For Grandparents Only

Parents are  not allowed to read this post. 

After a very early blood chem test in a hospital, I walk over to a nearby McDonald's for my breakfast.  It is still empty, except for a grandmother and her grandson in one corner and another grandmother with a granddaughter two tables away.

Both are intently seeing to the breakfast of their wards. Not knowing each other, the grandmas are both doing the same thing—shredding fried chicken, mixing it with rice, and feeding their grandchildren (about 4 years old), who are doing everything except sitting down, spoon by spoon. Subo is the term we use for spoon feeding.

I am more fascinated with what they're doing than with my own breakfast. O, grand parenting, Filipino style!

I'm guilty (I'd rather call it a privilege) of doing the same for 4-year-old Adrian when he was left with Tony and me for three days last year.

His parents have two meal rules: 1) he is to eat by himself, and 2) not watch TV.

Now comes the first mealtime; Adrian refuses to eat. He says he isn't hungry and continues playing and running around with Attorney, our dog. After much cajoling and promising him the moon, he sits down at the dining table but wiggles around. So what does grandma do?

Subo.

He now goes down his chair and crawls under it, making sounds like a superhero, but he finishes the first subo. So Amah is exceedingly encouraged and makes another successful subo.

Then she breaks the second rule! 

She motions Ate Vi, hovering just a breath away, to turn the TV on.  Adrian takes his seat and his eyes are riveted to the screen. After more subo after subo, his plate is clean!

Comes next mealtime.

Adrian: Amah, subo?

Amah: Sure, Adrian.

Adrian: Amah, TV?

Amah: Sure, Adrian.

When his parents arrive, they remark, "Adrian gained weight!"  Ate Vi (my loyal co-conspirator) and I look at each other, both trying hard not to look guilty.

O, the grand grace of grand parenting!

Come to think of it, we didn't break any rules, did we? When it comes to Adrian, Tony and I have absolutely no rules.

We just want to love this sweet, adorable boy, whom we pray will grow up loving and serving the same God who created him to be a part of our family.

A Test of Patience

God might have given me Shoo (not his real name) as a student to test my patience. He knows I have very little of it.

Shoo is not a Filipino, 6'4" at age 17, and like a gangly teener that he is, he has a stoop, especially when he talks to me.

Many of my students in the foreign university where I teach come from different countries, where English is hardly spoken. But after a month of English class, they come around quite easily. Before long, they gain many friends, excel, and become part of the here and now.

But Shoo is different. For him to understand me, I have to drawl (much slower than the allowed speed limit), use extravagant gestures, and put on histrionics. Sometimes I sing and dance.

Most of the time, Shoo asks what this or that word means. I'd tell him to look it up in his dictionary.

That's not what's frustrating about mentoring Shoo. In the beginning I thought his thoughts were elsewhere, and so I kept trying to bring him back to terra firma.  But he is  actually nowhere.  And that's a harder place to come from.

Each time I ask him a question, he answers, "I don't know." Or, "No." Or, "Nothing." His favorite, and probably his only, gesture is the shaking of his huge head.

I don't want to give up on you, I thought. But I said, “I don't know what to do with you!”

I've asked him all possible questions: What is it you really want to do? Do you have friends? Do you want to go back to your country? How do you want me to teach you? Did you read the reference book? Did you do your assignment? What are the things you want to know? What interests you? What is your favorite activity? Subject? Topic?  

Because of his difficulty with English, or his indifference to everything, or both, he is on a one-on-one tutorial program, where he has all the attention of the teacher, who adjusts to his learning pace.

Now I'm afraid that if our department chair asked about Shoo, I'd reply, "I don't know.” “No.” “Nothing.” 

Giving up? Or is my patience still holding?

I remember wild, unmanageable, deaf-mute-blind Helen Keller, who became the luminary that she was because of her teacher, Annie Sullivan (dubbed "The Miracle Worker" in a play and movie of the same title).

When I decided to teach part-time after leaving the corporate world, I dreamed of likewise becoming a miracle worker.

Shoo is nowhere near Helen Keller. He has all his faculties intact: hearing, seeing, talking.  He is as tame as she was fierce. He is as polite as she was bratty. Alas, there is only one teacher of note with godly patience: Annie Sullivan.

