Sunday, November 19, 2006
mood: vindicated
music: Vindicated- Dashboard Confessional (haha)
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My world stopped a few days ago when heaven and hell conspired and joined forces for just a moment to crash upon me...
It was that day when our professor in American Lit told us that the first president of the United States of America was... Thomas Jefferson...
I almost cried...
Memories instantly flood my mind... Lounging in front of the TV at 2 in the morning, asking Daddy all kinds of questions about whatever could come into my head... I could have sworn that he knew everything... Then sitting in on the floor of a classroom with alphabet posters on the wall... Classmates picking their noses... Drawing pictures of blue people and red trees... Coloring inside the lines and reading entire sentences without stuttering were feats for the best and the brightest that all the rest aspired to... All those years ago, I was taught that Washington was our very first president... I didn't even know who else came after that... Lincoln, Jefferson, Adams, Roosevelt... They didn't matter back then... All that was important was that when I answered, with pride, that George Washington was the first president of the United States, my teacher gave me yet another gold star and all my classmates aimed to be like me...
When we first moved to the Philippines, I felt that my heart wasn't even broken, because I left it in perfect condition back in California... I always dreamt that I'd come back and that the people who all knew that George Washington was the first president of the US would welcome me back with open arms... As time passed, the Yankee spirit in me began to fade, but my Daddy would always be sure to remind me of where I came from, even as I grew to accept the Philippines as my home... Even as I learned to love my Filipino heritage, I couldn't let go of my American identity... Especially now that Daddy's gone, even if half the universe wants America to burn, I can't let go of stars and stripes...
I was a closet Daddy's girl at heart, and now that he's gone, I realize that more than ever... That is why even though I'm among the Filipinos now, even though I'm virtually one of them, I won't let go of the legacy that my Daddy left for me... I want to be the proud American he was, that's why it hurts that I know so little about where I came from... It hurt that practically all my solid ground was that George Washington was the first president of the United States...
That day when Ma'am Soriano stated Jefferson as the first American president, to have what little I had as an American taken away from me, to declare that what I had known for all my life was a lie, to tell me that my Daddy with all the answers was wrong, and to know that I couldn't ask him anymore, it almost brought me to tears... My voice was cracking when I told Molly that Washington came first, then came Adams, only to get shot down by yet someone else saying that Jefferson came first...
That George Washington was the first American president was one of the constants of my life... It was fact... It was truth... It was law... To shake one of the pillars of my life would mean that things would come crashing down... It may seem overly dramatic to some people, but that was one of the few things I could hold on to, something I knew wouldn't change, something I had to remember Daddy by... To tell me that it was Thomas Jefferson and not George Washington is like telling a kid that there's really no Santa Claus... It was like losing my Daddy all over again...
But thankfully, after much research, it's proven that I was right all along... Daddy was right when he said the guy on the one dollar bill was the first president of the United States... General George Washington... Inaugurated in 1789...
My world is piecing itself back together... Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave...
