Why I scolded our tatay for the first time

I have a sick 71-year old father.  He was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease six years ago, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's 11 years ago.  But he remains the tatay that I respect and look up to even on the three times that we have to confine him in the hospital.  

Yesterday, a week after Father's Day, I found myself lecturing him about finishing his food, not being picky and consuming all that we ordered from the menu.  The main reason - I paid for everything with my hard earned money.  I did not stop the lecture - I made him eat everything, told him how I have been having a hard time visiting him and having dinner with him every other day.  I ended up eating everything on the table just to emphasize a point - how hard it was to earn money so we could have dinner in a restaurant after his weekly shots at the nearby hospital.  Before leaving for home, I reminded him how one summer while vacationing in his hometown, he showed me how hard farmers work on the fields - planting, harvesting and drying the rice grains.  I narrated how I saw him rushing to rescue sacks of rice left to dry outside their house at the slightest drizzle.  Then how after that summer, I began to treat rice and all the people who produce it with utmost respect.   Ending my lecture with why the two years spent as graduate student in Japan, made me really reverent of their culture.   Because the Japanese say, "Itadakimasu,"  before each meal - showing respect and being thankful for those responsible for producing the food in front of them.

Then on my commute back, all the images of the day flashed back.  I could not help but cry - I do not know if it was because of the tiredness from the long commute or finally arguing and showing how I really felt about my tatay's prolonged sickness.  But the role reversal and the changes in dialogues from the characters - parent to child then child to parent - sunk in.  I am now the parent and my tatay is the child.