Hypegiaphobia- Fear of responsibility
New Year’s resolutions make me feel so inadequate.
Every year, I join in the family tradition of listing a few things we’d want to achieve within the year and wait for a whole year to end to check the ones we’ve done and underline the ones we haven’t.
While my parents and siblings check out a lot of things from their lists during the end of the year ritual, always there will be a complete and clean list on my hands.
Year in, year out, I’ve gone into the habit of not replacing the list I’ve made the previous year.
Everything in the list is still there; not a word or a wish or a goal checked off.
A favorite of mine, also the most preposterous if you ask me (I think the reason why I wrote it was because I faced a mirror while changing clothes one night before a particular New Year) is the header of my list—LOSE WEIGHT.
Remembering back to grade school, that item had always been there—the big ten-letter bad word.
So much has happened in my life and yet those two large words still manage to haunt me.
Reading through my list of impossibilities, I see that the other items are quite easy as compared to the BIG one.
Easy in a sense that they’re doable, like cleaning out my room once a month, helping do the chores once in a while, getting a girlfriend, getting a life.
Sensible things that never got done, no wonder they never get checked off.
On the bottom of the list, another impossibility presents itself—CARE FOR SIBLINGS.
Living a day in my shoes, people would understand the dilemma of this last one wish, being that my siblings (as I realized one night for the nth night I had to suffer) are worse than the demons of hell personified, escaped, and running amok.
Under the right and immensely rare circumstances, with just the right offerings of cake, chocolate, and ice cream, these little beasts can be soothed into a deep and long spell of angelic cuteness and actual gentility.
Thinking of it now, I should’ve stocked up on the sweets when my mom and I went grocery shopping last week.
I have a research paper due Thursday (which translates to cramming Wednesday night), and Ma and Pa would be away so I’ll need all the sweets in the world to vanquish those monsters into an early sugar-induced sleep.
On their bedsides, I guess, I must sing them to sleep with their favorite lullaby—“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Spongebob Squarepants! Absorbent and yellow and porous is he…”
Nauseous with stupid kids’ show theme songs, I know I will barely make it to finish my paper (as in literally, right after printing the thing, I’ll be sprawled on the floor twitching in pain and seizing).
So long, stupid New Year’s resolutions; I still have real life waiting for me!
Monday, February 15, 2010
Essay: On Writing the Essays
Note: This is the afterword in my essay collection made up by On Tolerance, Haunted by Memories, and Journey Back Home
On Writing the Essays
I would never have known the joys of editing if not for this compilation of essays. If a lesson is in order after such a wonderful and tedious experience, then it is this: Writers write in white heat and edit in cold blood. Once inspiration and ideas hit, writers just jab on the keypad keys letting them all flow. As the moment of delirium subsides and the writing comes to an end, a writer feels both the ebbing away of ecstasy and the sinking in of reality: This piece must be perfect. Then the writer takes out his red ball pen and starts whipping his essay bloody. With the dripping paper of corrections, he retypes the final product of his efforts, offering his heart and soul’s masterpiece to the first reader interested to scrutinize it and shout bloody murder over a proofread mistake. He humbly takes his attacked art back and broods over the ‘corrections’ day and night. Once the writer recovers from the shock and the grief, he takes out his pen and writes another one again. Such is the life of a writer.
In preparing my bread and butter, I wrote ‘On Tolerance’ with the initial presumption that my professor’s favors the scientific approach to essays and as hard as it was on me, I had to pretend stiff to come up with it. Initially dealing with smoking, the essay grew to be focused more on the way the majority now willingly compromises its welfare for the cries of the minority, an issue of freedom and rights. A lot of thought and brainstorming went into it, more so that I kept putting it off until I had no choice but to edit it. The writing process was painful but rewarding.
Now, in arranging my appetizers, I wrote ‘Haunted by Memories’ with much more ease. I did not feel the need for false pretenses anymore and so I wrote luxuriously on this one. Writing it felt like being back in my old waters again, familiar and enjoyable. With much disappointment, it was returned to me with a much lower grade than the one I expected. After a chat with my professor, it turns out I left a lot of grammatical errors in the text of this essay. My, I guess I’ll just blame it on familiarity. I realized then how important editing was. When I started editing for this compilation, this was the first one I did right away. I knew in my heart I could have done loads better and knew which ones I’d correct, which ones I’d take out, and which ones I’d need to add from the heart. I had a great time editing it, and I really hope that readers will like it just as I do.
Lastly, in serving the bomb out of the shell, the main course for this meal, I wrote ‘Journey Back Home’ with pretty much enough experiences from the first two essays to tell me I should write with both the heart and the mind. It was hard at first, having written something to start with then right in the middle, stopping, looking over what I’ve got and closing the window of this document numerous times before I finally got what I wanted and stuck to it. I knew from the start I would be writing about my trip to China, but I never knew just how to start or just what experiences to tell, or which trip I’d focus on. When I finally got the ball going after the fourth ‘unacceptable’ trial, inspiration started hitting me again and the words just flowed like red hot lava out of my mind and into the computer screen. Editing it was no simple task; going over descriptions that I would have loved to include in the essay but decided to delete (because it ended up contributing nothing to the general output) broke my heart. Anyway, I got over it about an hour into editing the last essay so everything’s fine now.
In dishing this last part of the meal, the dessert, I just let my heart bleed out with ‘On Writing the Essays’ as I think is quite obvious. I do hope this adds a sweet tang after the tough things you’ve had to chew. I hope this time somebody likes my cooking!
On Writing the Essays
I would never have known the joys of editing if not for this compilation of essays. If a lesson is in order after such a wonderful and tedious experience, then it is this: Writers write in white heat and edit in cold blood. Once inspiration and ideas hit, writers just jab on the keypad keys letting them all flow. As the moment of delirium subsides and the writing comes to an end, a writer feels both the ebbing away of ecstasy and the sinking in of reality: This piece must be perfect. Then the writer takes out his red ball pen and starts whipping his essay bloody. With the dripping paper of corrections, he retypes the final product of his efforts, offering his heart and soul’s masterpiece to the first reader interested to scrutinize it and shout bloody murder over a proofread mistake. He humbly takes his attacked art back and broods over the ‘corrections’ day and night. Once the writer recovers from the shock and the grief, he takes out his pen and writes another one again. Such is the life of a writer.
In preparing my bread and butter, I wrote ‘On Tolerance’ with the initial presumption that my professor’s favors the scientific approach to essays and as hard as it was on me, I had to pretend stiff to come up with it. Initially dealing with smoking, the essay grew to be focused more on the way the majority now willingly compromises its welfare for the cries of the minority, an issue of freedom and rights. A lot of thought and brainstorming went into it, more so that I kept putting it off until I had no choice but to edit it. The writing process was painful but rewarding.
Now, in arranging my appetizers, I wrote ‘Haunted by Memories’ with much more ease. I did not feel the need for false pretenses anymore and so I wrote luxuriously on this one. Writing it felt like being back in my old waters again, familiar and enjoyable. With much disappointment, it was returned to me with a much lower grade than the one I expected. After a chat with my professor, it turns out I left a lot of grammatical errors in the text of this essay. My, I guess I’ll just blame it on familiarity. I realized then how important editing was. When I started editing for this compilation, this was the first one I did right away. I knew in my heart I could have done loads better and knew which ones I’d correct, which ones I’d take out, and which ones I’d need to add from the heart. I had a great time editing it, and I really hope that readers will like it just as I do.
Lastly, in serving the bomb out of the shell, the main course for this meal, I wrote ‘Journey Back Home’ with pretty much enough experiences from the first two essays to tell me I should write with both the heart and the mind. It was hard at first, having written something to start with then right in the middle, stopping, looking over what I’ve got and closing the window of this document numerous times before I finally got what I wanted and stuck to it. I knew from the start I would be writing about my trip to China, but I never knew just how to start or just what experiences to tell, or which trip I’d focus on. When I finally got the ball going after the fourth ‘unacceptable’ trial, inspiration started hitting me again and the words just flowed like red hot lava out of my mind and into the computer screen. Editing it was no simple task; going over descriptions that I would have loved to include in the essay but decided to delete (because it ended up contributing nothing to the general output) broke my heart. Anyway, I got over it about an hour into editing the last essay so everything’s fine now.
In dishing this last part of the meal, the dessert, I just let my heart bleed out with ‘On Writing the Essays’ as I think is quite obvious. I do hope this adds a sweet tang after the tough things you’ve had to chew. I hope this time somebody likes my cooking!
Narrative Essay: Journey Back Home
Journey Back Home
I was raised to see China and Taiwan as my mother countries, to accept my duty and pledge my loyalty to them, and to choose to be a Chinese-Filipino, not the other way around. I grew up with stories of how China once ruled almost the entire known world and how it once was, and still is, the proud empire I belong to. My grandmother told me tales of ancient heroes, how they fought and held on to the principles of tradition and age-old wisdom, and of numerous emperors, how they governed the Middle Kingdom to greatness. My father made me memorize three thousand year old Tang poems that can not be understood with mere basic knowledge of the language. I was taught to appreciate the wonders of our culture, how colorful our five thousand years worth of history was and how it was an honor to be part of it. I was born into a family that chose to be different, and though it stays in this foreign land, its heart is still in the land it left.
When I was fourteen, it was decided that I be sent to China that summer to visit my homeland and see the place my grandparents came from. My heart filled with joy as at last I would get to see the land where all my grandmother’s stories took place, to walk on the actual patch of dust where the wondrous heroes she told me about once marched on. Summer seemed too slow to come as my fourteen year old self boiled in anticipation.
When at last I arrived, I was greeted by teachers who would be accompanying me all throughout my stay in Xiamen, Fujian. They welcomed the group of Chinese-Filipino students I was in with warm hugs and smiles. As the teachers engaged me in conversation, they were surprised that I knew how to speak the language, and said they never expected a Huaqiao (a Chinese born abroad) to know how to converse in the mother tongue. They showered me with a lot more praises as is customary in meeting a new acquaintance. Anxious to help me settle in comfortably, they were very hospitable and obviously made efforts to check up on me every once in a while. They were truly gracious and most lovable people, thoughtful to say the least.