My dream has shrunk into a wish: a tad more grace to stretch my patience till the end of this term (which is next week).

All I  want is to continue encouraging Shoo to leave the nowhere land—and find himself where the rest of us are.

Elvis Madness

Elk's Club. Family. Nostalgia. Buffet dinner. Elvis music. Laughter.

This is the recipe for a yummy treat, courtesy of my cousin Faith and her husband Win. It was a bonus that Minna, my BCF (best cousin forever) from New York is in town; my sister Aie is in a rare lull from her dizzying travels around the globe; and my brother Dave and his wife Gladys are visiting from American Samoa. 

And then there was Tony, of course, who has been nicknamed “Elvis is alive” by our close kin.  

It was "Elk's Elvis Night for a Cause," a fund-raising project to support the Cerebral Palsy organization in the Philippines. 

Not one, but four Elvises showed up to regale us with numbers from Elvis' beginnings to his end. And what a riot it was!

As could be expected, we sang along, making people remark, “This table knows all the words!”  

 

We took countless photos,  and remembered the king of Rock 'n Roll who died 35 years ago, on August 16, 1977, but still very much alive in the many Elvis wannabes (from a 2-year-old toddler to seniors, male and female) all over the world.

It's a phenomenon that never ceases to amaze me. How can countless Elvis impersonators or ETAs (Elvis Tribute Artists), many of them born before his time, keep popping up, trying to duplicate his one-of a-kind tremolo and wearing his outlandish stage costumes and sideburns?

Is it because of the unique iconic status of Elvis that the ETAs have invaded socio-civic causes, literature, stage plays, film, television, and academe? 

Well, nobody knows for sure. But Elvis madness has not ebbed from the time he died over three decades ago until today.

What I personally think is that Elvis, the compleat entertainer, has left a legacy to his fans—wholesome entertainment with no expiry date. After all, he spent his entire life making people feel good and forget their cares, despite his own personal problems and pain.

I was not a great fan of Elvis (Frank Sinatra was my first boyfriend), but my husband and other people close to my heart, like my cousin Minna, are. 

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the evening listening to his danceable, singable songs, and remembering the way he performed them through the four ETAs.

Elvis madness gives a new dimension to the new e-term: viral.  His music infects his fans, who then infect his non-fans with pandemic joy that makes for a carefree bonding time.

A get-together with people in my generation allows one to act silly and be childlike, diminishing the cynicism that has crept into this world-weary planet.  

On an Elvis Night for a cause, grace finds its way to creep back into our hearts.

Hot n' Cold

Summer came rushing to assault and oppress us. 

Grrrr. The sweltering heat is not very good for the health. I've had this lingering sore throat for the past few days. And so do my friends.

I probably get the same amount of sweat while typing as when I am walking early in the morning.  I don't think I am exaggerating when I say:  you sit down, do nothing, and you sweat;  you look to your left and right, cross the street, and you get sunburned; you walk a few meters, rest awhile, and you get a heatstroke; you stay under the sun for an hour and you get hyperthermia or melt.

One radio announcer spooked me this morning when he said, "This summer, the elderly are prone to have a stroke, sunstroke, or heatstroke." He meant well, he was advising seniors to stay under the shade and drink plenty of fluids. 

Which are what I am trying to do, but failing. I have too many errands these days to keep me under the sun, and too little time to drink plenty of fluids.

Then I saw these photos on JB's blog. Beautiful, cool shots that make me miss Adrian (and of course his parents, too) and the cold weather.

This tiny 4-year-old can ski better than his parents.
 

Brrr. In that freezing landscape, there is also the danger of suffering from frostbite.

Now I am going to state a prosaic (or profound, depending on how you look at it) statement: there are pros and cons to every situation on earth, where a concept exists because it has an opposite. Bright and dark. Tall and short. Beautiful and ugly. Hot and cold. Pro and con. Grrr and brrr.

The only places where there are no pros and cons are not of this planet: heaven and hell. In heaven, everything is good and grace. In hell, everything is bad and disgrace.

That's probably why the Hon. Senator Miriam Santiago said that hell is not a geographical place. Going there is unthinkable. So the Hon. Senator explains further, it is a metaphor, which means the absence of God. And if it were a place, there is no one there.

