| Article Index |
|---|
| Walk this path with me. |
| Father's Love Letters |
| Comments |
| All Pages |
This couple taking an early walk, in the still deserted early morning Venice, reminded me of my parents.
Theirs was a time when people meant what they promised unto each other -- when they took their vows " 'Til death do us part." When words spoken were as good as law. A far cry from the world we live in today.
The words " 'Til death do us part." can be an albatross or even a chain in marriage, when love ceased between a couple -- especially in coutries where Catholicism is dominant and does not allow an escape clause, like divorce. In countries where divorce is allowed, the children (if any) become victims in such estrangements.
It makes you wonder whether many people really did "mean what they say, and say what they mean" when they came before witnesses, to exchange their vows. Or, was it mere lust and physical attraction, mistaken as love?
In the case of my parents, they were a testament of what it meant truly when the words " 'Til death do us part." were exchanged. It was rare to hear the words "I love you!" uttered by either my Father or Mother. But, even as a young boy, you can feel that love was there. They were both headstrong, being the eldest from their respective families. Thus, while they never seek arguments with people in the community, they were not the type who would cower when they felt they were wronged. This was especially true of my Mother, especially if her brood was threatened.
And yet, between the two of them, there seemed to be an understanding. When my Father reached his boiling point, usually from what us the children did, my Mother never countered or took sides. The same was true when it was the other way around. Never once had I heard either of them have words of anger to each other, or words that could stab the heart -- especially in public. This was unique and known in our community, where it was common to be awakened at night sometimes overhearing the loud arguments between couples in our neighborhood.
We were very poor when I was young, but I have never heard my Mother once utter words of resentment that my Father could not provide for his family. With the sporadic wage of a carpenter, and later as a shop teacher, it was a challenge to provide for a family of 9 children. In her own ways, she did all sorts of things to augment my Father's income. Later on, her decision to take over the sari-sari store -- started by two of my sisters but was about to go under -- turned the tide for our family.
When I was in high school and some of my sisters were about to get married, my parents had a simple advice for the new couple -- respect each other and never go to sleep with one harboring a hurt feeling. They even have practical advice on when to resume physical intimacy after a pregnancy, so as not to hurt the woman. [As a testament to this, I realized later that indeed we were "equally spaced" -- almost two years (give or take a few months or so) apart of each other.
Our sari-sari store prospered a bit by the time I was in high school. In the new public market, my parents got a location that allowed the construction of a mezzanine -- it served both as a storage room for goods as well as sleeping quarters. Our store was open before dawn until past midnight sometimes (whenever the last customer left). Since then, my parents practically lived in the store and went home separately during the day to take care of family matters.
My brother took me with him, after I finished the elementary to study in Manila. When I went home on vacation, sometimes I slept with my parents, in our store. It was during one of these sleepovers in our store that I learned the secret of my parents, by accident. [How come they never quarreled, at least in front of us the children or in public? It was not because my parents were perfect, far from it. There were times for example when my Father loses his temper on us, his children. Never once did my Mother fuel his anger by enterring the fray, herself.]
I was awakened one night, as it happened sometimes, and during one of this waking up incidents, I overheard my parents whispering. Curious that I have always been, I tried to feign that I was indeed still asleep. My Father must have noticed at some point that I was not, and they both stopped. My Father shown a flashlight near my face, and luckily I did not react.
It was a long time before they resumed -- they were talking about the events of the day, about us. They spent a lot of time talking about my Brother who by then had his own life in Manila, and came home only twice a year since he went to college and soon just once a year when he started working. My Brother when he started working always had gifts for the family -- nothing so expensive but they always meant a lot to our family. Long after a gift my have past its "lifetime", my parents still kept them. For some reason that night, they were discussing about a "record" that my Brother bought two years before -- that was before he took me with him to Manila. They were trying to understand the words of the song, and whether my Brother was trying to convey something in that song. They then went on planning about our future, about more practical things on what goods to buy, and so on. How long their whispered conversation continued I never knew because eventually I was lulled to sleep, by their whispers.
My Mother clearly was in charge of the store, from the beginning. My Father worked fulltime, as a shopteacher, until he retired. So, he helped mostly after school hours and during weekends. He took charge also with the purchasing of merchandise.
Many years after my Mother died, I found what turned out to be my Father's love letters; hidden in the bottom of our family chest, together with the few family treasures kept by my Mother. The letters were rolled together and tied gingerly with what once was a white embroidered Swiss ribbon.