As soon as I arrived, I knew I would fall deep in love with China. From my airplane window and until I sat in the bus they drove to pick us up from the airport, my eyes were glued to the streets, the fields, the highway, the city that we passed. Everything seemed so wonderful that there was not enough time to take in everything in detail. We seemed to be driving along too fast as I tried very hard to take in a small sign, a field of grains, a lush patch of vegetable plantation, a city shop, neighborhoods that stretched miles and miles on end, one enormous department store after another; I was honestly tempted to ask the driver and the teachers around me to please slow the car to a crawl just so that I could digest everything. The teacher seated at the back of the bus smiled at me affectionately as I caught her eye, I guess she thought it was very cute that a fourteen year old boy had such curiosity to the simplest things she had been seeing all her life.
The university we stayed in was large; the campus was about half the area of the Ateneo. I was sent to a local university in Jimei, a small city by the outskirts of Xiamen. It had a nice little community surrounding it. The teachers led me and a few other students to our living quarters where we were separated into occupying two floors, one for the girls and the one a floor higher was ours. The rooms each had six-student capacities, but since the students who joined our group were only a handful, four people were assigned to a room. It had fair furnishings, simple and practical. There were three double-deckers and six cabinets on one side, six study tables on the other, and a separate room way across the room that housed three separate mini-rooms: the shower, the toilet, and three sinks. My room mates turned out to be quite cordial. They were well-mannered guys from different parts of the Philippines; I believe one was from Davao and the other two from Bacolod. I knew from the start we’d get on well.
The weeks that followed saw us eating together in the great hall (the sound of metal chopsticks clinking against each other still as sharp today as though I’d just heard it), sitting in classrooms filled with raised hands and voices struggling to put together a sentence in Chinese, and cramped along the corridors outside our sleeping quarters way past our lights-out time as we chatted up the girls staying on the floor directly below ours. Our tiny Chinese-Filipino group gradually bonded; soon, everybody knew everyone else’s names.
Looking back, what stood out shining from all the other memories we had from that trip was the places we went to and the people we met as time went by. They would be the ones none of us in the group would ever forget.
On weekday afternoons and the whole of weekends, we were free to go around the community surrounding the campus. We went down the cobbled streets to visit shops and shops lining the side walk. On the first day we were free to roam around, no one dared to venture out of the group as we were herded by the teachers who willingly gave us a tour. They told us which shops sold what and which had the best bargains on potentially nice souvenirs or gifts for Pa and Ma. Before they left us to the remainder of that first day out in the community, we were given the best lesson I guess I can never forget: ‘Laoban gei de jiaqian, dei haohao cong yiban kaishi jiang.’ (When a shop owner gives a price, start bargaining from a little below half the given amount.) That was to be our golden rule. We dispersed into twos and threes with that instruction in mind.
It took awhile, but after a week of perfecting my bargaining skills, I was crowned the head bargainer of the group. Every time a girl would see a pair of shoes she’d want to purchase, I was called in to help. Every time a gadget or a toy would catch some guy’s eye, I was hauled in to intervene. My skill was a blessing, which turned out to be a burden in disguise, though seeing smart purchases made and the satisfied smiles on my friends’ faces made the whole ordeal worth it.
Soon, the group would not go out shopping as a group anymore and my skill would then only be required in desperate situations. Groups of friends started popping out and not long after, everybody was not only shopping in the little community but even went as far as riding buses to Xiamen City to hit the great malls.
The riverstone streets smelled of freedom, the shops that lined the community and the others that lay beyond were screaming for us to explore, and we were all just ready to go out and pounce on our new found haven. Every time I would walk to the shops, I would stare down the path ahead of me and think just how different it was from the land I grew up in. Here, everyone was reminded by the past with the architecture and the prevailing wares the shops had, but also feel right in the present with the cars passing by and the high billboards standing high above the roaring crowds of the market. I feel and taste and smell and hear the China of the past, just like how my grandmother described it in her tales, but the sights that welcomed my modern eyes were familiar. A perfect harmony of the past and the present, even a sense of the future, was present in every shop, every restaurant, every alley, and every corner of my China. The feeling of getting all these things at once both overcame and awed me. I could not find a spot of the Philippines anywhere, but it was alright; I was in my homeland.
The people added magic to the splendor we saw around us. They seemed to be all smiles when they see us, and every time we passed by a humble home before reaching a shop we wanted to go to, we would see the little children, with flushed cheeks from the cold, waving at us from the inside. They were beautiful people. It would be common by the third week to hear the girls in our group chatting up about a cute guy they met inside the university campus or a ‘gorgeous hunk’ they saw in a shop somewhere in the community market, whom they would later visit as often as thrice in a week. The women were gorgeous to say the least, ivory-skinned with great expressive ‘chinky’ eyes, flushed cheeks, and sensuous red lips. It even became known that two female teachers who were fresh graduates from the university were our unanimous crushes. I now wonder who ever did let slip that little group secret.
Throughout the duration of our stay, we saw more of China and grew to love it more and more. We got to visit temples where some of my grandmother’s stories actually happened (or were at least mentioned), went to graves of ancient heroes, all of whom Gran has told me about, and had photo ops in the historical sites that led to the change in the China of today. I finished the trip, never realizing that the kid in me saw what he had only dared to dream of in the past, and had grown up into a young adolescent ready for more. What I knew though, and this was perfectly clear to me, was that I found home at last. I need not be someone who held on to what made me different from the people of that place; to the contrary, I brandished the things that I shared with them. I not only heard Gran’s stories anymore but lived them. I was in the land I was raised to love. I was home at last.
I was raised to see China and Taiwan as my mother countries, to accept my duty and pledge my loyalty to them, and to choose to be a Chinese-Filipino, not the other way around. I grew up with stories of how China once ruled almost the entire known world and how it once was, and still is, the proud empire I belong to. My grandmother told me tales of ancient heroes, how they fought and held on to the principles of tradition and age-old wisdom, and of numerous emperors, how they governed the Middle Kingdom to greatness. My father made me memorize three thousand year old Tang poems that can not be understood with mere basic knowledge of the language. I was taught to appreciate the wonders of our culture, how colorful our five thousand years worth of history was and how it was an honor to be part of it. I was born into a family that chose to be different, and though it stays in this foreign land, its heart is still in the land it left.
When I was fourteen, it was decided that I be sent to China that summer to visit my homeland and see the place my grandparents came from. My heart filled with joy as at last I would get to see the land where all my grandmother’s stories took place, to walk on the actual patch of dust where the wondrous heroes she told me about once marched on. Summer seemed too slow to come as my fourteen year old self boiled in anticipation.
When at last I arrived, I was greeted by teachers who would be accompanying me all throughout my stay in Xiamen, Fujian. They welcomed the group of Chinese-Filipino students I was in with warm hugs and smiles. As the teachers engaged me in conversation, they were surprised that I knew how to speak the language, and said they never expected a Huaqiao (a Chinese born abroad) to know how to converse in the mother tongue. They showered me with a lot more praises as is customary in meeting a new acquaintance. Anxious to help me settle in comfortably, they were very hospitable and obviously made efforts to check up on me every once in a while. They were truly gracious and most lovable people, thoughtful to say the least.
As soon as I arrived, I knew I would fall deep in love with China. From my airplane window and until I sat in the bus they drove to pick us up from the airport, my eyes were glued to the streets, the fields, the highway, the city that we passed. Everything seemed so wonderful that there was not enough time to take in everything in detail. We seemed to be driving along too fast as I tried very hard to take in a small sign, a field of grains, a lush patch of vegetable plantation, a city shop, neighborhoods that stretched miles and miles on end, one enormous department store after another; I was honestly tempted to ask the driver and the teachers around me to please slow the car to a crawl just so that I could digest everything. The teacher seated at the back of the bus smiled at me affectionately as I caught her eye, I guess she thought it was very cute that a fourteen year old boy had such curiosity to the simplest things she had been seeing all her life.
The university we stayed in was large; the campus was about half the area of the Ateneo. I was sent to a local university in Jimei, a small city by the outskirts of Xiamen. It had a nice little community surrounding it. The teachers led me and a few other students to our living quarters where we were separated into occupying two floors, one for the girls and the one a floor higher was ours. The rooms each had six-student capacities, but since the students who joined our group were only a handful, four people were assigned to a room. It had fair furnishings, simple and practical. There were three double-deckers and six cabinets on one side, six study tables on the other, and a separate room way across the room that housed three separate mini-rooms: the shower, the toilet, and three sinks. My room mates turned out to be quite cordial. They were well-mannered guys from different parts of the Philippines; I believe one was from Davao and the other two from Bacolod. I knew from the start we’d get on well.
The weeks that followed saw us eating together in the great hall (the sound of metal chopsticks clinking against each other still as sharp today as though I’d just heard it), sitting in classrooms filled with raised hands and voices struggling to put together a sentence in Chinese, and cramped along the corridors outside our sleeping quarters way past our lights-out time as we chatted up the girls staying on the floor directly below ours. Our tiny Chinese-Filipino group gradually bonded; soon, everybody knew everyone else’s names.
Looking back, what stood out shining from all the other memories we had from that trip was the places we went to and the people we met as time went by. They would be the ones none of us in the group would ever forget.
On weekday afternoons and the whole of weekends, we were free to go around the community surrounding the campus. We went down the cobbled streets to visit shops and shops lining the side walk. On the first day we were free to roam around, no one dared to venture out of the group as we were herded by the teachers who willingly gave us a tour. They told us which shops sold what and which had the best bargains on potentially nice souvenirs or gifts for Pa and Ma. Before they left us to the remainder of that first day out in the community, we were given the best lesson I guess I can never forget: ‘Laoban gei de jiaqian, dei haohao cong yiban kaishi jiang.’ (When a shop owner gives a price, start bargaining from a little below half the given amount.) That was to be our golden rule. We dispersed into twos and threes with that instruction in mind.
It took awhile, but after a week of perfecting my bargaining skills, I was crowned the head bargainer of the group. Every time a girl would see a pair of shoes she’d want to purchase, I was called in to help. Every time a gadget or a toy would catch some guy’s eye, I was hauled in to intervene. My skill was a blessing, which turned out to be a burden in disguise, though seeing smart purchases made and the satisfied smiles on my friends’ faces made the whole ordeal worth it.
Soon, the group would not go out shopping as a group anymore and my skill would then only be required in desperate situations. Groups of friends started popping out and not long after, everybody was not only shopping in the little community but even went as far as riding buses to Xiamen City to hit the great malls.
