A waste not tale from my Filipino father

Rambo is a stickler for anything that he thinks may go to waste: food, clothes, even furniture. Like I discussed in my Officially My Father Moment I do believe it comes from his childhood in the Philippines. Yet, growing up I never understood why. But here are a few more examples: we always had a dog to eat our leftovers. (For all you dog lovers out there who are gasping in disbelief, believe me, I've already discussed the potential hazards of human food for dogs.), when my family and I visit my parents home (aka the house where I grew up) I'll find clothes still hanging in my closet from 11th grade and my mother, the Colonel had once surprised Rambo with some new furniture for his home office which now resides adjacent to his tired, old desk. Living in a society bent on reduce, reuse, recycle, I've found their "strategy" very frustrating. Now, I wouldn't consider it an escalated problem like some folks. But I definitely see it stemming from a place of having nothing to having the opportunity to have everything.

So you can imagine his shock, when he finds out his American raised daughter is re-organizing her closet and "giving away" clothes to the Salvation Army. "Why can't you just put those in a box and I'll send it to the Phillippines!?!" "Dad, you live 6 hours away. I want to get rid of this stuff now. You want me to wait for you to send it to the Philippines when there are people here just in need of these clothes?" "Hmmmph. You are always wasting."

Or when his American daughter buys a new pair of sneakers when he has found some in her childhood closet that are in "perfect" condition that were bought over 15 year ago. Vintage? I think not. "Hmmph. You are always wasting."

I find this an interesting dilemma. On one hand, I find my father's tale very valuable: to be mindful of what you need and what you actually use so nothing goes to waste. On the other hand, it feels really stressful: to work so hard in life only to find yourself in a position to acquire new items but living in the guilt of not wanting to feel like the older things are going to waste if you throw or give them away. I sometimes see this conflict in my father's eyes, when he recounts stories of his childhood, when life was simpler: when you didn't need a tv, when him, my uncle and my two aunts shared a room with the floor as their bed and when nobody cared if he wore the same pants 3 days in a row to school. "You know, dear, even when we(his family) had nothing, we still had each other and we were happy." Well said, Dad, well said.

But behind all the talk of sayang lays an important point. Happiness shouldn't stem from our possessions but from our family, right? If the American dream is made up of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It would be safe to assume that happiness comes in all forms. But for an immigrant who's seen the face of poverty to pursue happiness in its materialistic form, can be very frightening and almost surreal, so much so you don't want to see any of it go to waste.

So I take my father's tale in stride, preaching his words (and mine) to the girls in the hopes that they are able to find their own balance between too much and too little and what it truly means to reap the benefits of hard work and perseverance. Although I will never truly be able to wrap my head around his journey (but I hope to) I will never forget his lessons on the value of hard work and sayang.