It just occurred to Thelma and me the other day at breakfast that aside from graying hair, wrinkled skin, aching joints and other ailments, there are other telltale signs that things are no longer the same in our life as a family.
There are now more empty seats in the dining table and often it is just the two of us sharing a meal. We seldom go to the upper level of our two-level house (our room is on the ground floor) not only because of my weak knees but also because two of our children’s rooms are now vacated. The whole house is now quiet most of the time because gone are the occasional discussions, shouts and horsing around of youthful voices. And we don’t struggle for our turn on the computer and television anymore as they are ours all day and night.
We are told that these are the beginnings of the “empty nest” period when husband and wife are back to where they started as a newly-married couple. Couples approaching this period are also warned to expect sadness and even depression that would come over them when the empty nest time comes around.
Thelma and I have four children, three of whom are married. Our only son Nico is based in California where he lives with his wife Cecille and daughter Nicole. Pizza our eldest and her husband Jay lives temporarily with us while saving for their own place later. Dana just got married recently and now lives with her husband Marco in Pasig. Only Mae, our youngest, who is still in college at De La Salle University remains as our remaining dependent. So you see, we should be staring at an empty nest perhaps sooner than we realize.
In any case Thelma and I feel that we are prepared when our nest becomes completely empty. We feel that awareness is our best preparation so that we have long ago told ourselves that our children won’t be with us forever. And we raised them with that goal in mind. With that goal in raising our children, we also tried hard to work on the special intimacy that binds us, continually seeking to love each other more each day no matter where we are at the moment.
We also continually seek opportunities to create beautiful memories that we can store in our hearts and look back to when the time of empty nest comes around.
We look forward to one such opportunity when our son Nico comes back to visit the old home next week with his family for the first time in six long years. A family weekend trip to Boracay, a children’s birthday party for Nicole, birthday celebrations for Thelma and Nico, and reunions with the Mendiola and Alvarez clans are just some of the activities we have lined up for them.
They will be here for three long weeks. But I am sure those three weeks will go real fast. And when the visit is over, it will be time for Thelma and I to stare again at the reality of our nest that is beginning to be empty. We are sure, however, that instead of getting visited by depression and sadness, hearts full of joy will be ours instead.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Valentine in the Season of Lent
Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of the Lenten season. For some reason, it comes some 10 days after we celebrated Valentine’s Day. Although Valentine’s day may evoke memories of chocolates, red roses and cut-out hearts, and while Lent may remind us once again of sacrifice, fasting, and penance, both Valentine and Lent carry with them the universal message of love.
That is the reason why the Philippine Jesuits (www.jesuits.ph/) devoted ten articles on love in their website to bridge Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. I remember also listening to a preacher on Ash Wednesday exhorting his listeners to read and meditate on St. Paul’s treatise on love in his First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, during Lent. And the poet Rod McKuen once said that “Love, like Lent, only comes to those of us who still believe.”
For you, who like me still believe, let me share something I stumbled upon recently while I was surfing the net on love and aging gracefully. It is actually an inspirational love story for Valentine’s Day. The story was written in verse by James Kisner.
Red roses were her favorites, her name was also Rose.
And every year her husband sent them, tied with pretty bows.
The year he died, the roses were delivered to her door.
The card said, "Be my Valentine", like all the years before.
Each year he sent her roses, and the note would always say,
"I love you even more this year, than last year on this day.
My love for you will always grow, with every passing year."
She knew this was the last time that the roses would appear.
She thought, he ordered roses in advance before this day.
Her loving husband did not know that he would pass away.
He always liked to do things early, way before the time.
Then, if he got too busy, everything would work out fine.
She trimmed the stems, and placed them in a very special vase.
Then set the vase beside the portrait of his smiling face.
She would sit for hours, in her husband's favorite chair,
While staring at his picture, and the roses sitting there.
A year went by, and it was hard to live without her mate.
With loneliness and solitude, that had become her fate.
Then, the very hour, as on Valentines before,
The doorbell rang, and there were roses, sitting by her door.
She brought the roses in, and then just looked at them in shock.
Then went to get the telephone, to call the florist shop.
The owner answered, and she asked him, if he would explain,
Why would someone do this to her, causing her such pain?
"I know your husband passed away, more than a year ago,"
The owner said, "I knew you'd call, and you would want to know.
The flowers you received today, were paid for in advance.
Your husband always planned ahead, he left nothing to chance.
There is a standing order, that I have on file down here,
And he has paid, well in advance, you'll get them every year.
There also is another thing, that I think you should know,
He wrote a special little card...he did this years ago.
Then, should ever I find out that he's no longer here,
That's the card...that should be sent, to you the following year."
She thanked him and hung up the phone, her tears now flowing hard.
Her fingers shaking, as she slowly reached to get the card.
Inside the card, she saw that he had written her a note.
Then, as she stared in total silence, this is what he wrote...
"Hello my love, I know it's been a year since I've been gone,
I hope it hasn't been too hard for you to overcome.
I know it must be lonely, and the pain is very real.
For if it was the other way, I know how I would feel.
The love we shared made everything so beautiful in life.
I loved you more than words can say, you were the perfect wife.