The riverstone streets smelled of freedom, the shops that lined the community and the others that lay beyond were screaming for us to explore, and we were all just ready to go out and pounce on our new found haven. Every time I would walk to the shops, I would stare down the path ahead of me and think just how different it was from the land I grew up in. Here, everyone was reminded by the past with the architecture and the prevailing wares the shops had, but also feel right in the present with the cars passing by and the high billboards standing high above the roaring crowds of the market. I feel and taste and smell and hear the China of the past, just like how my grandmother described it in her tales, but the sights that welcomed my modern eyes were familiar. A perfect harmony of the past and the present, even a sense of the future, was present in every shop, every restaurant, every alley, and every corner of my China. The feeling of getting all these things at once both overcame and awed me. I could not find a spot of the Philippines anywhere, but it was alright; I was in my homeland.
The people added magic to the splendor we saw around us. They seemed to be all smiles when they see us, and every time we passed by a humble home before reaching a shop we wanted to go to, we would see the little children, with flushed cheeks from the cold, waving at us from the inside. They were beautiful people. It would be common by the third week to hear the girls in our group chatting up about a cute guy they met inside the university campus or a ‘gorgeous hunk’ they saw in a shop somewhere in the community market, whom they would later visit as often as thrice in a week. The women were gorgeous to say the least, ivory-skinned with great expressive ‘chinky’ eyes, flushed cheeks, and sensuous red lips. It even became known that two female teachers who were fresh graduates from the university were our unanimous crushes. I now wonder who ever did let slip that little group secret.
Throughout the duration of our stay, we saw more of China and grew to love it more and more. We got to visit temples where some of my grandmother’s stories actually happened (or were at least mentioned), went to graves of ancient heroes, all of whom Gran has told me about, and had photo ops in the historical sites that led to the change in the China of today. I finished the trip, never realizing that the kid in me saw what he had only dared to dream of in the past, and had grown up into a young adolescent ready for more. What I knew though, and this was perfectly clear to me, was that I found home at last. I need not be someone who held on to what made me different from the people of that place; to the contrary, I brandished the things that I shared with them. I not only heard Gran’s stories anymore but lived them. I was in the land I was raised to love. I was home at last.
Narrative Essay: Haunted by Memories
Haunted by Memories
Most people turn to their memories to seek comfort or find solace from their nightmarish present. Fairy tale characters use to find refuge in their memories, like Snow White daydreaming about her times in the palace before she got stuck with the Seven Dwarfs in their humble home, or when Cinderella thinks back to when her father was still alive and her stepmother and stepsiblings weren’t in the picture yet. Many turn to reminisce to the good old days; most hold on to fond memories of their childhood. Unlike most, I turn back time to go back down memory lane only to find myself seeing the bad times so clearly and the good times usually blurred over by the former. I’ve always yearned to be like most other people, but I guess nightmares overweigh the dreams I might have had. Memories of regret, lost chances, and grave loss haunt me every time I try to probe back to my “remember when’s”; I am dogged by these nightmares I might just never shake off.
BACK IN FIRST YEAR, I was assigned to sit next to this girl. She had a simple heart-shaped face, with the usual ‘chinky’ eyes and unremarkable nose. She had freckles across her cheeks and was of a fairly typical cream-colored complexion. She was ordinary, possessed and had nothing to make you turn your head twice to take peeks at her, certainly nothing compared to my previous girl friends. She faired averagely in class, acted as someone who could have been drowned in a crowd of people without any reason to stand out; but what got me pretty much glued was her innocence. Her sense of the world was still hills of flowers and butterflies while the rest of us freshmen had ideas of how the world is a dangerous place. That there are, present in every dark corner and alleyway, people waiting to rob and assault. I guess her naivety attracted me, beckoned me to tease her, and to expose her to the real world where hurt and sorrow and actual pain exists. She was too much and too easy of a temptation to resist. This much I know was the sole reason for my courting her then, well, maybe with a little actual infatuation, but other than that, all I only wanted was to add another name to my ‘past girlfriends’ list.
The courtship led to days and days and weeks and weeks of selfish fun. I caught myself spending time passing notes to her across our foot and a half distance from each other, setting up late night instant messaging conversations that lasted three to four hours on end, or talking about the silliest of things and always ending with the sweetest lines (note to future players: e.g. Good night, I’ll be dreaming of you, that’s for sure!). I did everything out of the old guide book to ‘getting girls fast for dummies’, and by the end of exactly the third month (and the book’s last chapter), I had her.
It was three months in courtship, and exactly a day before Valentines’. I arrived in school feeling quite confident. The sky shone marble gray with streaks of sunlight shining through the cracks of dreary clouds. The cold breeze blew in and out of the campus; everything just so welcomed me! This was just my day. Carrying my bag carelessly over my left shoulder and a bouquet of faint-pink tulips nestled on my right arm, I made my way into the classroom. Nobody was inside, so far so good. I planted the bouquet right by her chair, which was first of her row beside the left wall. On her table I placed a pink-colored envelope with her name printed on it, and a single rose tied with a black ribbon over it. It was a little before the first bell when she finally arrived and discovered the surprise. I asked her for an answer to be given the next day. She said she would think about it, with an obvious pleased smile on her face. Done deal.
Valentines’ Day. The sky was clear that morning, sunny but not too hot. From the way she looked at me, I knew her answer there and then.
The day proceeded great. During one of the breaks, I placed another bouquet of tulips by the seat across the end of the room, the first seat by the right wall. This new bouquet was meant for someone else. I’d decided that since she was a done deal even before I started, I’d try a two-time trick this time.
While I was courting her, I was working two shifts as well. During breaks, I’d sneak out of the room and have a snack or two, even lunch, with this other girl across the room. This girl was cute; actually, she was my girlfriend back in third grade. Our relationship then was sweet but short-lived, I guess I never knew what led to our drifting apart. This time, I tried another shot at us.
Everything was working out well, until ‘naïve girl 1’ saw the bouquet by the right wall after dismissal. She saw the handwriting on the little envelope that was stuck to the base of the bouquet; she knew it was mine. Apparently, she knew my handwriting by heart. It was a stupid and insensitive move I did, I now realize, for after that, she refused to talk to me again. Only after a year did we talk and engage in friendly conversation. It was stupid of me, since the night after the discovery, I talked to our middleman, a mutual friend, who told me that her answer was supposed to be YES, and that I was mean and rude to have played her all along. My relationship with the girl suffered for a year or two. I knew the consequences, and I had to face them. I was a jerk for doing what I did.
If I could only turn back time, I would. Now, four years after, I realize just how painful love can leave us limping. I imagine she does not trust any guy with her heart anymore. I now only realize the gravity of my mistake, of how much I’ve hurt her, harmed her even. That point of having actually damaged someone’s life has haunted me in all my relationships that followed, leading me to end most of them to make sure I won’t hurt another one again.
IT WAS RAINING. The sky looked on as if to foretell my misfortune that day. I stood in line awaiting the free bus driving customers to Taiwan’s leading department stores/super market chain. The clothes I wore were a bit too thin for the cold weather, good thing I brought my umbrella with me. I intended it for the sun; I never saw that it was to rain hard that day. I would’ve cursed the rain if it only hadn’t brought about the incident I am now writing of next.
The ground felt rough even under my rubber shoes, rubble filling in gaps of my shoes’ rubber footing; the chill that surrounded everyone only suited my preference for the cold. My walkman phone kept playing in my ears against the howl of the great wind, and I was waiting. The next bus would not come for another six minutes. I stood there, enjoying the cold and the shelter I got from my umbrella keeping out the raindrops from ruining my shirt, pants and giving me a cold. Thirty seconds passed.
I saw a slight commotion up the front of the line. A girl about my age was asking those behind her if she could go under their umbrella; nobody minded her. She looked cute with her slightly damp hair running down the back of her jacket and some sticking to her cheeks. She was a good four or five steps away from me when I extended my arm with the umbrella, inviting her to go under it with me. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, a posy red peeping from the ivory white of her face. I could tell that she was quite well-off, wearing a cute outfit typical of the Tokyo-Taipei fusion of a leather jacket, a gray-green top and a decent enough checkered skirt. Her hair had strands of red highlights (or were they lowlights, I don’t know exactly what they are to be called) amidst her real black hair color and she had on long thin earrings that had those clear colored beads hanging from her ears. She thanked me in rushed Chinese and I answered a hurried ‘You’re welcome’, growing quite conscious of my own blushing cheeks. She went under my umbrella and started answering a text message she had just received. She pressed and thumbed her reply into the phone, and after a while, she looked at me, probably remembering that I was there, and gave me a shy smile. I smiled back.
As if by magic, I actually felt the minutes ticking by but during that time it was as if time was frozen altogether by the chill of the wind when, this I am certain of, our eyes met after those shy smiles. I will never know how long we stared or how brief we glanced at each other, I just felt it happening. I was about to ask her name when the bus, which I guess took its time then and just arrived to ruin the moment—my moment, our moment, came and we were lost in the muzzle of people getting in and out that followed. I never saw her in the bus. I was never sure if she took the same bus as I did for there was another one that came briefly after the first one did, but I never saw her again. I never got around to asking her name. Or her number.
I think it was a storm that hit us that day, but it was surely nothing compared to the storm in my heart as I rode silently to the store.
I could never believe I was that stupid to have let that chance slip under me. I now realize it was right there, ready for me to grab. Even if the crowd stirred because of the bus, I still should have exerted an effort to at least try and ask what I needed to know. Now, every time I see an opportunity I try to grab it right by the throat, as if trying in vain to grab the chance I once lost.
IT WAS NIGHT TIME and I remember having only finished half of what a math problem asked for when the call came.
My mother went to sit on the sofa chair by the phone, as she customarily does, and answered it. She was cheerful at first, as she usually is on telephone conversations with friends and relatives, but then grew quieter as the conversation took to its third or fourth minute. I sensed that it was unhappy news when my mother starting sobbing, silently at first until it grew fiercer as she rocked her body back and forth on the chair. I knew it was grave news. I knew too that it was news from family as she spoke in her childhood tongue—visayan—and started mentioning names I could vaguely remember to be that of her sister and some other simple words that I understand after years of having helpers from the south.