Father's Love Letters and Other Stories [Response to Imnas]
Thanks Imnas.
I wanted for a long time to write about the love letters. My Sisters and Brother have never seen them because I found them a few days before I came back to the US.
The story that I learned was beautiful, the love letters (based from what I could piece from the dated letters) started when my Father was 19 years old, my Mother was 17 years old then. It continued even after they were married already, for a few years after that because as a carpenter, sometimes my Father had to live out of town, where the work was located.
It turned out from the letters that they were neighbors and grew up together. I knew about my parents being neighbors because sometimes it came out during our "Family time" on Sunday afternoons -- after all have come home from mass and we just finished our lunch.
Of course, every meal time -- breakfast, lunch and supper -- when we were young was "Family Hour". We spent about an hour usually, not just eating but talking as a family. But, the Sunday afternoons were more special since on Sundays, we were not supposed to work. So, Sunday afternoons were more stories and dances (I even got to dance with my Mother) and fun and laughter.
I had a personal page (with geocities) where some of the stories of those mealtimes and Sunday afternoons were told. But, I just found out that Yahoo has deleted my webpage already, since I have not visited for awhile. [I wanted to place those stories in another webpage -- since some people wanted to know more about me.]
It is too bad because sometimes I do not make copies of what I have written. Just like the above story, as everything written was spontaneous -- whatever got in my mind, so it is usually rambling.
This experience of my webpage being deleted is the reason why I am wary of placing too much even in Flickr because it might be the case again that Yahoo might do the same, in case I get inactive for a long time. And, it was not the first time that Geocities deleted my webpage.
Thanks for encouraging me, as well as those who have read this. I might get motivated to finish the story, one day. It might be one of the stories that will be part of my personal page that will ge linked with the Likas-Philippines website. The personal webpage itself will have my initials -- CGC. Tentatively, it is called "CGC's Reflections". So, maybe you will find it in there as one of the links.
I cannot promise anything because I get more busy everyday. Right now for example, a great deal of my time is spent trying to set up specific sections of the Likas-Pilippines Galleries. And, to think the latter is envisioned to be just a minor component of what was planned for the Likas-Philippines. I am lucky if I get 2-3 hours of sleep each night, as a result. Until I get more help with the website and the Flickr group, I am not sure if anything will change.
But, even then, I have so many other projects that interest me, so it is unlikely that much will change even when more Filipinos will volunteer to help in making Likas-Philippines truly a collaborative effort. I do not mind doing it though because I am learning so much, sometimes I even forget to eat, since I get so absorbed with what I do. I am a bit slow, that is one of my Waterloo. I wish I could live until I am a hundred years, but even then I think I would need so many lifetimes just to accomplish the dreams I wish to realize.
At the very least, if I get to busy for the above reason, I might include the "verse" I have written about the love letters -- about how they were found and why they were very important to me.
Back to the discovery of the letters, the reason why I was digging into our Family chest was for a different reason. I was trying to find if there were any of my old letters that were left. I used to write very long letters to my Family when I was in high school and college -- six to eight pages long, whatever came to my mind. But once, during my trip back to Manila, when I was already in college, something happened that shocked me to the core. I never told any of my Family about the incident, even to this day. And, most likely never will.
The incident made me even more private*** as a person. Since I was the only boy growing up at home when I was young, my Family have always been very protective of me. In return, I have always been very protective of the privacy of my family. I did not want people trying to involve my family -- as part of their threat to make me cower to their demands.
One of the crazy things I did as a result of the incident was to destroy all my letters that I could find at home, the next time I went home on vacation. I do not even understand now why I did it but that was the state of mind I was in, because of the incident.
It was one of the things I regret, since then, because they were treasured by my Family. The destruction of those letters were a great loss to me also because with my Family, there were things I could tell them more easily in letters than I could in person -- more raw with my feelings and sharing my thoughts with them.
It is funny in a sense but I have always been shy even with my family, when it comes to sharing how much I feel about them, as much as I know they feel about me. We are not big into saying "I love you" because it seems saying those words was an affectation.
In fact, my sisters knew I seldom say "Thank you", for the same reason. Some people find my not saying those words was lack of gratitude. Fortunately, when it came to my Family, they knew better.
Once, indeed, I uttered the words "Thank you" to my eldest sister, Manang Ching before I left after a very critical vacation. I was thankful because she had done so much -- for something very critical for my future. But, I must have always been transparent to her and perhaps the "Thank you" while indeed a sense of gratitude also meant something different for her, the way she knew me.