Here's what the Bible says. Hell is:

“A place of outer darkness where there will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:51; 25:30)

“A place to be avoided even if it means losing the physical members of your body. (Matthew 18:8-9)

“A place where the fire is not quenched.” (Mark 9:43-48)

“A place of regret, torment in fire and no water.” (Luke 16:19-31)

I can't possibly win an argument over the Honorable Senator without sweating. Hell is a terrible geographical place.

And summer in geographical Philippines? Compared to hell, no sweat.

A Reason to Live

This year has brought on so many news I wish I didn't have to hear.  

Three close friends passed on one after another, and three more close friends have fallen into life-threatening illnesses. My prayer time has never been more fervent; my prayer for grace has never been more urgent.

Grace found me in a devotional I wrote two years ago with the same title—Grace Found Me. I was leafing through the book, which I intended to give as a gift to a friend, when this page spoke to me:

Reason for Living 

During my childhood, my uncle Astring told many stories of  World War II.  He would entertain us, nieces and nephews, complete with big gestures and sound effects, about how he had been tortured by the enemy, and how he had escaped death many times. 

"But God was with me and never left my side. We marched side by side to Bataan," he would say of the death march, which was the highlight of his war tales.  

As we grew up, his faith in God never wavered. When he reached his late seventies and felt the symptoms of aging, he kept saying, "I long to go home. Jesus is waiting for me."

His children and we would shush him up saying, there is still so much to live for. 

"I am homesick. I want to be in that beautiful place where Jesus lives with your Auntie Felicing [his wife], Nanang and Tatang [his parents] and . . . " he would name all the people in the clan who had passed on. 

Uncle Astring was one of the few remarkable people I have met who joyfully anticipated  dying. 

Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, had the same attitude about death. He said that the wonderful hope of dying kept him alive.  (Philippians 1:21) “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

The hope of seeing Jesus gave meaning to every moment of Paul's and my Uncle Astring's life.    

So many of us are afraid of dying. When we face a grave illness, we say with much dread, "I don't think I am ready to die yet."  How much better if we look at dying in the way Paul and my Uncle Astring did!
 
(Father, thank You for giving mankind the opportunity to be with You for eternity.  Help me look at dying the way the apostle Paul did.) 

FEAR: The Long and Short of It

The person I feared most, the person who made me tremble during face-to-face encounters, will no longer have to face me either.

I should be heaving a long sigh of relief, but I suddenly miss her.

I am speaking of my dentist, my husband's dentist, and my children's dentist of many, many years—Dr. G.

Her children finally prevailed upon her to retire after poking into patients' mouths for over 60 years. She is 80 something today.

One day last month JC went to see her but he was turned away with a warm good-bye. To my family, it was the end of an era.

Looking for a new dentist was like looking for a needle in (let me revise the idiom) a hectare of haystacks.  Thankfully, JC remembered, and sought out, his friend whose wife is also a dentist.

As I entered the new clinic, I thought I was zapped into Oz and Narnia.

Little did I know that dental clinics today are bright; seats become beds; drilling does not take forever; soothing music fills the air; laser lights are pointed into your teeth; and bibs and rinsing glasses are disposable. No whirring sounds, just a high-pitched extra-terrestrial tone, and the dentist has little time to hum or narrate how life has been.

When our new dentist Dr. P filled my cavity, she asked me who did my bridge. "Well done," she said. I thought it was a wonderful tribute to our 80+ old teeth doctor that a new generation dentist, reared on the latest in technology, would still marvel at something done without modern doodads years ago!

Who is better, our old dentist or new?

The new one scares me too, not less, but in much less time.

The old one scared me much, but she spent gentle time making the fear go away by telling stories of life and humming a familiar tune—in the process, she became an instrument in drilling in grace that enables us to build relationships. 

Old Dr. G will forever hold my deepest affection. Well, for as long I have teeth (those I have been born with and those I paid for).

Titanic and Singapore's Past

Museums take us back in time. They give us clues on how people came to be the way they are.

And that's where we spent most of our brief stay in Singapore. It was a bonus that seniors get a 50% discount and students (JR) are free. 