She spoke in hushed tones, as if under stress, to the whole of the family present in the living room, after her crying spell, long after she put down the receiver. “Ahia, Shoti, Shobe, Lolo is gone.” She called me Ahia. It is Chinese for Older brother, and so is Shoti for younger brother and Shobe for younger sister. She said these words so serene, so calm, as if her crying spell didn’t just happen seconds before she addressed us.
I felt tension in the air, as if something was about to break. My father sensed it too, for after hearing those words, he went over to the chair by the side of the phone, to where my mother sat, rigid and controlled, knelt down to her level, and hugged her tightly. My mother sobbed onto papa’s shoulder. After a moment’s silence, she once again composed herself and said matter-of-factly, “Ahia, papa and I are going to Cavite to see your Lolo. Make sure Shoti and Shobe are asleep within the hour. Remember to brush your teeth and go to the CR before going to bed. Bye.” She and pa went into the room to prepare mama’s purse and pick up papa’s wallet. They passed by and each placed kisses gently on all three of us. We packed our books back into our school bags, brushed our teeth, and went to bed. The night seemed darker that night.
I can never describe the way I went through my life after that. I lived through all of the routines without really living, eating the food set before me breakfast, lunch, and dinner without really tasting, and studying the lessons in class without really learning. Everything felt different. Now I realize I felt guilt. Guilty of never being there to visit Lolo. Guilty of never really loving Lolo. Guilty of never really knowing Lolo.
In his funeral, and even after his burial, I never cried. Never shed a tear for him. I never knew the reason why; I grieved, deep and honest down in my heart, but I never saw the need to cry, never felt the need to break down. I was the Ahia of my family, I must be strong, for I am strong…
The loss of Lolo always stuck to my mind, to the extent that every time I see my living grandparents in my father’s side, I try to channel the love and attention I should have given him to them. Always, I am hounded by thoughts of regret over the times I’ve wasted, feeling the cold breath of loss at the back of my neck, ready to pounce on me anytime. Never once do I stop and not think of the things I could’ve done for him, things we could’ve done together. I guess I thought he would be an ever-present entity in my life; that the thought of him dying was impossible and that I would always have time in the future to bond with him. I hope he could still see me from where he now is, looking on forgivingly at me, knowing that I’ve always loved him.
Memory can always be a book one can look over and read time and time again, after finding it worthwhile and quite remarkable. Sometimes though, memory can be a plague, a haunting, an unpleasant dream that haunts you, keeps you fighting, competing, and proving yourself to the world when everybody else tells you there is nothing to prove. It can also be a beast, prowling behind you, gnawing at your heart whenever you let your guard down and think back to your wrongs, to the things you could’ve done differently. It stalks, it waits, it haunts. Memory is a bittersweet thing; I guess it only depends on which things we look at that decides when it will start to hound us, and where we choose to look that matters.
Most people turn to their memories to seek comfort or find solace from their nightmarish present. Fairy tale characters use to find refuge in their memories, like Snow White daydreaming about her times in the palace before she got stuck with the Seven Dwarfs in their humble home, or when Cinderella thinks back to when her father was still alive and her stepmother and stepsiblings weren’t in the picture yet. Many turn to reminisce to the good old days; most hold on to fond memories of their childhood. Unlike most, I turn back time to go back down memory lane only to find myself seeing the bad times so clearly and the good times usually blurred over by the former. I’ve always yearned to be like most other people, but I guess nightmares overweigh the dreams I might have had. Memories of regret, lost chances, and grave loss haunt me every time I try to probe back to my “remember when’s”; I am dogged by these nightmares I might just never shake off.
BACK IN FIRST YEAR, I was assigned to sit next to this girl. She had a simple heart-shaped face, with the usual ‘chinky’ eyes and unremarkable nose. She had freckles across her cheeks and was of a fairly typical cream-colored complexion. She was ordinary, possessed and had nothing to make you turn your head twice to take peeks at her, certainly nothing compared to my previous girl friends. She faired averagely in class, acted as someone who could have been drowned in a crowd of people without any reason to stand out; but what got me pretty much glued was her innocence. Her sense of the world was still hills of flowers and butterflies while the rest of us freshmen had ideas of how the world is a dangerous place. That there are, present in every dark corner and alleyway, people waiting to rob and assault. I guess her naivety attracted me, beckoned me to tease her, and to expose her to the real world where hurt and sorrow and actual pain exists. She was too much and too easy of a temptation to resist. This much I know was the sole reason for my courting her then, well, maybe with a little actual infatuation, but other than that, all I only wanted was to add another name to my ‘past girlfriends’ list.
The courtship led to days and days and weeks and weeks of selfish fun. I caught myself spending time passing notes to her across our foot and a half distance from each other, setting up late night instant messaging conversations that lasted three to four hours on end, or talking about the silliest of things and always ending with the sweetest lines (note to future players: e.g. Good night, I’ll be dreaming of you, that’s for sure!). I did everything out of the old guide book to ‘getting girls fast for dummies’, and by the end of exactly the third month (and the book’s last chapter), I had her.
It was three months in courtship, and exactly a day before Valentines’. I arrived in school feeling quite confident. The sky shone marble gray with streaks of sunlight shining through the cracks of dreary clouds. The cold breeze blew in and out of the campus; everything just so welcomed me! This was just my day. Carrying my bag carelessly over my left shoulder and a bouquet of faint-pink tulips nestled on my right arm, I made my way into the classroom. Nobody was inside, so far so good. I planted the bouquet right by her chair, which was first of her row beside the left wall. On her table I placed a pink-colored envelope with her name printed on it, and a single rose tied with a black ribbon over it. It was a little before the first bell when she finally arrived and discovered the surprise. I asked her for an answer to be given the next day. She said she would think about it, with an obvious pleased smile on her face. Done deal.
Valentines’ Day. The sky was clear that morning, sunny but not too hot. From the way she looked at me, I knew her answer there and then.
The day proceeded great. During one of the breaks, I placed another bouquet of tulips by the seat across the end of the room, the first seat by the right wall. This new bouquet was meant for someone else. I’d decided that since she was a done deal even before I started, I’d try a two-time trick this time.
While I was courting her, I was working two shifts as well. During breaks, I’d sneak out of the room and have a snack or two, even lunch, with this other girl across the room. This girl was cute; actually, she was my girlfriend back in third grade. Our relationship then was sweet but short-lived, I guess I never knew what led to our drifting apart. This time, I tried another shot at us.
Everything was working out well, until ‘naïve girl 1’ saw the bouquet by the right wall after dismissal. She saw the handwriting on the little envelope that was stuck to the base of the bouquet; she knew it was mine. Apparently, she knew my handwriting by heart. It was a stupid and insensitive move I did, I now realize, for after that, she refused to talk to me again. Only after a year did we talk and engage in friendly conversation. It was stupid of me, since the night after the discovery, I talked to our middleman, a mutual friend, who told me that her answer was supposed to be YES, and that I was mean and rude to have played her all along. My relationship with the girl suffered for a year or two. I knew the consequences, and I had to face them. I was a jerk for doing what I did.
If I could only turn back time, I would. Now, four years after, I realize just how painful love can leave us limping. I imagine she does not trust any guy with her heart anymore. I now only realize the gravity of my mistake, of how much I’ve hurt her, harmed her even. That point of having actually damaged someone’s life has haunted me in all my relationships that followed, leading me to end most of them to make sure I won’t hurt another one again.
IT WAS RAINING. The sky looked on as if to foretell my misfortune that day. I stood in line awaiting the free bus driving customers to Taiwan’s leading department stores/super market chain. The clothes I wore were a bit too thin for the cold weather, good thing I brought my umbrella with me. I intended it for the sun; I never saw that it was to rain hard that day. I would’ve cursed the rain if it only hadn’t brought about the incident I am now writing of next.
The ground felt rough even under my rubber shoes, rubble filling in gaps of my shoes’ rubber footing; the chill that surrounded everyone only suited my preference for the cold. My walkman phone kept playing in my ears against the howl of the great wind, and I was waiting. The next bus would not come for another six minutes. I stood there, enjoying the cold and the shelter I got from my umbrella keeping out the raindrops from ruining my shirt, pants and giving me a cold. Thirty seconds passed.
I saw a slight commotion up the front of the line. A girl about my age was asking those behind her if she could go under their umbrella; nobody minded her. She looked cute with her slightly damp hair running down the back of her jacket and some sticking to her cheeks. She was a good four or five steps away from me when I extended my arm with the umbrella, inviting her to go under it with me. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, a posy red peeping from the ivory white of her face. I could tell that she was quite well-off, wearing a cute outfit typical of the Tokyo-Taipei fusion of a leather jacket, a gray-green top and a decent enough checkered skirt. Her hair had strands of red highlights (or were they lowlights, I don’t know exactly what they are to be called) amidst her real black hair color and she had on long thin earrings that had those clear colored beads hanging from her ears. She thanked me in rushed Chinese and I answered a hurried ‘You’re welcome’, growing quite conscious of my own blushing cheeks. She went under my umbrella and started answering a text message she had just received. She pressed and thumbed her reply into the phone, and after a while, she looked at me, probably remembering that I was there, and gave me a shy smile. I smiled back.
As if by magic, I actually felt the minutes ticking by but during that time it was as if time was frozen altogether by the chill of the wind when, this I am certain of, our eyes met after those shy smiles. I will never know how long we stared or how brief we glanced at each other, I just felt it happening. I was about to ask her name when the bus, which I guess took its time then and just arrived to ruin the moment—my moment, our moment, came and we were lost in the muzzle of people getting in and out that followed. I never saw her in the bus. I was never sure if she took the same bus as I did for there was another one that came briefly after the first one did, but I never saw her again. I never got around to asking her name. Or her number.
I think it was a storm that hit us that day, but it was surely nothing compared to the storm in my heart as I rode silently to the store.
I could never believe I was that stupid to have let that chance slip under me. I now realize it was right there, ready for me to grab. Even if the crowd stirred because of the bus, I still should have exerted an effort to at least try and ask what I needed to know. Now, every time I see an opportunity I try to grab it right by the throat, as if trying in vain to grab the chance I once lost.
IT WAS NIGHT TIME and I remember having only finished half of what a math problem asked for when the call came.
