To my utter astonishment, she shot us a gamely grin. “I’m a goodjau,” she said. Apparently, she had heard the joke before. And so we gave her all our spare change.

In Northern Mindanao where I live, the Sama-Badjau (also spelled Bajau or Bajo) are ubiquitous. You see them everywhere, but especially in the parking lots of restaurants and malls or strolling along the seaside boulevard where they’re sure to catch a crowd. Easily identified by their distinctive yellow, red, gold, and black native garb, they are almost always young, female, and begging for money.

Sometimes they carry babies or are surrounded by small children pressing fingers to their lips in a universal gesture of hunger. But always they look forlorn, piercing the hearts of passersby with beseeching looks that are hard to deny.

To most dads most of the time, of course, hearing from a son on Father’s Day is not a life-changing event. And, seen in the broadest context, it probably won’t be for me either. Yet, in my case, such calls are grand occurrences well worth sharing, and here’s why.

For a number of years, my son, Drew, has been confined to a mental health treatment facility near San Diego, California. The last time I saw him was in 2023 during a short and well-monitored visit. And the last time he called me was…well, frankly, I can’t remember.

Those memorable hours included swimming in the clear waters of Hawaii, spearfishing in Baja, drift diving in Cozumel, and cave diving in Cayman. Some of them were also spent navigating the underwater caverns of Akumal, the sand falls of Cabo, the luscious kelp beds and shipwrecks of Southern California, and the fiery soft corals of Fiji.

Once I spent several days exploring Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. And another time I actually spent the night in an underwater hotel off Florida’s Key Largo accessible only with scuba.

The irony is that by the time I got to the Philippines—recently named one of the world’s top diving destinations—I was all dived out. Or so I thought.

But then my adult daughter, Adina, reminded me of something I’d promised her as a child. “Dad,” she during a visit to Mindanao, “you always told me someday you’d take me diving. Let’s do it now!”