Of love, lost and moving on

During the early 1950s, no one would have thought that there would come a time when the internet would make meeting people a breeze. For many young Chinese couples, those were the days where finding a life-time partner would require the manual internet - a matchmaker. That was the tradition. And that was how my parents met.

After a few months of courtship, their parents thought it was time to tie the knot. Both were still in college when they married.

Unlike many children today who marry young and then depend on their parents for their daily sustenance, my father's family insisted that once he finished college he would have to be independent.

I came 1 1/2 years after they were married. My sister followed another 1 1/2 years later.

We were not rich. My father had to find odd jobs to make ends meet. My mother had to be resourceful to augment the meager income he was making. We grew up shuttling from place to place - living with my grandparents then moving to a warehouse then back to my grandparents home then to a drafty apartment then back to my grandparents home then an apartment in Makati then finally finding home to where we are today.

I grew up remembering both the good and bad times we shared as a family.

There were days when I could feel the tension at home because dad had a bad day at work or was up to his neck in debt. Or the days when my mom would have to dig into her piggy bank for our allowance or hock her jewelry so that we had money for tuition fee, which would bring a tear to her eyes. Or the days when we had to make do with an electric fan because we had no airconditioner and when the electric fan wasn't working my mom and dad were up the whole night manually fanning both me and my sister. As a family we had our share of arguments as well.

But in between those tough times, I found love.

I found love in the daily tuyo and spam in "toyo and calamansi" and fried rice my mom would prepare for us for breakfast.
I found love in the lazy stroll at Roxas Boulevard after mass from Baclaran on a Sunday morning.
I found love in the weekend Sunday at some forsaken beach with my parents and sister.
I found love in the tiny matchbox cars that served as a reward for the purple and green stars and I brought home each grading period from school.
I found love in the little gifts that dad would bring home every valentine's day for my mom, even though we had very little to spare.
I found love in the thoughtfulness of every small occasion our family would share each payday.
I found love in the cramped room we huddled in to watch a TV show.
I found love in the stories my parents would tell us about how life was both kind and unkind.
I found love in the small kiosk my parents owned where Sundays would be a day we needed to be all present to cook hotdogs and sell softdrinks and ice cream at the zoo.
I found love in the struggle of my dad with his diabetes and eventually his debilitating stroke.
I found love in my mom's having to drive my dad back and forth the hospital during my training days in the US.

Even when we lost my dad over 16 years ago, I found love in many of those who came to his wake or expressed their condolences.

He was a simple man who taught me that the worth of a real man is one who had integrity, honesty, and generosity.

In his demise, we lost a man who stood by his principles on decent living, on making a marriage work in spite of the odds, on fidelity and love and family, on being a friend when you needed one most.

Today I find love in each day I live.

I find love in caring for my aging mother.
I find love in the Sunday brunch with the remaining family and my partner.
I find love in the occasions where I get to splurge a little or splurge a lot.
I find love in caring for the sick and the needy, in being a little more generous to those who have less, in not taking advantage of position and power.
I find love in a careless day at the pool, simply dozing off to a good book or to simply look back at the past and find the story of the life of my parents whose love surpassed the challenges of this worldly life.
I find love in walking the dog or caressing the cat or feeding my fish.

I will always find love in the ordinary things we do in life.

Because I learned from someone who taught me that true love weathers the challenges in making relationships work, and that it does not expect anything in return. If we only look for it deep within our hearts...we will find love.

Of birthdays and death anniversaries

There's something about birthdays.

When I was a kid, birthdays were all about gifts and balloons and ice cream and cakes. As I grew older, they were spent in the company of friends and family. The gifts came far and few as there were less parties and ice cream and cakes.

In the Chinese calendar, you're considered 1 year old from the day you're born. And if you follow the lunar year, you celebrate your birthday on a different month and date each year.

Then there's the Roman calendar which we all follow. I celebrate mine every 17th of June each year.

There are traditions which we follow, based on our beliefs. For the Chinese, the _9 of our year is considered special, particularly for the "older" generation. So those who turn 49, 59, 69, and so on and so forth, make a big fuzz about celebrating another decade. Many of us celebrate this either in pomp or in simplicity with the family. They say that celebrating your birthday at this "numerical figure" provided you long life and prosperity.