My mother went to sit on the sofa chair by the phone, as she customarily does, and answered it. She was cheerful at first, as she usually is on telephone conversations with friends and relatives, but then grew quieter as the conversation took to its third or fourth minute. I sensed that it was unhappy news when my mother starting sobbing, silently at first until it grew fiercer as she rocked her body back and forth on the chair. I knew it was grave news. I knew too that it was news from family as she spoke in her childhood tongue—visayan—and started mentioning names I could vaguely remember to be that of her sister and some other simple words that I understand after years of having helpers from the south.
She spoke in hushed tones, as if under stress, to the whole of the family present in the living room, after her crying spell, long after she put down the receiver. “Ahia, Shoti, Shobe, Lolo is gone.” She called me Ahia. It is Chinese for Older brother, and so is Shoti for younger brother and Shobe for younger sister. She said these words so serene, so calm, as if her crying spell didn’t just happen seconds before she addressed us.
I felt tension in the air, as if something was about to break. My father sensed it too, for after hearing those words, he went over to the chair by the side of the phone, to where my mother sat, rigid and controlled, knelt down to her level, and hugged her tightly. My mother sobbed onto papa’s shoulder. After a moment’s silence, she once again composed herself and said matter-of-factly, “Ahia, papa and I are going to Cavite to see your Lolo. Make sure Shoti and Shobe are asleep within the hour. Remember to brush your teeth and go to the CR before going to bed. Bye.” She and pa went into the room to prepare mama’s purse and pick up papa’s wallet. They passed by and each placed kisses gently on all three of us. We packed our books back into our school bags, brushed our teeth, and went to bed. The night seemed darker that night.
I can never describe the way I went through my life after that. I lived through all of the routines without really living, eating the food set before me breakfast, lunch, and dinner without really tasting, and studying the lessons in class without really learning. Everything felt different. Now I realize I felt guilt. Guilty of never being there to visit Lolo. Guilty of never really loving Lolo. Guilty of never really knowing Lolo.
In his funeral, and even after his burial, I never cried. Never shed a tear for him. I never knew the reason why; I grieved, deep and honest down in my heart, but I never saw the need to cry, never felt the need to break down. I was the Ahia of my family, I must be strong, for I am strong…
The loss of Lolo always stuck to my mind, to the extent that every time I see my living grandparents in my father’s side, I try to channel the love and attention I should have given him to them. Always, I am hounded by thoughts of regret over the times I’ve wasted, feeling the cold breath of loss at the back of my neck, ready to pounce on me anytime. Never once do I stop and not think of the things I could’ve done for him, things we could’ve done together. I guess I thought he would be an ever-present entity in my life; that the thought of him dying was impossible and that I would always have time in the future to bond with him. I hope he could still see me from where he now is, looking on forgivingly at me, knowing that I’ve always loved him.
Memory can always be a book one can look over and read time and time again, after finding it worthwhile and quite remarkable. Sometimes though, memory can be a plague, a haunting, an unpleasant dream that haunts you, keeps you fighting, competing, and proving yourself to the world when everybody else tells you there is nothing to prove. It can also be a beast, prowling behind you, gnawing at your heart whenever you let your guard down and think back to your wrongs, to the things you could’ve done differently. It stalks, it waits, it haunts. Memory is a bittersweet thing; I guess it only depends on which things we look at that decides when it will start to hound us, and where we choose to look that matters.
Essay: On Tolerance
On Tolerance
Our society has always been divided up into two: the side of the majority and that of the minority. They may be separated by the ideals they choose to hold on to, by the faith that they stand on, by the culture that may be their grounds for difference, or any other that may mark their uniqueness to the other.
All throughout history, the world has progressed from the oppression of the minority to the gradual consideration given to them. In the past, people were killed for being different from most others. Usually this difference gave rise to a conflict between these two factions and obviously the side with the greater number and strength overpowers the few. In our present times, we try to address the mistakes that happened in the past by becoming more lenient toward those different from us. We now see the minority as more or less equally treated with the majority. Most of the time, we see special consideration and treatment given to those who choose to be different out of respect to their choice. All this respect has been healthy and essential for a growing civilization such as the world we have today, but when we start to see a kink to this system, this demand for respect and tolerance might be in the way of seeing it through for the good of everybody.
Our modern world of democracy and freedom has always taught us that each is entitled to his own opinion and choice, with the set of rights granted us by our sophisticated society, but what if one’s choice harms that of another?
A great example that can be cited to the flaw of this respect system is the global stand on smoking and the freedom smokers have to enjoy their ‘rights’. As everybody knows, smoking harms the body by destroying the respiratory system through inhaling smoke, and the damage brought about by this activity not only falls to the individual who chose to indulge himself in his choice but also to those innocent people around him. A world survey determined that the number of people who chose not to smoke was still greater than that of those who did. Does this mean that the majority bends for the minority and along the way suffer damage they did not deserve? Another study indicated that the number of people who were harmed by lung cancer but are not smokers themselves is growing, at almost equal with that of those who only reap what they sow. A common known fact about lung cancer is that the severity of lung cancer eventually suffered by second-hand smokers (passive smokers, or the bystanders around the smoker) is greater than the damage sustained by first-hand smokers (or the people who actually smoke). Knowing this fact, we are all exposed flatly not only to lung cancer (as grave as it is) but also to other not-so-common respiratory infections that are as deadly as the former.
We’ve read this topic discussed in health magazines time and again but what kept me on this subject is the fact that the people who choose to smoke and even fight for their ‘right’ (for they say they have the ‘right’ to choose to pollute the environment and destroy their physical well-being in the process) disregard the fact that the people around them also have rights, specifically the right to have and live in a clean and smoke-free environment. What they seem to forget is that this is not only a fight of who gets to do what freely, but of who gets to suffer what even without having done anything to deserve it.
Allowing the minority to continue to endanger the welfare of the majority is just absurd. This goes beyond respect and steps over the line of stupidity. This tolerance that we give so freely put the majority in harm’s way, reflecting a society that chooses to please and be politically correct than being protective and geared towards the welfare of all.
Another great example of the flaws in this demand for understanding is the new ‘No Religious Activities in School’ policy approved by the American Department of Education to be issued in their public schools. This recent rule prevents students to practice their faith in school and allows the school to give punishments to students who gather in groups to talk and act on any practice relating to their faith. According to the US Department of Education, this new rule merely emphasizes the difference between state and religion. This was supposedly an answer to complains of the non-Christian minority of parents and students against the prevalent religious activity of Christian communities in schools.
Predominantly Christian, students are now banned from talking of their faith to other students, and showing any religious inclination toward students of other religions. This greatly affects the Christian community of students since their faith is to be lived by daily, that in everything they do, their faith should be a great part of it. This new rule smothers the very foundations of Christianity, which is sharing the Word of God and praying to God in every chance available, and is, on the other hand, quite favorable to the Atheist community, since they have no faith to practice at all. If this rule was to be for the good of all (since policies are made in the purpose of making life better), why then is it suppressing the student’s moral choices? Should millions of Christian children live under the fear of being caught standing on their faith while a handful of non-Christian students savor the absence of ‘annoying’ little clusters? If the policy were to be for the good of all, it would have left the majority and the minority alone to practice their faith anytime as long as they do not force it upon others and maintain a sense of respect towards each other. If it were to be for the welfare of everybody, it should not have chosen one side over the other.
Sadly, times have now changed to favor the minority over the majority. In compensation for the narrow-mindedness of the past, the present tries to please the once slave-driven, persecuted minority. It values the demand of the minority for respect and compromises the majority to do the former’s bidding. In everyone’s efforts to be politically correct and ‘fair’ to everyone else, they have set aside morality and welfare to be considered understanding and respectful. In a desire to go the way ‘sophistication and the modernization of our times lead to’, they disregard the need to be truly just and fair. I guess this gradual tilting of our world to ‘social diversity and consideration’ is the only way to go as pointed by the changing times.
Our society has always been divided up into two: the side of the majority and that of the minority. They may be separated by the ideals they choose to hold on to, by the faith that they stand on, by the culture that may be their grounds for difference, or any other that may mark their uniqueness to the other.
All throughout history, the world has progressed from the oppression of the minority to the gradual consideration given to them. In the past, people were killed for being different from most others. Usually this difference gave rise to a conflict between these two factions and obviously the side with the greater number and strength overpowers the few. In our present times, we try to address the mistakes that happened in the past by becoming more lenient toward those different from us. We now see the minority as more or less equally treated with the majority. Most of the time, we see special consideration and treatment given to those who choose to be different out of respect to their choice. All this respect has been healthy and essential for a growing civilization such as the world we have today, but when we start to see a kink to this system, this demand for respect and tolerance might be in the way of seeing it through for the good of everybody.
Our modern world of democracy and freedom has always taught us that each is entitled to his own opinion and choice, with the set of rights granted us by our sophisticated society, but what if one’s choice harms that of another?
A great example that can be cited to the flaw of this respect system is the global stand on smoking and the freedom smokers have to enjoy their ‘rights’. As everybody knows, smoking harms the body by destroying the respiratory system through inhaling smoke, and the damage brought about by this activity not only falls to the individual who chose to indulge himself in his choice but also to those innocent people around him. A world survey determined that the number of people who chose not to smoke was still greater than that of those who did. Does this mean that the majority bends for the minority and along the way suffer damage they did not deserve? Another study indicated that the number of people who were harmed by lung cancer but are not smokers themselves is growing, at almost equal with that of those who only reap what they sow. A common known fact about lung cancer is that the severity of lung cancer eventually suffered by second-hand smokers (passive smokers, or the bystanders around the smoker) is greater than the damage sustained by first-hand smokers (or the people who actually smoke). Knowing this fact, we are all exposed flatly not only to lung cancer (as grave as it is) but also to other not-so-common respiratory infections that are as deadly as the former.
We’ve read this topic discussed in health magazines time and again but what kept me on this subject is the fact that the people who choose to smoke and even fight for their ‘right’ (for they say they have the ‘right’ to choose to pollute the environment and destroy their physical well-being in the process) disregard the fact that the people around them also have rights, specifically the right to have and live in a clean and smoke-free environment. What they seem to forget is that this is not only a fight of who gets to do what freely, but of who gets to suffer what even without having done anything to deserve it.
Allowing the minority to continue to endanger the welfare of the majority is just absurd. This goes beyond respect and steps over the line of stupidity. This tolerance that we give so freely put the majority in harm’s way, reflecting a society that chooses to please and be politically correct than being protective and geared towards the welfare of all.
