The Knock of Destiny….
One quiet afternoon, ten years after that fateful night, someone knocked on my door.
A young woman in a white coat held a tablet. She had the same soft eyes as Laura.
“Mr. Alcantara,” she said softly, “I’ve come to talk to you about your daughter… Lila.”
My heart stopped.
“My… daughter?”
“I’m Dr. Emma Santos from the Philippine Genomics Center. We found a genetic match between you and Lila.”
“So… she’s alive?” I asked, voice shaking.
She nodded.
“Yes, but she’s very sick. She has end-stage kidney failure. She needs a transplant urgently… and you’re a compatible donor.”
My world crumbled. Not only was she still alive… she was actually my biological daughter.
I rushed to the hospital in Manila. From the hallway, I saw her: a thin, pale young woman, connected to tubes. It was her.
A nurse told me that she had been found years ago living on the streets. A kind family in the province adopted her and helped her study. She had become an English teacher. But the disease had caught up with her. And before falling into a coma, she had only said, “Please find my father.”
I went into the room. She opened her eyes.
We looked at each other for a long time. Then she smiled weakly.
“Dad… I knew you would come.”
I fell to my knees beside her bed.
“Forgive me, my daughter. I was a fool. I failed you.”
“Don’t cry, Dad,” she whispered. “I just wanted to see you one last time.”
I wouldn’t allow it. I signed the consent form for the surgery.
“Take what you need. Save her.”
Seven hours later, the doctor smiled. “Both of you are fine.”
I cried with relief. But the peace was short-lived.
Days later, her body began to reject the kidney. The infection returned. She fell into a coma again.
I stayed by her side, talking to her, asking for her forgiveness over and over. I apologized for the sin of my pride.
Until one morning, with the first rays of sunlight, I heard a very weak voice: “Dad…”
She woke up.
“I promise you,” I told her, “that you’ll never be alone again.”
She smiled.
“Live, Dad. That’s all I ever wanted.”
We recovered together for a while. We laughed, ate rice porridge, watched the sunrise over the city. But one early morning, when I went to take her hand… it was already cold.
Lila died peacefully.
I took her ashes to the cemetery where Laura rests and had this inscription engraved:
“To my beloved daughter—the one who taught me what it truly means to love.”
Today I live alone, in the same house. I plant jasmine flowers in her honor. Every morning, when the sun touches their white petals, I feel her smile.
I work helping street children, not out of guilt or a desire for redemption, but because I want to live the way Lila would have wanted.
Ten more years have passed. My hair is white, and my heart is more at peace.
Sometimes, when the wind blows through the jasmine, I think I hear her voice:
“It’s okay, Dad. I never held a grudge against you.”
And then I look up at the Philippine sky, letting the sun caress me, feeling—at last—peace.