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Born and raised with little, I found pleasure in little things early in life.  It was a boon, of course, that my mother worked in a US base in the Pacific.  I was also fortunate I lived during better times, when the currency exchange rate was 2:1.  So, even if my mother’s income was not spectacular, I studied in a private school until high school. 

I met the likes of American brands Revlon and Max Factor, Hershey’s and Nestle’s, NABISCO, and Kraft in my elementary schooldays, then the French cosmetics and scent makers like Chanel, Chacharel, Rochas, Lanvin, Yves St. Laurent, Dior in the higher grades.  Their products were available at the base commissary or PX and Mom somehow found way to afford them and take them home to me.

It brought me great pride to own a Parker and a Sheaffer, imported scho0lbags and quality notebooks from the base store. I also enjoyed the imported comicbooks and storybooks.  It brought me great pride to own a National transistor radio and a Brownie box camera that my Dad managed to get me when he too was working at the base.

But it saddened me that my mom couldn’t afford to buy me the fancy local pencils, erasers and sharpeners my affluent schoolmates brought daily to class. Or the extra sets of school uniforms they had and the colorful lunchboxes they lugged to school.

Ah, a young person’s wants!

Today, I can say I had my fill of designer goods and foreign-made food  in my childhood.  But I feel bad because their current prices are soooo prohibitive my daughters cannot now afford to have them on ordinary income.

Still, while my personal material tastes remain pretty high (thanks to a sustained hunger for information from foreign magazines and the Internet), I do not have envy in my bones—envy that the rich can flaunt their designer handbags and shoes and material possessions—thinking only that I have had them in my youth.

Proof?  Even if I can save up for a coveted item, even if I can now have in my hands the cash to pay for a wished-for Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors or Kate Spade goodie, I think many times over if I can let go of my cash just to have it or if there is something more worthwhile I can spend it on.  Wisdom?  I’d like to call it common sense, especially when times are hard for most people.

We have a saying:  you may amass all the material wealth you can here on earth, but will you be able to take it with you to heaven, hell or purgatory when you die?

Thank your stars and circumstances for the small joys material goods can bring you, but never forget that as you grow older, it’s the more substantial things and lessons in life that are worth taking with you wherever you go.

I fear  Alzheimer’s disease and everything else I’ve read about it . I fear dying in an accident or being killed by a violent act.  Which is why I try so hard to stay  in what is called “the state of grace”.    This means exerting effort not to commit mortal sin.   Only a Catholic raised in the Philippines in a Catholic school from the fifties to the sixties would understand exactly what this entails.

This means being ready for any eventuality, not physically if this cannot be avoided, but spiritually.  To my simple mind, this is being able to meet my Creator and looking at Him straight in the eye.  No, no mortal can ever be blemish-free, spiritually, but it is best to face up to one’s earthly sins of omission or commission, so she/he can comfortably lie in the Lord’s arms in the afterlife.

Yesterday was my Tia Odeng’s 80th-plus birthday.  She’s been in the US for decades; I’ve never bothered to ask her why she hasn’t come home.  That’s how much I respect her, as I’ve always respected her, and she’s much too classy to be asked such a question.

Tia Odeng is Lourdes, a retired pediatric neurologist.  I remember her as “kulog”, or thunder, a monicker her own sibling gave her, because she was unpredictable,  she had a temper, she never spoke of anything trivial, but when she opened her mouth, it was usually “thunderous”.

An extremely intelligent person, she was so deep it was difficult for people to fathom her, or intrude into her innermost thoughts.  But she was also funloving.  I remember her urging me to skip my PE class just so we could spend a few hours together to have a hamburger, or hie off to our favorite shoestore, or watch a movie.  This was in the early ’60′s, the last time she spent in the Philippines. I had just graduated from high school and was getting ready for college.

When she returned to the US, I cried and I felt I lost someone.  But we kept in touch.

Fast forward to 1994, when Mommy passed away and I was left really all alone with two growing children.  I cannot detail what support Tia Odeng extended to me, and continues to extend.  When, after a few years, I had the guts to ask her why she continued to be behind my back, she wrote: “I felt that I never helped your Mom enough when she was alive.”

I want to hold my Tia Odeng’s hand, but she is so far away.  I am still in awe of this generous lady.  The few times we talked over the phone, I felt so overwhelmed hearing her voice that I could hardly speak.  (I cannot bring myself to call her just to say hi, but I write her regularly.  She is the only one I send snail mail to, as everyone else has e-mail, because she refuses to have a PC, arguing that there isn’t much she can do with a PC).

She and I share a few secrets, but she is a secret in itself, a poet, a woman who seems hard and cold, but is really so sensitive and caring.  I can only wish she will be around forever.

To you, Tia Odeng, thank you for being there.  Happy Birthday and God bless you forever.  You’ve always discouraged me from going to the US, saying life there isn’t as beautiful as most Filipinos think.  But time seems to be running out on both of us, and sooner than you think, or than I can imagine, I will be seeing you.

I am back and, I hope,  for a long time to come.  Can’t say I was genuinely busy.  Probably just a case of time mismanagement.  The trouble is,  I have never internalized what my creative writing workshop director taught us:  everytime something worth writing about pops up in your head, get up and write it down, no matter what time of day or night.  I’ve missed expounding on sooo many subjects that now, I have forgotten them.  Can’t say I should blame age for this, although age does have something to do with forgetting.  Tamad is what I have always been, and laziness is the enemy of productivity!

Glad to be back though, and on a new server.  My daughter saw to it I got back to posting on my own website.  She pays for this, after all.  I cannot retrieve my writings from a previous server, but I did manage to copy/paste/save some, and these I will re-post here.