Another great example of the flaws in this demand for understanding is the new ‘No Religious Activities in School’ policy approved by the American Department of Education to be issued in their public schools. This recent rule prevents students to practice their faith in school and allows the school to give punishments to students who gather in groups to talk and act on any practice relating to their faith. According to the US Department of Education, this new rule merely emphasizes the difference between state and religion. This was supposedly an answer to complains of the non-Christian minority of parents and students against the prevalent religious activity of Christian communities in schools.
Predominantly Christian, students are now banned from talking of their faith to other students, and showing any religious inclination toward students of other religions. This greatly affects the Christian community of students since their faith is to be lived by daily, that in everything they do, their faith should be a great part of it. This new rule smothers the very foundations of Christianity, which is sharing the Word of God and praying to God in every chance available, and is, on the other hand, quite favorable to the Atheist community, since they have no faith to practice at all. If this rule was to be for the good of all (since policies are made in the purpose of making life better), why then is it suppressing the student’s moral choices? Should millions of Christian children live under the fear of being caught standing on their faith while a handful of non-Christian students savor the absence of ‘annoying’ little clusters? If the policy were to be for the good of all, it would have left the majority and the minority alone to practice their faith anytime as long as they do not force it upon others and maintain a sense of respect towards each other. If it were to be for the welfare of everybody, it should not have chosen one side over the other.
Sadly, times have now changed to favor the minority over the majority. In compensation for the narrow-mindedness of the past, the present tries to please the once slave-driven, persecuted minority. It values the demand of the minority for respect and compromises the majority to do the former’s bidding. In everyone’s efforts to be politically correct and ‘fair’ to everyone else, they have set aside morality and welfare to be considered understanding and respectful. In a desire to go the way ‘sophistication and the modernization of our times lead to’, they disregard the need to be truly just and fair. I guess this gradual tilting of our world to ‘social diversity and consideration’ is the only way to go as pointed by the changing times.
Dialogue: A Little Sit-Down with Dr. Sun
A Little Sit-Down with Dr. Sun
From a cancelled regular therapy session, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, China’s national hero and liberator from a 3000 year imperial rule, takes a break from his perfect afterlife and visits an admirer in the 21st century.
Slowly, a shape appears and a form is discernable amidst a swirling of dust and light.
Gershom: Whoah! Cool!
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, whole and smiling, appears after an amazing spectacle of lights.
Dr. Sun: Thank you. Not so many people get to appreciate it nowadays. They either run or just stay there affixed, too dumbfounded to speak.
Gershom: It really was cool! Thank you for coming by the way.
Dr. Sun: It’s nothing. Anyway, my psychiatrist was out today; didn’t even inform me in advance, the fool.
Gershom: Oh, there are psychiatrists up there?
Dr. Sun: There still are, son.
Gershom: (turning serious) Anyway, what I want to say first of all, Dr. Sun, is that you really have been such an inspiration to me after all you’ve done for China and Democracy! Nationalism even.
Dr. Sun: Really now? Thank you for saying so. I’ve never thought my admirers would even include the turn-of-the-millennium generation.
Gershom: Well, they do.
Dr. Sun: Son, you know, my biggest regret was dying.
Gershom: Why? I mean, Dr. Sun, you’ve lived a full life with unparalleled achievements that inspired the whole of Asia.
Dr. Sun: I know, but what I wanted was to live long enough to see the arrival of the new millennium.
Gershom: Why is that?
Dr. Sun: Well, first, it’s supposed to give great luck to those who witness it. I’ve even heard from colleagues now with me in the afterlife that the coming of the new millennium grants a person’s one wish, any wish. Second, I figure I’ll need to be up-to-date in style. I was a pioneer of fashion during my time, you know; imagine the whole of China, Japan even, waiting for my next outfit every time I appear for press.
Gershom: Really? (rolls eyes in disbelief) I have not heard of that tradition you mentioned first though, and the second is just plain unbelievable.
Dr. Sun: Oh, thinking about it now, it’s another one of those craps Mao Tze Tong sold to the people with his revolution. Haay… To think I almost fell for that! (sighs in frustration)
Gershom: I see you’ve still got some anger.
Dr. Sun: Obviously! (gets an attitude) Duuh…
Gershom: Attitude alert. (rolls eyes again) Anyway, can’t you just forgive him for driving you and your government out of China? I mean, past is past, dude…
Dr. Sun: Oh, that? That was nothing. If that was the only reason to hate him then I’ve already forgiven him long ago, fast and easy.
Gershom: Then why still harbor so much hatred?
Dr. Sun: Well, first, to tell you the truth, he was a better (gestures with his middle and pointer finger from the right and left hand) ‘husband’ than I ever was.
Gershom: What do you mean? (eyebrows raise with a curious look) You were a loving husband; according to Mrs. Sun, gentle and kind even.
Dr. Sun: Exactly! That’s the problem. I was too ‘gentle and kind’. You know what my wife used to call me after our first night together?
Gershom: What?
Dr. Sun: 老松 (Lao song)! Old softie! I never got to satisfy her in bed!
Gershom: My goodness, Dr. Sun. I didn’t know you’re this open about your marriage.
Dr. Sun: What do you expect? I’m dead so that’s no matter. Anyway, I never knew how Mao got to be so good at it.
Gershom: At what?
Dr. Sun: Oh, I don’t know if I should tell you this. You’re just an impressionable young adult, better leave things for you to discover and explore.
Gershom: (totally interested) Oh, come on. Don’t be shy.
Dr. Sun: Oh, alright. Since we’ve been talking about it, I guess, what the heck. Well, did you know that old man Mao had a lot of women?
Gershom: You mean, lovers?
Dr. Sun: No! Those women didn’t love him. He ordered his guards to drag them in his chambers. My colleagues tell me he’s had about seven hundred just before he had enough.
Gershom: Really? (now totally immersed in the discussion)
Dr. Sun: Yes. And the problem is, he was ten years my senior! He was practically an old man and still was a lot better! (total sarcasm) What did he have for tea, soup number 5?
Gershom: (lost) Soup number 5?
Dr. Sun: (matter-of-factly) You know, the murky soup with ginseng, chicken guts, chili pepper, and male deer genitals, balls and all.
Gershom: (completely disgusted and nauseous, previous curiosity totally gone) Whoah… Oh, yuck! (trembles with disgust)
Dr. Sun: Get used to it, son! That’s life for a man. Someday, you’ll have to drink medicine just to let yourself feel anything, change your diet just to maintain your virility, and ultimately, wake it up, slap it down, tug it hard and…
Gershom: (cuts in) My goodness, I’m totally disgusted at the moment. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation, with you!
Dr. Sun: Oh, well, that soup never worked on me anyway. Tried it a couple of times; all that bitter aftertaste and moist chewy genitals in my mouth for nothing. (looks defeated)
Gershom: Whoah! (on the peak of disgust and about to throw up) Dr. Sun, too much info here! (tries to maintain control) Can we just move on to your next reason for hating Mao?
Dr. Sun: Fine then, you were the one who got me talking about it in the first place.
Gershom: I don’t think I’ll be eating for days after this. (still nauseous)
Dr. Sun: Sorry, hope didn’t rattle you too much. (apologetic)
Gershom: Oh, it’s no problem. (in control of desire to purge at last) I get these things all the time.
Dr. Sun: So anyway, the second reason I hate Mao so is that he was such a copycat!
Gershom: (once again, lost) A copycat?
Dr. Sun: Yes! First, he steals my strategy: revolution. He gets people aroused with anger and complains about my leadership. The next thing I know, I’m out of China and he’s starting he’s ‘Hundred Flowers’ Revolution. A pretty stupid name for a futile movement, if you ask me. Next, he totally steals my fashion statement! (snaps fingers in a circular motion three times, like a black American girl with attitude)
Gershom: You mean the traditional Sun Chong uniform? The one with the stiff Chinese collar and the lame bleak design?
Dr. Sun: Yes. It was my design, I patented it! It was both practical yet sophisticated. You could wear it to work and be comfortable while being totally hip and sexy all at once!
Gershom: Totally boring if you ask me.
Dr. Sun: No one’s asking you, stupid boy! (attitude again) You won’t see fashion even if it hits you right across your face! (does the snapping thing again)
Gershom: Attitude overload! (rolls eyes yet again) So much drama. Fine. (tries to appease) I guess I don’t know fashion as you do.
Dr. Sun: Anyway, he totally stole my look. Style-stealer that he was; he even made it his signature outfit, used in every press appearance.
Gershom: Well, hearing it from my point of view, these things are quite trivial, and I believe you can get over all of them easy. (sympathetic)
Dr. Sun: I know; I know I have issues. I try to change, all right? That’s why I allow my psychiatrist to charge me ridiculous amounts of heaven money for sessions. (as if in compensation) I really try to change, honey; I do. (said ‘honey’ as a black American mother might say to her daughter)
Gershom: That’s good. Thank you for your time, Dr. Sun. I have to say, it’s been quite insightful, this little chat of ours. Now, I think it’s time I get my own psychiatrist, one that’s alive that is. (turns to leave)
Dr. Sun Yat Sen, pleased to have satisfied an admirer, vanishes in a similar swirling of dust and light.
From a cancelled regular therapy session, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, China’s national hero and liberator from a 3000 year imperial rule, takes a break from his perfect afterlife and visits an admirer in the 21st century.
Slowly, a shape appears and a form is discernable amidst a swirling of dust and light.
Gershom: Whoah! Cool!
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, whole and smiling, appears after an amazing spectacle of lights.
Dr. Sun: Thank you. Not so many people get to appreciate it nowadays. They either run or just stay there affixed, too dumbfounded to speak.
Gershom: It really was cool! Thank you for coming by the way.
Dr. Sun: It’s nothing. Anyway, my psychiatrist was out today; didn’t even inform me in advance, the fool.
Gershom: Oh, there are psychiatrists up there?
Dr. Sun: There still are, son.
Gershom: (turning serious) Anyway, what I want to say first of all, Dr. Sun, is that you really have been such an inspiration to me after all you’ve done for China and Democracy! Nationalism even.
Dr. Sun: Really now? Thank you for saying so. I’ve never thought my admirers would even include the turn-of-the-millennium generation.
Gershom: Well, they do.