First stop was the Chinatown Heritage Centre, which houses a wealth of memories and untold stories of  migrants from China.

It traces the difficulties of the early settlers. The four evils—opium, prostitution, gambling, and drinking—that plagued the community are  presented so graphically the images had the power to shake us centuries after they happened.

Swinging to the opposite end of the spectrum, we visited the Peranakan Museum.  It shows remnants of an opulent lifestyle and traditions that are unheard of in this informal, anything-goes world today.

The Peranakans (Malay term meaning 'locally born') was a unique community of acculturated Chinese in Penang, Malacca and Singapore.

These affluent families, with a unique hybrid culture and customs, left behind a rich legacy of antiques, cuisine and language that are still part of Singapore’s living heritage.

Last stop was the “Titanic Artifact Exhibition” where we relived the grandeur and tragedy of the world's largest ship. It was held at the unusual, lotus-shaped building of the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands.

The exhibition features 275 artifacts recovered from the ship's wreckage. (Unfortunately, no photos were allowed here.) They are housed in galleries recreated to resemble iconic sections of the Ship. We went through key milestones in the Titanic's story—from conception, construction, and life on board.

“This exhibition has to have an iceberg!” Tony said while we toured the Class A quarters. “Otherwise, it isn't worth its salt.”

There was an iceberg! And there was a part where it simulated the sinking and underwater experience.

All told, the exhibitions cost us a bundle, but each one was worth its salt. The fun was great and  grace was free.

Master of Laws

JR's LL.M. graduation from New York University School of Law (NUS campus) was the reason Tony and I went to Singapore. But here I was, blogging about everything but the purpose for the trip.

Finally I get around to it.

The graduation, or convocation as it was called, was almost austere. There were 44 graduates from 24 countries, plus four university luminaries, a handful of aides, and about the same number of parents.  Except for the sporadic noise of a three-year-old who came with her grandmother, you could hear a pin drop. 

All the professors from NYU flown in to Singapore during the year had a short, meaningful message on video, and the Singapore Chief Justice made a brief, inspiring speech.

It was after the simple rites that the bedlam began. If you're thrown into a roomful of aggressive lawyers, you could hardly put a word in. It's just as well. With pride, the parents watched their children revel in their accomplishment, raring to spread their wings.

The dinner was formal but loud, and photo ops were all around.

We had a chance to chat with young lawyers from China, Germany, Uganda, Australia and all the other countries represented.

And my feet ached from my killer heels. Fashion and comfort are never allies. 

Food, drinks, and grace flowed, even up to the time we got back to the hotel, exhausted. (I speak only, of course, of seniors like Tony and me. JR stayed up finishing an NUS paper that was due the next day.)

Because he finished a double degree, JR says there will be other graduation rites, this time with NUS and another one in New York,  but those will just have to happen without us. The pocket is dry and so is the reservoir of energy. But grace springs eternal.

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of children.

Out to Lunch—Abroad

True story. We were out of the country, and in that country, we took a trip to yet another country just to have lunch!

That seemed like the height of over-indulgence and decadence, but we got invited by JR's wonderful “family” in Singapore (my niece and her husband, who brought along their three-year-old son) to do just that.

It was an invitation that thrilled us. We were to dine in a restaurant in another country (Malaysia), which required us to bring our passport, take two long train trips, four buses and two taxi rides, plus a total of four immigration documents for entry and departure (in both countries).

"JR tells us that as a family you often go out of town just for a meal,” our host said, "so why not go out of the country?"

Why not indeed?

The only snag would be JR's graduation ceremony at 5:30 PM that same day.

"Oh, we'll be back in good time,” JR said when we left the hotel at 9:30 AM.

Now in Malaysia, we pigged out on indescribably delicious dishes: Paper-baked chicken (incomparable to any bird I have ever feasted on); some spicy leaves; some baked seafood; some fried concoction; and a beverage of mixed longan and fungus.

Every morsel was polished off in minutes.

Spicy but yummy.

Melt-in-your-mouth goodness.

 

The trip was absolutely worth every step and stride, including a brief brush with immigration for Tony taking my photo. I'd never gone out of any country for lunch before, and this very first time was an adventure never to be erased from the memory of my mind's hard disc and external drive.