The Pinoys follow the traditional celebration - 18 years old is considered a debutante. Then there is the royal celebration when one turns 50, 60, 75, 80...and so on and so forth.

Ironically, if I look at either ways of celebrating birthdays, notice how more frequently we tend to celebrate in a more party-like manner as we reach our senior citizen age.

Perhaps we do it because every year after this "magical number" puts us (I hate to say it) a little closer to our grave? Or I would like to think that as we grow older, we thank God for another year of survival or another year of blessings or another year to hold on to.

Today, I look back at all the blessings over the years that the Lord has truly blessed me. There were good times and there were bad. Getting to where I am today was not a paved road. And as I recall the journey, I am grateful for all the rosy paths and the crosses as well. After all, one cannot celebrate happiness if one does not experience misery.

I remember 15 years ago today, I had a small gathering among my closest friends in our house. My father, who was hemiplegic after a stroke 3 years before, was a sight to behold. I had never seen him that happy for me. It was my last birthday with him and he passed away 9 days later in his sleep. He was 59 and was short 2 months to turning 60.

Today, that is how I recall my birthday. A celebration of life and the memory of a man who had been there for me at my best and worst times, who passed away a few days later. It reminds me of our mortality, and how life is truly short and how we become more appreciative of those few moments with people who are special in our lives.

I thank my friends and family who remembered to greet me and wished me well today. You are all special in my life and will always be part of me.

Summer and the Stars

It's that time of the year when you know that summer is fast approaching.

Hot as it is outside, the asphalt pavements are all cracked up from the heat. But nothing beats the heat of the festive mood in the Philippines as summer approaches. Aside from the upcoming election, each summer brings back memories of youth.

I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I was breastfed up to the age of 1. I never grew up with grandparents or relatives that were doting. And my parents were very young and hardly knew how to raise a child. Perhaps those are enough reasons why I am allowed to be a little bit crazy, a little bit weird, and dream a lot...

Unlike most children that looked forward to summer because their parents planned trips together with them, I faintly recalled my parents ever bringing us out for the 'summer holiday'.

While I and my sister were growing up, tatay was trying to make ends meet. Inang was busy trying to learn to be both a housewife and a mother. And my sister and I were left to imagining the sun, the seas, the stars.

During the summer, we would run outside the house looking for playmates and when we could not find any, we would run back to our rented apartment and put up the large blankets and play store. I had a fascination for delicatessens.

Dulcinea, a local patisserie, is much older than me. It was the swankiest pastry shop this side of town then. When tatay once took us to Dulcinea, I knew I fell in love not only with the delicious pastries but the elegance and the way it was served. They were all lined up in a huddle, and my little face was plastered on the glass display cabinet - craving at the cakes and smelling the aroma of coffee, churros and baked pastries. It was heaven on earth. And the crumpled 50 peso bill from tatay's old wallet would mean a special cake for his precious angels who stood beside him at the counter with their mouth watering for the eclair or churros or sansrival...Tatay would remind us that then the 50 pesos was all he made from the week of selling shoes in the sweltering summer heat. But today, it would be spent watching his two children gobble up the sweet pastries. And that would leave a smile on his tired face.

Back at home, the summers of my childhood would be a world of make believe. My sister and I would use plastic poker chips used by my parents for mahjong and the mahjong tablets and domino tablets as make-believe pastries. The other toys we had, we assembled altogether and would play store the whole day - imagining our own little Dulcineas in our lives...

During the later part of high school and my early college years, each Lenten season heralded summer. That was as far as I could remember. As long as it was lent, it was summer. And the summer escapades now grew to a drive to Los Banos to soak in the hot springs or to a beach in Cavite, to frolic in the sand and sun. Both my sister and I were always excited when it was summer time, as it gave us the opportunity to travel...outside the confines of our home, and the city. Again, unlike most families that spent "quality time" bonding together, spending overnight vacations out of town or out of the country, my parents always reminded us to be frugal. And that we needed to save and scrimp because after the summer sun, came the rainy season.

They did not mean that literally. As a figure of speech, I guess both of them always referred to the fact that right after the summer vacation, it was enrollment time again. And since both I and my sister went to exclusive schools in the city, we really needed the money. There were times when I would reuse the same set of pants or shirt or socks for two school years so that my parents could send us to a good school.

