I CALL MY approach tentative because, tentative often ended up as the final copy. And by the looks of it, tentative will get round to its bearings until confidence hits. Which shall have already mustered the mien of the water-tester there’s no more need to figure.
My account of the night that my family came to reclaim me, when supposedly all my friends that I wanted to surround me I’ve made sure have been ticked off before I let myself loose to have that one gathering register as one lucid bonding moment, never mind if at the outset I was already initially sparked by a pale pilsen, the first and the last that seemed to matter, for the rest took limbo as their inevitable, irresistible destination. There was no way I couldv’e mustered whatever trick necessary to filter any morsel that might attest that the bonding happened, was agreed to and prepared by those who wanted it to take place and with them right smack in the middle of it.
There’s no way I can ask God for anything except in trickles (truckloads being His norm which, before, I never bothered to abate). Our routine has gotten to be like this: After my lauds, I thank Him for everything. It’s been a, slow, sure, foray back into my stuff (during which bonding was a to-each-his-own packing) I said “Yay!” I found my earphone. Then I stopped there for He had filled my measure. What does a sick man really need but to get well; an incapacitated go-getter but to listen to God telling him to slow down; a reborn child of God but to be. I thank this second chance as one I might never have again (not to disparage His seventy-times-seven forgiveness) and will die by it.
I was almost finished with lunch it was superfluous already for anyone to say Lex ordered “sinampalukang manok” although I reacted necessarily and appreciatively I might have it later. I did and it was yummy until the last sip of the broth. I gave her the chance to make up. My uric acid was acting up (beef she recommended) I asked her to buy me colchicine. But the generics line was long. I prayed for healing for my gout and got through another night. It wasn’t entirely the beef’s fault since residual beer cannot be taken out of the equation.
They returned as soon as I finished lunch (a superb repeat of the corn soup plus fried bangus) the gout pill served as a belated palliative what with the all-too present pair of Ate Lisa’s glutas. After four hours, though, I didn’t risk popping the second pill without at least a sandwhich, which Renzo was quick to fix. So when Myrna asked how my gout was, I happily said still swollen but I froze its pain. She said she’ll ask Cita to cook pancakes for everyone. Another “Yay!”
Back from walking Bronson, soaked by the nightly downpour but (always) smart enough to shower it off, Alex asked how my foot was. “Still swollen, I said” and the exchange didn’t need elaboration.
From the goodness of her heart, Ate Jojie responded to my active icon and asked if I had a GCash account. I said I didn’t and she concluded her brief felicitation with the gentle nudge that I should be sleeping already. By now she’ll have surmised how gout renders the afflicted awake with a can’t-ignore throbbing pain, which freezing with the coldest water does not quite hack. But giving back to Him the glory, I thank Danny Tariman’s reflection which cured his headache faster than paracetamol did. Knowing Ate Jojie, although I was going to have the last word on our exchange, she gave me reason to smile that when I blurted out a sinner like me still meriting blessings, she naturally retorted that that is because there is no end to God’s mercy and kindness. How do you refute Gospel truth?
And so that pretty much segued my slowly-being-hatched plan of greeting Marie, my youngest brother Sunny’s common-law wife, a special 50th birthday felicitation, which I did as soon as I got comfy. Never organized, Sunny laughed remembering that Marie did invite me (quite exclusively and especially, which I just as soon declined for the impossibility of the prospect; they’re in Laguna, mind!). And I thanked God for her in his life before I greeted her separately specially. Not surprisingly, and obviously egged by libation, he called from Ritchie’s phone to carelessly ask how I was and blah-blah this and yadda-yadda that. I would’ve taken his blabber in stride but the reception was choppy and the phone kept conking out I gently thanked them for the effort and to keep up seizing Marie’s golden day.
And so the trickles trickled. Aes handed me a rubber-banded mix of note, reading material and get-well card from Ate Ela and husband Kuya Bert. Even as I wrote back my appreciation, I saw Marie’s message blink up. The law of attraction clearly at work. I was – still am – honest when I told Ate Ela she’s one person and persona who are going to figure in my memoir. A testament to my hiatus from storytelling to memory-making, my quick justification being stories are not as indelible as the heart that tugged the mind-string. Whereas stories can be as tall as the highest skyscraper but can the heart reach as high as that? When all it needs to pay heed to is the lowliness of the earth.