JR was right, we got back to our hotel in good time—3:30 PM.  All told, the whole escapade took only six hours. We had two comfortable hours left to gussy ourselves up for his graduation (or convocation, as New York University School of Law calls it).

Nothing ever runs amiss in Singapore, probably the most efficient country in the world. You can actually plan your day up to the last second. Everything is precise; even the flora and fauna along the way seemed to have been landscaped in clockwork fashion.

All toilets flush, have tissue paper, and are impeccably clean; a train comes every three minutes; and no electric wires nor eclectic billboards block the view of cookie-cutter structures with newly-painted look.

“Why, even the trees are trimmed exactly the same way!” I told Tony.

The experience opened my mind to the gamut of encounters this planet has to offer; and the gamut of grace that makes one enjoy it all.

How Wicked

Singapore. Tony and I are here to attend JR's graduation from the National University of Singapore and New York University. 

But that is not what this post is all about.

It's about the wickedly enthralling Broadway Musical, “Wicked,” which the three of us watched last night, thanks to JB who bought our tickets. (We wouldn't otherwise even consider the prohibitive admission cost.  Retired people like me look the other way when our favorite things loom large to tempt us.) 

It doesn't open with the usual orchestra overture; it opens with a spellbinding number that immediately introduces the audience to the interesting characters in the village where the play begins and ends. 

Every moment of the two-and-a-half hour spectacle keeps you riveted, especially if, as a child, you marveled at the Wizard of Oz. “Wicked” is an ingenious prequel to that story of our youth. And it moves along solving adult issues until the curtain call.

As I have learned in drama school, a good play has to have a series of moments: extraordinary scenes that hold and affect the audience (and may I add, as I write about God's grace today, change them for the better).

In a musical play, this can only be achieved by a village—an ensemble composed of an orchestra, song writer, lighting engineers, set and costume designers, stage managers, choreographers, actors, director, etc.) No play is ever staged successfully without the coming together of all citizens of this village.

In “Wicked,” the village is wickedly intact and well-oiled. And the message came through loud and clear: Looking at things differently is a matter of mindset change; and we all change for the better because of  significant relationships, even between most unlikely friends. 
 

 Wicked—or most negative words—becomes positive if we work at it.  

(Oh, we had a wicked dinner in a food court immediately after the photo ops. Burp.)

Kids Make My Day

It was another one of those Book Talks that I looked forward to. This time it was in the heart of Manila.

About 200 kids—ages four to six—were herded inside a big room by over a dozen teachers.  Very well behaved, I thought.  Not one of the teachers had to shush them up. They sat quietly and looked at me like I had ten heads or was a fairy godmother, or both.

A seasoned storyteller was to read to them “Tree for All,” then I would take over with a few words about how and why I wrote the story.

But the unexpected happened.

The storyteller sent a text message that she was caught in traffic somewhere still far away. So we began with my spiel on my books, with images on the screen. The kids were still unusually behaved.

When I started asking questions, however, pandemonium broke loose.

Every hand went up the air, and all 200 of the kids wanted to talk at the same time. I mimicked a whistle sound on the mike and they piped down a bit, and totally after I said I'd tell them a story.

I am not a professional storyteller and my only thespian ability comes from a long-ago stint with the theater in graduate school as a directing major, but push came to shove, and I had to deliver. Fortunately, even the most inept storytelling seemed to sound like a magnum opus with an audience like that. They gave the perfect facial and aural expressions that made one hallucinate she was a rock star.  

I was told not to end the story—instead, I was to ask them questions on how they thought the story ended. Every answer would get a free book.

There were more volunteers than we had free books! And their answers—they were so startlingly creative an author can only ask herself, Why didn't I think of that?

That day made me a storyteller extraordinaire (only in their eyes) and made me realize once again that only kids can deliver God's grace beyond one's imagination.

P.S.
The storyteller arrived after the picture taking, when the kids were being lined up to go back to their classrooms.

House of Light

After an extremely busy two weeks of writing (and teaching and speaking and  facilitating a seminar, etc.),  I was blessed with a fancy-free day at the rest house of my friend, Luz (Spanish word for light). It was literally a house bathed in light!