College was different. Tatay had better pay and while his income was now regular, he wanted to build a house. Which meant that we would be scrimping again. Tatay had a dream and he talked about it at the dinner table every night. I have never seen him that excited. We would have a house of our own now. No more renting he would say. He needed to borrow money. And after 10 years of amortization, the house would be ours, he would exclaim. He hired an architect, brought home the plans, and our family of 4 would pore over the blueprints and began to dream.

He then bought a lot. In January of 1975 the construction of the house began. No feng shui dates. Right after Christmas of 1974 we watched them dig a hole in the lot. And brick by brick, stone by stone, it rose. Every weekend, tatay would drive us to the construction site and we would see how much work and sacrifice had gone to watching our dream come to be.

That summer, I began to work at my uncle's hardware store. I was the cashier for his store, while his whole family would take a week vacation in the summer capital, Baguio. And while I envied my cousins who enjoyed each summer on weekly or monthly holidays while I took care of their store, I saw the fruits of my dad's dream come to fruition. In August of 1975, we had moved to our new home.

For the next four summers, I would spend my summers working at my uncle's hardware for a little more cash to save...for those rainy days and those little wants and desires.

Life after the house that was built during the summer of 1975 would never be the same again.

Today, my mom and I still live in the house that tatay built...it has undergone two renovations over the years since tatay passed away in 1994, exactly 9 days after my birthday.

Even though the house is old, it has stood the test of time. When tatay passed away, I told Inang that I would buy us a new home and that we would move on. We had ventured on seeing several other houses, townhouses and condominiums over the past years. But on solid ground of true love and sacrifice our old house stood. And so we continued renovating it. It will probably not set us free. Not yet.

To me, it is home. Where once upon a time in the summers of our lives, a young boy grew up to dream of the stars...

The life and times of Dad

This month is Father's Day.

But he's not around anymore. Nine days after my birthday, dad passed away on June 26, 1994 at the age of 59. He was admitted to the hospital on June 24 and in his sleep in the early morning of the 26th, quietly left us. Even in his final day, it was done with no drama.

My dad was the eldest in a brood of 10 children. Alfonso (dad), Antonio, Albino, Armando, Arturo, Andres, Alejandro, Alberto, Aida, and their adopted sister, Carmen. My grandparents were migrants from mainland China. The story of my father starts off like many Chinese migrants who grew from rags to riches.

Their family started selling in the public markets and later grew to owning financing and insurance companies, movie houses, wineries and government officials! But like all rags to riches stories, there was the downfall of the empire. Drugs, gambling, women and greed became the downfall of my dad's family.

I grew up in Tacloban City where my dad had to manage the family's illegal winery. My mother would tell me that NBI agents would raid the winery in the middle of the night and beat up my father for them cough up money. It tore my mother's heart and my dad suffered from type I diabetes mellitus. After 6 years, we moved back to Manila only to find out that all the money dad had sent back home were "sequestered" by his family in order to keep the financing business, which was losing money because of mismanagement, alive.

Two kids, a wife and jobless, my grandparents threw us out and we literally were on the streets living off what my mom's parents had sent them. My dad had managed to juggle various jobs - from the illegal jueteng "kubrador" in Laguna to the salesman who sold shoes in Marikina - there was no greater man who made ends meet to give us food on the table, a roof on our head, and schooling for us, than this man I am proud to have shared 35 years of my life and called Dad.

It was not until he was almost 40 years old that my parents decided to buy a lot in Alabang, Muntinlupa. It took us out of our comfort zone of living in various apartments and in 1975, we were finally going home. Mind you, Alabang at that time was a municipality and our neighbors were cogon grasses. The house that my Dad built out of blood, sweat and tears is the house I still live in today.

It is in this house that our family found love in the most unexpected time, learned to sacrifice in order to survive, and yes, it was in this house that we found home.

I knew that Dad did not have much luxuries as he saved them to provide us with our needs and wants by putting his family first.

Through him we have learned integrity, loyalty, love, sacrifice and respect.

Half the story of my dad has been told, entwined in my life, my sister's and my mom's...

Mom would always tell me, after dad had passed away, that my father would have been proud of me, were he still alive today. In fairness to my sister, my dad would have been equally proud of her.

Me and my sister are the other half of the story.