I wasn’t totally sold to my plan that Saturday is going to be our reunion so I thought that aloud to Ate Joann. Sort of preempting Sunday as the only choice left and I better be in all senses ready for all consequences, God never leaving the lead. After my 6 am breakfast, my right foot still swollen yet painless, I was convinced the reunion was going to be on Sunday. So be it. Perhaps God decided that it is time to give Lourdes, Ate Baby’s long-suffering Mom, rest. In brief succession, Ate Baby posted prayers for her getting out of a coma only to follow it up with prayers for the eternal repose of her soul. I immediately responded. My deepest sentiment directed at thanksgiving for their mutual suffering’s end.
Kuya Gemer is one nobly emerging character. Makulit, preempts and takes for granted his assumptions but that’s the way he is so par for the course. So he pleasantly surprised when the plan I hatched did not perturb him at all, only that the time I allocated for his fetching me was too early. Yet all the planning in the world would not have helped any because Myrna and Lex have already decided to not let me out because of the heightened, heightening scare the pandemic was generating afresh. The conclusive part of it is that he was in communication with Mona and according to her, the meeting is cancelled. I caught instantly Lex’s age-old (the pandemic has made us go through many stages it boggles the mind why normal is called new) concern for my age and health whatever defenses I may have prepared in dialoguing with them again became futile and unnecessary. They understood my desire to keep working for UCC and later appreciated why I finally decided to drop Fides. It was what I imagined our conversation would be. Healthy, pleasant, no hard feelings. Alex was glad we had it; I was, too. Aes coming out of the room and being touched by Myrna was the actual indication that a family was having a moment together and deriving moments out of it.
Another aspect of change I start to notice and highly take to heart is my voice. He has tempered me so pleasantly I may have to really shout if I wanted to be heard and noticed. It has assumed a conversational tone that’s equally patient and persevering there’s hardly room for argument or space to accommodate it. Most of all, my low register has lost its argumentative luster (so often in the past I gloat to describe as intense) it promises to attract instead of antagonize (I freely accept the term as the usual result of my dreadful charm in the past).
Owed to that, thoughts kind and warm now flood my mind, instead of the usual angst-ridden apprehension the devil always managed to put there, when all I needed to do was stay Satan. I know that the first wind seems hard so I’m bracing myself for the second and succeeding ones.
How worthwile it is to reflect on Bo Sanchez’ reflection last August 1 about the feelings that engulf you when scanning social media pictures. Anything you feel that is not ennobling is not supposed to accompany your surfing. This is very true with me; deleting pictures of gaiety and grandeur when they could all have been innocent sharing of basic joy, the resultant feeling emanating from basic envy I’ve started to eschew. It all starts with the self and, if it goes unchecked, will instill, infect and infest. It cannot – will never – be right so I’ve made a pledge to not open social media with a closed heart. I pray you develop this sense of communion with the community, too.
The next move, therefore, was almost like a positive puzzle piece waiting to be affixed to the grid. My letter of apology to good friend, mentor and UCC CEO Ate Jojie Marasigan was an act of faith and fulfillment that made the night fulfilled and the resignation letter, in spite of seeming, imagined odds (I could not retrieve the Board chat site; Kuya Nestor ultimately found it for me and quickly posted it; Ate Jojie reminded of the Fides email (why didn’t I think of it!) and the act became official, with one or two not being able to hold their sincere sentiments it was difficult to exhale. I did not anymore delete the copy I posted on the Fides Coop Officers (the document has become public and deletion might paint a color close to intrigue) so the puzzle came to completion beautifully. How else could a plan offered to God have evolved? Especially with the expert insight from a Coop veteran?
No negative preoccupation dared cross my littlest reverie yesterday. Each post relative to my resignation I welcomed with the ease of a public servant that has come to the end of his career, thoroughly discussed the move in light of the pandemic and its effects on his family (no more motives self-serving) and greatly taken into consideration the present, its consequences and the family situation. The latter significance stood out, made stronger by the dialogue done on the matter by the very people involved in the decision. God indeed never falters in His faithfulness.
The new covid challenge dares us to be more careful, loving and neighborly. The pandemic has never been more indiscriminate than at present and it doesn’t care for the lives lost and threatened. Let us pray for God’s goodness to grow in stubborn hearts and those who seem to take the danger for granted. Let us stem Satan’s joy in seeing our brothers perish and in pain by storming heaven, where true love reigns supreme. Amen.
2014 Copyright. Claretian Communications Foundation Inc