She never mentioned my slip.
About a month after I got back to Los Banos, I got a message from her to come back home. I did not know why and it was a very unusual request. Unbeknownst to me, she moved heaven and earth to help make my dream come true, after all.
Why that dream was imperiled was my own decision. In a split second, I turned down a fulltime fellowship that would have allowed me to come to the US to study, all expenses paid for up to three or perhaps five years, including transportation back and forth.
When you are poor like me, that decision was like turning down a kingdom. I never told my Family about it either. However, I did not have any second thoughts doing so, as a matter of principle. I resented the questions of one of the interviewers who was supposed to be on my side because we belonged to the same department. Instead, she was implying in front of others who were more friendly that somehow I might not be deserving of the fellowship.
Actually the interview was pro forma because the fellowship was already set-aside for me. The Chairman of our Department was astounded that I turned it down because he personally secured the fellowship for me. He tried to persuade me to go back, to tell the Interview Committee that I misunderstood. But, I told him emphatically why I turned it down and that I will not change my decision, even if it meant I would not be able to come to the US, to study.
No, my sister did not raise the money for me to study in the US, she was not that rich. But, if you ever read this famous line from Shakespeare's Richard III:
"A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse"
It was the "horse" that my Sister provided, so I would have a chance to pursue a dream. Everyone in my Family helped actually, my Father, my only brother, Mang Ter and all my other sisters pitched in, even my favorite Aunt Ilang, who was very poor gave some money.
I never asked for the money actually. I knew at the time that the amount was a fortune, if you are not rich. I just shared with my Father and my eldest sister Manang Ching that I won't be able to come to the US because I did not have the money required for my transportation and the initial money required by the school and the embassy before my student visa would have been approved at the time.
The act was a re-affirmation of how much they love me since I was quite young. One that I have tried to return in my own way.
I knew that with every passing of time, interacting with people, I have changed as a result fo the interaction -- some for the good and some for the bad. So, when I went home on vacation, when I was already living here in the US, I tried to find the boy that I was -- captured in those letters -- the innocence of my dreams shared so easily and the passion I felt for my family.
Maybe it was Fate that I found the letters during that particular visit, for many reasons. And, that was part of the story I was supposed to finish.
Thanks.
Cornelio
________
***And so, I resent it very much when people, who I do not even know "demands to know about me" -- as a pre-condition for initiating any association with me. It is different if I decide to share information as I am doing now. Or, to share it in a manner like this, for people who really go deeper.
The first webpage I created in Geocities actually was all about my feelings and my dreams and aspirations when I first discovered the internet and interacted with peoples of the world who I might never meet -- about the possibilities the internet offered. I realized later that many people in the internet tried to create a persona, other than who they are in real life. In my case, I opted to be who I am and assumed those on the other side did the same.
I talked mostly about my family , as I am doing now, not to brag about them, but to share and cling to a world that I find diminishing in our time. The only difference perhaps was how I presented myself and at my own pace.
As one of those who I got to know better, observed your page (i.e., the Geocities page) is more like an onion, you have to peel each skin to get to know the core. Indeed, I did not even know that it was what I was doing, but I did like to place links within the linked pages, so that a single page could lead to hundreds of discovereds of pages.
Comments:
Bisse says:
The photo is very touching - but even more so the story of your parents. Thank you so much for sharing this story of quiet and dignified love and strength! I am very moved.
cgc0202 says:
Thanks Bisse.
You are only one of the few who understands what images move me. *smiles*
The loveletters are my most treasured possession. I hope I finish the story someday, but I get busier everyday.
Cornelio
Bisse says:
I can see why they are a treasure.... And you made me wonder - what do we leave behind now? Old emails, soon to disappear in the next generation of computers or glitch in the internet? Instant messages, gone in a blink?.....
Looking forward to the next installment... :-)
sweetsexything says:
very sweet image.. love is the higher law.. thanks for sharing the story.
cgc0202 says:
Thanks Jenny. I have to find time to finish the story, some day.
Posted 12 months ago.
i m n a s says:
I love the photo and your story. I was really moved. I hope I get to find that kind of "till death to us part" love too. And the advise (about married life) given by your parents are very good. I hope I get to read the rest of the story.
Posted 12 months ago.
[Note: My response to Imnas here is placed before the comments.]