Dr. Sun: Son, you know, my biggest regret was dying.
Gershom: Why? I mean, Dr. Sun, you’ve lived a full life with unparalleled achievements that inspired the whole of Asia.
Dr. Sun: I know, but what I wanted was to live long enough to see the arrival of the new millennium.
Gershom: Why is that?
Dr. Sun: Well, first, it’s supposed to give great luck to those who witness it. I’ve even heard from colleagues now with me in the afterlife that the coming of the new millennium grants a person’s one wish, any wish. Second, I figure I’ll need to be up-to-date in style. I was a pioneer of fashion during my time, you know; imagine the whole of China, Japan even, waiting for my next outfit every time I appear for press.
Gershom: Really? (rolls eyes in disbelief) I have not heard of that tradition you mentioned first though, and the second is just plain unbelievable.
Dr. Sun: Oh, thinking about it now, it’s another one of those craps Mao Tze Tong sold to the people with his revolution. Haay… To think I almost fell for that! (sighs in frustration)
Gershom: I see you’ve still got some anger.
Dr. Sun: Obviously! (gets an attitude) Duuh…
Gershom: Attitude alert. (rolls eyes again) Anyway, can’t you just forgive him for driving you and your government out of China? I mean, past is past, dude…
Dr. Sun: Oh, that? That was nothing. If that was the only reason to hate him then I’ve already forgiven him long ago, fast and easy.
Gershom: Then why still harbor so much hatred?
Dr. Sun: Well, first, to tell you the truth, he was a better (gestures with his middle and pointer finger from the right and left hand) ‘husband’ than I ever was.
Gershom: What do you mean? (eyebrows raise with a curious look) You were a loving husband; according to Mrs. Sun, gentle and kind even.
Dr. Sun: Exactly! That’s the problem. I was too ‘gentle and kind’. You know what my wife used to call me after our first night together?
Gershom: What?
Dr. Sun: 老松 (Lao song)! Old softie! I never got to satisfy her in bed!
Gershom: My goodness, Dr. Sun. I didn’t know you’re this open about your marriage.
Dr. Sun: What do you expect? I’m dead so that’s no matter. Anyway, I never knew how Mao got to be so good at it.
Gershom: At what?
Dr. Sun: Oh, I don’t know if I should tell you this. You’re just an impressionable young adult, better leave things for you to discover and explore.
Gershom: (totally interested) Oh, come on. Don’t be shy.
Dr. Sun: Oh, alright. Since we’ve been talking about it, I guess, what the heck. Well, did you know that old man Mao had a lot of women?
Gershom: You mean, lovers?
Dr. Sun: No! Those women didn’t love him. He ordered his guards to drag them in his chambers. My colleagues tell me he’s had about seven hundred just before he had enough.
Gershom: Really? (now totally immersed in the discussion)
Dr. Sun: Yes. And the problem is, he was ten years my senior! He was practically an old man and still was a lot better! (total sarcasm) What did he have for tea, soup number 5?
Gershom: (lost) Soup number 5?
Dr. Sun: (matter-of-factly) You know, the murky soup with ginseng, chicken guts, chili pepper, and male deer genitals, balls and all.
Gershom: (completely disgusted and nauseous, previous curiosity totally gone) Whoah… Oh, yuck! (trembles with disgust)
Dr. Sun: Get used to it, son! That’s life for a man. Someday, you’ll have to drink medicine just to let yourself feel anything, change your diet just to maintain your virility, and ultimately, wake it up, slap it down, tug it hard and…
Gershom: (cuts in) My goodness, I’m totally disgusted at the moment. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation, with you!
Dr. Sun: Oh, well, that soup never worked on me anyway. Tried it a couple of times; all that bitter aftertaste and moist chewy genitals in my mouth for nothing. (looks defeated)
Gershom: Whoah! (on the peak of disgust and about to throw up) Dr. Sun, too much info here! (tries to maintain control) Can we just move on to your next reason for hating Mao?
Dr. Sun: Fine then, you were the one who got me talking about it in the first place.
Gershom: I don’t think I’ll be eating for days after this. (still nauseous)
Dr. Sun: Sorry, hope didn’t rattle you too much. (apologetic)
Gershom: Oh, it’s no problem. (in control of desire to purge at last) I get these things all the time.
Dr. Sun: So anyway, the second reason I hate Mao so is that he was such a copycat!
Gershom: (once again, lost) A copycat?
Dr. Sun: Yes! First, he steals my strategy: revolution. He gets people aroused with anger and complains about my leadership. The next thing I know, I’m out of China and he’s starting he’s ‘Hundred Flowers’ Revolution. A pretty stupid name for a futile movement, if you ask me. Next, he totally steals my fashion statement! (snaps fingers in a circular motion three times, like a black American girl with attitude)
Gershom: You mean the traditional Sun Chong uniform? The one with the stiff Chinese collar and the lame bleak design?
Dr. Sun: Yes. It was my design, I patented it! It was both practical yet sophisticated. You could wear it to work and be comfortable while being totally hip and sexy all at once!
Gershom: Totally boring if you ask me.
Dr. Sun: No one’s asking you, stupid boy! (attitude again) You won’t see fashion even if it hits you right across your face! (does the snapping thing again)
Gershom: Attitude overload! (rolls eyes yet again) So much drama. Fine. (tries to appease) I guess I don’t know fashion as you do.
Dr. Sun: Anyway, he totally stole my look. Style-stealer that he was; he even made it his signature outfit, used in every press appearance.
Gershom: Well, hearing it from my point of view, these things are quite trivial, and I believe you can get over all of them easy. (sympathetic)
Dr. Sun: I know; I know I have issues. I try to change, all right? That’s why I allow my psychiatrist to charge me ridiculous amounts of heaven money for sessions. (as if in compensation) I really try to change, honey; I do. (said ‘honey’ as a black American mother might say to her daughter)
Gershom: That’s good. Thank you for your time, Dr. Sun. I have to say, it’s been quite insightful, this little chat of ours. Now, I think it’s time I get my own psychiatrist, one that’s alive that is. (turns to leave)
Dr. Sun Yat Sen, pleased to have satisfied an admirer, vanishes in a similar swirling of dust and light.
Narrative Essay: A Little Boy Who Fell Down from Heaven
A Little Boy who fell down from Heaven
My angel.
My comfort and joy incarnate.
Oh, it was months—no, years—that I prayed for him. Prostrate by the bed, I asked the Lord for him. I pleaded with my young lips; with juvenile reasoning and youthful yearning, I presented the matter point-blank to the listening Almighty, necessity driving boldness driving desperation. I wanted a brother—no, I needed a brother, another boy to play with, share pranks with. I wanted to be needed, looked up to. I had all the toys a boy could ever want; sure, they filled my time shortly after purchase, but what of two weeks after? A new toy then? No. My robot couldn’t answer me back when I talked to it. My miniature kitchen set couldn’t even cook real food. (I tried it once after watching how Ma did it in the big kitchen. I poured a little oil over the plastic skillet as she did. I looked for the knob-thing that switched the flames on, and when I found mine, no matter how many times I turned it, it wouldn’t give. After a few more times, I gave up.) I needed a toy that was walking, talking, breathing, moving, jumping, crying, dancing, giggling. I needed a brother.
He arrived, huge, round, and covered in a woolen blanket, as pink, plump, and perfect as a baby could ever be. If the stork flew him inside the house, it would’ve had a tough time getting in with all the broken glass shards on the edge of the walls. Not to mention the baby’s weight when he came into this world. An enormous 9 pounds of skin, fat, and bones.
Back from our ancestral home in Malabon (we were sent to our grandparents to be cared for while Ma and Pa were in the hospital), I couldn’t have ran fast enough as my heart started to thump in vigorous drum beats knowing my much-awaited prayer was finally inside. I flew out the car, over the driveway, and into the house. The house helps tried to plead with me not to make so much noise as I entered the living room, but my mind was so filled with the desire to see my new present that it was just impossible to pay them any attention. I took my shoes off in a scurry, dropped them by the door and on the floor to abide to Ma’s rule, and ran for dear life towards the bedroom across the hall. I knew they were keeping him there because a maid just came out of the room carrying some blankets and an empty milk bottle.
With my socks still on, I drew a deep breath, closed my eyes and mouthed a quick prayer (well, just in case my baby brother didn’t turn out the way I dreamt he would, I still had to thank the Lord), noiselessly turning the door knob. I tiptoed into the room and tried to avoid looking at the bed and what lay on it just yet. Ma was already up, walking to me with misting eyes filled with joy and love. She whispered to my ear, with a soft voice (which was and still is not natural to her) just enough for me to hear, ‘Ahia, your prayer’s there, lying on the bed. He’s awake now, just woke up a few minutes before I heard you come in. I think he knew you were coming. Go ahead and take a look at your Shoti.’ My heart was beating so fast she must’ve heard it, for she gently rubbed my back as I approached the bed. I never knew that there existed such love as great as that inside my heart when I first laid my eyes on him. An eight-year old boy could never have understood.
Rosy red in the cheeks, snowy white in complexion, and a body with rolls and rolls of fat as that of the Michelin Tires icon, this Pilsbury gift caught my eye, heart, and soul. His giggles would never escape me, prodding me on to laugh with him for no other reason but the music of his cackle. His heavy, sac-like cheeks that seemed to be always filled with food (only that it was not food that filled it but sheer fat), tempted me to maddening fits of what we Filipinos call gigil. Those almond-shaped eyes peeked from beneath delicate eyelids, opening and closing with the fluttering of eyelashes like butterfly wings. In each rise and fall of this gentle infant’s laughter, I heard God’s word. In each periodic heave of his chest, I saw God’s love. In each shuffling this tot did as he lay there on the bed, I felt God’s touch. God was there, all the time, and I knew it. I sensed it from the moment little John Peter came into my life.
The days that came after that were just so filled with wonder; it would be inadequate for a novel of a thousand pages or even more to describe what joy each new day brought. I would snuggle up to him as he took his afternoon nap and just hold him by me, feeling the warmth of his body. I would never have dared to play with his limbs for fear of breaking them as I had done to my old action figures. (Many times I have cried over action figures that had lost their limbs when I spun them round and round just for the fun of it. One loss that haunts me till now is my Power Rangers First Edition Mega-Robot. It had those nice retractable arms and functional legs that made it so much fun to play with. It could be disassembled into the five animal robots that joint together to form it. It was the envy of my play group. In those years, when a kid had it, he was considered cool.) I only got around to holding him on my arms positioned as a cradle when Ma taught me how to do it the right way.