You were my friend and lover, you fulfilled my every need.
I know it's only been a year, but please try not to grieve.
I want you to be happy, even when you shed your tears.
That is why the roses will be sent to you for years.
When you get these roses, think of all the happiness,
That we had together, and how both of us were blessed.
I have always loved you and I know I always will.
But, my love, you must go on, you have some living still.
Please...try to find happiness, while living out your days.
I know it is not easy, but I hope you find some ways.
The roses will come every year, and they will only stop,
When your door's not answered, when the florist stops to knock.
He will come five times that day, in case you have gone out.
But after his last visit, he will know without a doubt,
To take the roses to the place, where I've instructed him,
And place the roses where we are, together once again.
Come to think of it, this is not only a Valentine’s Day love story. It is also a story of love even beyond death. And that is the message of Lent, after all, isn’t it?
Have a blessed Lenten season!
That is the reason why the Philippine Jesuits (www.jesuits.ph/) devoted ten articles on love in their website to bridge Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. I remember also listening to a preacher on Ash Wednesday exhorting his listeners to read and meditate on St. Paul’s treatise on love in his First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, during Lent. And the poet Rod McKuen once said that “Love, like Lent, only comes to those of us who still believe.”
For you, who like me still believe, let me share something I stumbled upon recently while I was surfing the net on love and aging gracefully. It is actually an inspirational love story for Valentine’s Day. The story was written in verse by James Kisner.
Red roses were her favorites, her name was also Rose.
And every year her husband sent them, tied with pretty bows.
The year he died, the roses were delivered to her door.
The card said, "Be my Valentine", like all the years before.
Each year he sent her roses, and the note would always say,
"I love you even more this year, than last year on this day.
My love for you will always grow, with every passing year."
She knew this was the last time that the roses would appear.
She thought, he ordered roses in advance before this day.
Her loving husband did not know that he would pass away.
He always liked to do things early, way before the time.
Then, if he got too busy, everything would work out fine.
She trimmed the stems, and placed them in a very special vase.
Then set the vase beside the portrait of his smiling face.
She would sit for hours, in her husband's favorite chair,
While staring at his picture, and the roses sitting there.
A year went by, and it was hard to live without her mate.
With loneliness and solitude, that had become her fate.
Then, the very hour, as on Valentines before,
The doorbell rang, and there were roses, sitting by her door.
She brought the roses in, and then just looked at them in shock.
Then went to get the telephone, to call the florist shop.
The owner answered, and she asked him, if he would explain,
Why would someone do this to her, causing her such pain?
"I know your husband passed away, more than a year ago,"
The owner said, "I knew you'd call, and you would want to know.
The flowers you received today, were paid for in advance.
Your husband always planned ahead, he left nothing to chance.
There is a standing order, that I have on file down here,
And he has paid, well in advance, you'll get them every year.
There also is another thing, that I think you should know,
He wrote a special little card...he did this years ago.
Then, should ever I find out that he's no longer here,
That's the card...that should be sent, to you the following year."
She thanked him and hung up the phone, her tears now flowing hard.
Her fingers shaking, as she slowly reached to get the card.
Inside the card, she saw that he had written her a note.
Then, as she stared in total silence, this is what he wrote...
"Hello my love, I know it's been a year since I've been gone,
I hope it hasn't been too hard for you to overcome.
I know it must be lonely, and the pain is very real.
For if it was the other way, I know how I would feel.
The love we shared made everything so beautiful in life.
I loved you more than words can say, you were the perfect wife.
You were my friend and lover, you fulfilled my every need.
I know it's only been a year, but please try not to grieve.
I want you to be happy, even when you shed your tears.
That is why the roses will be sent to you for years.
When you get these roses, think of all the happiness,
That we had together, and how both of us were blessed.
I have always loved you and I know I always will.
But, my love, you must go on, you have some living still.
Please...try to find happiness, while living out your days.
I know it is not easy, but I hope you find some ways.
The roses will come every year, and they will only stop,
When your door's not answered, when the florist stops to knock.
He will come five times that day, in case you have gone out.
But after his last visit, he will know without a doubt,
To take the roses to the place, where I've instructed him,
And place the roses where we are, together once again.
Come to think of it, this is not only a Valentine’s Day love story. It is also a story of love even beyond death. And that is the message of Lent, after all, isn’t it?
Have a blessed Lenten season!
Monday, February 9, 2009
At My Daughter Dana's Wedding
Separation is the goal of parenting. Provide
your children with roots and then give them wings later so they can go on their own. I knew it by heart. I have preached and written about it. But apparently it was all in my mind -- my heart had not accepted what my intellect has been saying all along.
I have also memorized the line from Kahlil Gibran on children: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you“.
But why is it still so hard to let go when the time comes?
Last Saturday, 07 February, as I stood there in the middle of the church with my wife Thelma, waiting for our daughter Dana as she approached us for our march together to the altar for her wedding date with Marco, images of the past came to me as Teyve’s wedding song from the Fiddler on the Roof played in my head.
“Is this the little girl I carried?” I then remember little Dana Marie in my arms, our third child after a girl and a boy. We named her after us. We had named our eldest girl after her grandmothers and our only boy after his grandfathers. