Remembered
I was born in 1981, when Lady Di wed Prince Charles.
I don’t have a memory of me being born, of course.
But I don’t remember being naturally in bliss as a baby.
My mind always doubted all things. I doubted people’s intentions when they appreciated me, when they asked me about my age, when they taught me what to say.
I doubted my mother’s jokes when she tried to make me laugh.
It was always easy to make me cry, I guess doubting made it easy. It’s either when I was physically sick or my most trusted elders abandoned me for a moment,, without trying to make me understand why I should be left.
I experienced being locked in a big house alone until evening, without understanding why. Only fear remained. I had been locked in a room the whole day. Only the unfulfilled desire to go out and play and enjoy stayed in my heart. I had been left in an unknown person’s house, and I didn’t know why.
I had a memory of me being brought to the city by my mother. We took the train. I was three then. We went home after a week, because the flood came to town, and the railway was destroyed, and the bus couldn’t pass through the highway.
I questioned even the distribution of relief goods to all residents of the town. Why should they give on times like those, and only during those times?
I questioned the quack doctor who often checked my mother. Why couldn’t she heal her? Why is her process so ineffective that my mother needs to leave the town for that big city called Manila? It was 1984. Why the need to abandon me and leave me with people who were not accountable for my existence, who would often remind me who my parents are who my grandparents are… Again, I cried when she said she was leaving. That last day of her stay in that big house, I followed her wherever she went, to the bathroom, to the CR, to her room.
Half grandma said nanay will come back after a year of education, when she’s healed. But I doubted it. I knew, I simply knew I had to be with her wherever she goes.
Somehow even if I doubted her jokes, I knew I would miss her terribly. Even when she did not teach me well, and feed me with milk that I like (that time I didn’t like that milk rationed by the Americans—it’s non-fat, it wasn’t that creamy and delicious). I knew that she tried feeding me with good things, and making me happy, to the best that she could. She died just after I celebrated my 5th birthday.
I had a memory of me feeling mature over my mother. I didn’t feel I was a child, a mere child, as people would often remind me. I had to consciously instill into my brains that yes, I am just a child.. and I should not feel so bad about things.
Abandonment has a way of hastening growth. In my mind, I have already grown.
People will not notice it easily. They thought I am too vulnerable, unable to make good decisions,
unable to determine falsehood and protect myself from deception. They thought I can easily be lured to do things for people out of their desire to please themselves.
I guess I am beyond that but it doesn’t matter if they don’t notice.
Often, my motivations come from very basic principles. The first is knowing my heart and what it wants and going after its desires, not minding the circumstances, or the hurdles. I get challenged by difficulties, by resistance.
For me life is not shaped by fate alone. In every person there is a power more powerful than the workings of the universe. As long as a person is single-minded about what s/he wants.
This principle, I know has led too many to rebellion, and to destruction. I am fully aware of that. I have learned the side effects of not doing it right.
These people don’t really know what their heart wants. At some point, I thought I knew, and went after my wants. I thought I can shape things according to my purpose. I thought faith will let me stay in my struggles. I thought faith will let me work harder and harder, till that end of heaven is attained. But no………..
There is still another basic principle, much stronger than the other one mentioned that shapes my life.
The previous was a principle brought by my biological existence, by the abandonment.
This one is brought by the power that brought me to existence. I did not come to this world by my own powers. Someone did. I guess while I was still in the womb, He promised to take care of me, He promised to keep me alive. I am His.. I don’t belong to myself. My future is not shaped by my wants alone. He shapes my wants. Like one of the pieces in the chessboard, He arranges the path for me, and commands where I should go. This is the 2nd principle, and this is what keeps me alive. It protects me even from myself.
No matter what I do, whatever decision I make, I am motivated by these two parent principles.
And I don’t blame things to fate. I don’t blame. I don’t blame God for things that happen in my life.
No one should.
These are the things that I have heard… and somehow learned from the elders:
Grandma, now 80.
“ Don’t go around spreading “chismis”. It is false knowledge, it doesn’t produce wisdom. When you gossip, you don’t make people respect you, and you are prone to bad words. When u gossip, you will always be afraid that people are gossiping about you too.
“We discipline you because you are still a child, and it will be easy. When you grow old, it will be hard.”
“Search after knowledge and wisdom, for it will be with you wherever you go. It is a treasure that no one can steal”
“Let integrity stay with you, it will keep your head up wherever street you walk”
Godmother, now 57.
“Don’t feel hurt when you are disciplined, that means you are loved”
“You are not anybody’s child. You are God’s child”
“Wherever you are, if you are really smart and wise, you will always excel. There are no selected places for learned people”
Half-grandma, now 86.
“Don’t kill yourself out of mere embarrassment. This is just life, things will be solved. Be patient”
“Keep yourself cool. Don’t linger in sadness, you’ll die easily.
“Always look back to people who took care of you when you needed them. Prioritize them”
“Always pray wherever you are, you don’t know what life will bring you. God does.”
Math teacher in elementary:
“Stay in your faith wherever you go, and your life will not be in vain.”