Luz is one of 8 to 16 (depending on individual schedules) Rotary Anns with whom I have lunch at least once in two months. We try to give meaning to these events by calling it a celebration of someone's birthday. Luz' birthday isn't till September, but we missed celebrating it last year so we decided to do so mid-stream. She invited us to Puerto Azul (the resort in the 70's).

This time there were only nine of us, but numbers don't count when one is raring to have fun. The one-hour leisurely drive from Alabang gave me another glimpse into the serene and idyllic rural life. Animals, trees, flowers, rivers, hills and mountains of all kinds mimicked my hometown. 

Puerto Azul seems like an old world now with aged flora and fauna, along winding concrete roads hemmed in by green mountains lit by a cloudless sky. 

The rest house of Luz was breathtaking.

“This isn't a house, this is a palace!” I told her. But what awed me was not the huge size of the rambling house on a multi-level lot, but the feeling of being outdoors indoors!

No curtains blocked the all-glass, all-around picture windows of all six floors that made you enjoy nature at its most glorious at every turn. The breeze came in and out freely, while birds sung and leaves rustled.

Luz served us countless dishes, but what I remember most were the fresh pandan (lemon grass) and tarragon tea, and the turon (thinly sliced bananas and jackfruit, dusted with brown sugar, rolled in spring roll wrapper and fried) dipped in sesame seeds and served in gold-gilded wine glasses.

I was not told that there would be a group ballroom session with a DI (dance instructor), so when everyone was putting on her dancing shoes, I was stuck with my bakya (wooden footwear). Except for one who was nursing arthritis, we all tried the steps, which (hopefully) got rid of the consequences of a sinful lunch. 

Dancing with a bakya is excruciating, but among friends, one can only laugh, not whine.

And one can only praise God for His grace of creation in which I basked for one blissful day in the house of light.

When is Valentine's Day?

Tuesday (yesterday) is my day in school, where I teach college students Advertising or English for a few hours. Donning the university's dress code (blazer) and formal shoes, I was dropped off by Tony in the lobby. 

I was surprised to find the students with a uniform red kiss mark on their cheeks. “Miss, Happy Valentine's Day!” they chirped.

Oh, yes, it's Valentine's Day, I thought and quickly forgot all about it.

Then at around noon, when I was about to bite into my sandwich, I decided to check my mobile phone for any text messages. There was one, from Tony: “BTW, Happy Valentine's Day!”

I texted back, “Oh, yes, thanks. Same to you!”

Talk about romance.

It isn't as though romance has suddenly gone out of the window.  But as far back as I could remember, Tony and I never really celebrated Valentine's Day on February 14. We made time to bring the kids out when they were little, but the traffic had always been horrible and our choice restaurants were always full, making us wait in line for hours—so we abandoned the effort. 

When an adman marries an adgal, Valentine's Day is like any other marketing event—a glorious day for marketers and advertisers feasting on mankind. I don't mean to sound callous, considering that people really take the day seriously with roses, chocolates, wine, music, and all, but the day of love, for me, doesn't fall on one specific day.

The verse of the day of BibleGateway, my e-reference for quick scripture searches, was, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35 (NIV)

After replying to Tony's text message, grace reminded me of the amazing love the Lord has for each of us.  He loved us when we were yet sinners, not saints. No matter how rotten we become, He loves us anyway, every day.  

Happy Valentine's Day!

Success Stories?

“My father peddles drugs and is now wanted by the authorities. My mother ran away and left me with my grandmother who drinks and gambles. I fend for myself.”

“I don't know where my real father is. I grew up with my mother who is often beaten black-and-blue by my cruel stepfather who treats me like a housemaid, while spoiling my half sisters.” 

“There are days when we go to bed without anything to eat, and wake up to another day which promises more hunger and debts.” 

 These are true stories. And there are more where they come from.

If you think you can find a hint of a success story lurking behind these tales, you can wait forever. There are no success stories forthcoming. Everything is like a saga after saga of dark and dreary events. 

This had been my daily fare for three days in a resort in the outskirts of Manila with an international organization that helps send indigent kids to college. I was one of eight interviewers who had to decide which 60 among the 72 hopefuls (the poorest of the poor) would be chosen for the scholarship program in a university of the student's choice. 