Soon enough, after that brief lesson in child-cradling, I held him for hours on end, touring him around the house. I brought him to the living room, dining room, kitchen, and the bedrooms, telling him which was which along the way. I would go on to give him these tours everyday, waiting for the day he learns how to walk and is old enough to run around and play with me. I was so ready to share my toys with him that, I believe, if my playmates found out they would think I was losing it.
Before I knew it, he was running around, chasing me with my water gun that was never loaded with water (for Ma would just have run amok if the floors were dirtied). He would shriek as he caught me in a corner and shot me with invisible water. I would feign death and drop to the floor, not moving a muscle until he reached for me and checked if I was okay. I would stay there like that for a couple of minutes to make him nervous then come back to life with a jump and startle him to shrieks of surprise. He would laugh all the way back to our room as I chased him with the water gun in my hand and made squirting sound with my mouth. We would play like this for the rest of the time after I got home from school everyday. These hours of running around with the water gun or sitting around, playing with my old toys were the times I would look forward to in a day.
There was just no dull moment or unmemorable day with my new baby brother. He soon went to school himself and spent less time at home, but as soon as I came home from school everyday, I knew he would be home waiting for me. There would be less and less time for playing but I still spent my whole afternoons with him, helping him with his homework or helping him review his new lesson. I would put him to sleep every night and lay beside him to gaze on his bulging cheeks and closed eyelids, sleeping hours after he’s dozed off, playing in dreamland. I would pray every night, thanking God for giving me such an adorable gift, and for giving me a wonderful reason to believe in Him for the rest of my life.
Now, nine years after that fateful span of bliss, pretty much nothing has changed. I still feel the same way every time he laughs, plays around, and snuggles against me every night. His giggles still resound in my heart long after its music fades, his kisses on my cheek still glow with warmth long after they’re wiped off with a towelette. His mischievous stares still amuse me till now.
His cheeks may not bulge as greatly as before. His form may not conform to the design of the Michelin tire icon. He may wear glasses over his almond-shaped eyes now. He may have lost a little of the weight that served as his buoys in infancy. His fingers may be longer now and a lot less sausage-like as when he was but a wee toddler. He may be flooding me with questions about Emilio Aguinaldo, Ninoy Aquino, Ramon Magsaysay, and the other lot of them for his Sibika assignment instead of just staring at me, bemused with my pick-a-boo trick, and cackling at the slightest tickle. His grip may be a lot stronger now than when I first slipped a finger on his palm. He may be trying to peek at what I am typing now, curious to read what I am doing a few minutes before bedtime, as opposed to just staring blankly at the flashing screen when he was still a baby. He may be a little disobedient now, especially in sending him to bed at nine, as compared to the automatic sleeping habit he had before. He may be all this and a less of that, but I love him just the same, if not, even greater.
“I’ll love you forever
I’ll like you for always
Whatever may happen
My baby you’ll be”
My comfort and joy incarnate.
My angel.
My angel.
My comfort and joy incarnate.
Oh, it was months—no, years—that I prayed for him. Prostrate by the bed, I asked the Lord for him. I pleaded with my young lips; with juvenile reasoning and youthful yearning, I presented the matter point-blank to the listening Almighty, necessity driving boldness driving desperation. I wanted a brother—no, I needed a brother, another boy to play with, share pranks with. I wanted to be needed, looked up to. I had all the toys a boy could ever want; sure, they filled my time shortly after purchase, but what of two weeks after? A new toy then? No. My robot couldn’t answer me back when I talked to it. My miniature kitchen set couldn’t even cook real food. (I tried it once after watching how Ma did it in the big kitchen. I poured a little oil over the plastic skillet as she did. I looked for the knob-thing that switched the flames on, and when I found mine, no matter how many times I turned it, it wouldn’t give. After a few more times, I gave up.) I needed a toy that was walking, talking, breathing, moving, jumping, crying, dancing, giggling. I needed a brother.
He arrived, huge, round, and covered in a woolen blanket, as pink, plump, and perfect as a baby could ever be. If the stork flew him inside the house, it would’ve had a tough time getting in with all the broken glass shards on the edge of the walls. Not to mention the baby’s weight when he came into this world. An enormous 9 pounds of skin, fat, and bones.
Back from our ancestral home in Malabon (we were sent to our grandparents to be cared for while Ma and Pa were in the hospital), I couldn’t have ran fast enough as my heart started to thump in vigorous drum beats knowing my much-awaited prayer was finally inside. I flew out the car, over the driveway, and into the house. The house helps tried to plead with me not to make so much noise as I entered the living room, but my mind was so filled with the desire to see my new present that it was just impossible to pay them any attention. I took my shoes off in a scurry, dropped them by the door and on the floor to abide to Ma’s rule, and ran for dear life towards the bedroom across the hall. I knew they were keeping him there because a maid just came out of the room carrying some blankets and an empty milk bottle.
With my socks still on, I drew a deep breath, closed my eyes and mouthed a quick prayer (well, just in case my baby brother didn’t turn out the way I dreamt he would, I still had to thank the Lord), noiselessly turning the door knob. I tiptoed into the room and tried to avoid looking at the bed and what lay on it just yet. Ma was already up, walking to me with misting eyes filled with joy and love. She whispered to my ear, with a soft voice (which was and still is not natural to her) just enough for me to hear, ‘Ahia, your prayer’s there, lying on the bed. He’s awake now, just woke up a few minutes before I heard you come in. I think he knew you were coming. Go ahead and take a look at your Shoti.’ My heart was beating so fast she must’ve heard it, for she gently rubbed my back as I approached the bed. I never knew that there existed such love as great as that inside my heart when I first laid my eyes on him. An eight-year old boy could never have understood.
Rosy red in the cheeks, snowy white in complexion, and a body with rolls and rolls of fat as that of the Michelin Tires icon, this Pilsbury gift caught my eye, heart, and soul. His giggles would never escape me, prodding me on to laugh with him for no other reason but the music of his cackle. His heavy, sac-like cheeks that seemed to be always filled with food (only that it was not food that filled it but sheer fat), tempted me to maddening fits of what we Filipinos call gigil. Those almond-shaped eyes peeked from beneath delicate eyelids, opening and closing with the fluttering of eyelashes like butterfly wings. In each rise and fall of this gentle infant’s laughter, I heard God’s word. In each periodic heave of his chest, I saw God’s love. In each shuffling this tot did as he lay there on the bed, I felt God’s touch. God was there, all the time, and I knew it. I sensed it from the moment little John Peter came into my life.
The days that came after that were just so filled with wonder; it would be inadequate for a novel of a thousand pages or even more to describe what joy each new day brought. I would snuggle up to him as he took his afternoon nap and just hold him by me, feeling the warmth of his body. I would never have dared to play with his limbs for fear of breaking them as I had done to my old action figures. (Many times I have cried over action figures that had lost their limbs when I spun them round and round just for the fun of it. One loss that haunts me till now is my Power Rangers First Edition Mega-Robot. It had those nice retractable arms and functional legs that made it so much fun to play with. It could be disassembled into the five animal robots that joint together to form it. It was the envy of my play group. In those years, when a kid had it, he was considered cool.) I only got around to holding him on my arms positioned as a cradle when Ma taught me how to do it the right way.
Soon enough, after that brief lesson in child-cradling, I held him for hours on end, touring him around the house. I brought him to the living room, dining room, kitchen, and the bedrooms, telling him which was which along the way. I would go on to give him these tours everyday, waiting for the day he learns how to walk and is old enough to run around and play with me. I was so ready to share my toys with him that, I believe, if my playmates found out they would think I was losing it.
Before I knew it, he was running around, chasing me with my water gun that was never loaded with water (for Ma would just have run amok if the floors were dirtied). He would shriek as he caught me in a corner and shot me with invisible water. I would feign death and drop to the floor, not moving a muscle until he reached for me and checked if I was okay. I would stay there like that for a couple of minutes to make him nervous then come back to life with a jump and startle him to shrieks of surprise. He would laugh all the way back to our room as I chased him with the water gun in my hand and made squirting sound with my mouth. We would play like this for the rest of the time after I got home from school everyday. These hours of running around with the water gun or sitting around, playing with my old toys were the times I would look forward to in a day.
There was just no dull moment or unmemorable day with my new baby brother. He soon went to school himself and spent less time at home, but as soon as I came home from school everyday, I knew he would be home waiting for me. There would be less and less time for playing but I still spent my whole afternoons with him, helping him with his homework or helping him review his new lesson. I would put him to sleep every night and lay beside him to gaze on his bulging cheeks and closed eyelids, sleeping hours after he’s dozed off, playing in dreamland. I would pray every night, thanking God for giving me such an adorable gift, and for giving me a wonderful reason to believe in Him for the rest of my life.
Now, nine years after that fateful span of bliss, pretty much nothing has changed. I still feel the same way every time he laughs, plays around, and snuggles against me every night. His giggles still resound in my heart long after its music fades, his kisses on my cheek still glow with warmth long after they’re wiped off with a towelette. His mischievous stares still amuse me till now.
His cheeks may not bulge as greatly as before. His form may not conform to the design of the Michelin tire icon. He may wear glasses over his almond-shaped eyes now. He may have lost a little of the weight that served as his buoys in infancy. His fingers may be longer now and a lot less sausage-like as when he was but a wee toddler. He may be flooding me with questions about Emilio Aguinaldo, Ninoy Aquino, Ramon Magsaysay, and the other lot of them for his Sibika assignment instead of just staring at me, bemused with my pick-a-boo trick, and cackling at the slightest tickle. His grip may be a lot stronger now than when I first slipped a finger on his palm. He may be trying to peek at what I am typing now, curious to read what I am doing a few minutes before bedtime, as opposed to just staring blankly at the flashing screen when he was still a baby. He may be a little disobedient now, especially in sending him to bed at nine, as compared to the automatic sleeping habit he had before. He may be all this and a less of that, but I love him just the same, if not, even greater.
“I’ll love you forever
I’ll like you for always
Whatever may happen
My baby you’ll be”
My comfort and joy incarnate.
My angel.
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