, a son, the love and concern of my father for my mother was of paramount importance than everything that he did for us.

He was ripened by age, but never at any time did his mental capacity declined. Physically stricken, he remained conscious of the bond that he had with his dearly beloved wife---our mother. He died on November 10, 1994 at the age of 85 leaving almost a hundred descendants---grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His fatherhood was to me exemplary notwithstanding his imperfections. Minus his vices which were distinctly a matter of personal choice, the rest about him is an epitome of the father that I wanted to be and for my son to emulate. His life to me is a schoolmaster.

On this day, Sunday, June 21, 2015, in time for the world’s celebration of FATHER’S DAY, I wrote this memoir of my father to pass on the wonderful legacy that he bequeathed to us his children and his posterity. The prophet Malachi recorded: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6). “…For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect” (D&C 128:15). As it is further written, “…It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children…” (D&C 128:18). It is my hope that this will help weld the needed link that will connect our families together in the eternities.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY TO MY SON ROBERT SHERWIN; MY SONS-IN-LAW, JESLE AND FRAODEL; MY LIVING BROTHERS MANOLITO, CLEMENTE, MILLIAN, JR. AND ARNOLD; MY LIVING BROTHERS-IN-LAW ANACORITO, GUILLERMO AND JOSE!

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