It was not only difficult, it was mentally draining and heart breaking. I felt like I was playing god—a role  nobody can handle nor deserve. 

With every kid, we prayed for the Lord to guide us and give us the grace of discernment to understand each one's aptitude, attitude, and qualifications. 

I am home now but the images of those stories haunt me still.

In two days I will conduct my class in the university where my moneyed college students (they live in manors, palaces, or humongous houses in posh villages) exchange concerns that range from buying the latest Prada bag or Tory Burch shoes to spending the weekend in HK or Bora.

And their success stories? Why, there are so many, time is too short to tell them all.   

Up close, how does one deal with such contrast?

The Missing Top

The top (trumpo in Filipino), or spinning top as it is commonly called, has been missing for sometime. 

I have not seen one—not since I heard Rev. Joe Mauk deliver a sermon on salvation years ago. While speaking, he played with over a dozen kinds of tops (big ones, small ones, rough ones, purple ones, imperfect ones, extraordinary ones) to drive home scriptural truths. And grace spun its way to the audience as we watched in rapt attention.

Growing up in the province, my friends and I loved playing with tops, aside from the other Pinoy toy that has gone missing, too (yoyo), and other games (patintero, palosebo, tumbang preso, piko, luksong tinik) that are totally strange or crude to urban kids today.

To those unfamiliar with the top, it is a simple toy that can spin on an axis, balancing on a point. It is probably one of the oldest recognizable toys discovered in archaeological sites all over the world.

In the places where I frequent today, kids are preoccupied playing video games, texting, surfing the Net, watching TV, listening to music with little gadgets stuck to their ears, or playing with toys bought from stores. 

The tops of my youth were chiseled by hand and resemble this:

It took my balikbayan cousin M, who also grew up playing with tops, to point out to me:  “Look, look!” she exclaimed while we drove through. “The kids are playing with tops!”

Sure enough, a group of kids were gleefully spinning their tops on a narrow alley in a depressed neighborhood. And they seemed to be having a great time!

“I saw other kids near your village playing with tops, too,” she added. 

And I thought the top was gone forever! I have been pining for the good old days when children played with other kids and did things together. I have not been looking hard enough.  

Is the top making a comeback? Or do some kids play with it today because they couldn't afford to buy expensive techno-doodads?  Or has it gone missing at all?   

Whatever it is, I am excited to see kids enjoying tops as I did.  I hope it is here to stay. We can't afford to have a world of techie kids not ever experiencing the warmth of human encounters.

Morning Good

People usually say “Good morning” as a greeting.

But Mang Ramon is different; he says “Morning good!” And there's something in the way he says it that makes you feel it's today's headline news and a special time of grace.

On days when I walk at dawn (I have reduced my daily walk to three times a week), “Morning good!” is the first sound I hear.

It comes from the man on a bike who delivers the dailies in our neighborhood. I can't really tell how old he is, but neighbors who get to see him in broad daylight describe Mang Ramon as “the old, old man.”

I wouldn't know. 

Aside from the very brief encounters we have when he dashes by saying “Morning good!” I don't see him at all. But I suspect he only looks old because of the hard life he leads to earn a living.  Waking up so early in the morning with a heavy bundle of newspapers (replenished many times, I heard) to about 1,000 homes is not a walk in the park.

He goes a second round once a week to collect.

Mang Ramon is dark as night and thin as reed, with an almost toothless smile (his remaining teeth gleam in the dark), but God may have ordered that my good mornings begin with him.

There was a time last year when he disappeared for maybe about  three months.  During these times, we bought our newspapers from the newsstand. He had met an accident that forced him to stay in bed.  A neighbor started passing the hat for his medical expenses, and collectively, we prayed that he would be back on his bike soon. A toughie, Mang Ramon got back on his pedals and to his dawn route.   

“Morning good!” I greet back, but he's already a block away. If he were a cyclist, he'd win the Tour of Luzon (a popular event in my time) hands down. He doesn't bike, he flies.

I wish I could describe him more for you, but it is only under the shadows of the village trees and street lamps where I catch sight of him.

These are quick meetings, but enough to make me declare that indeed every morning is good!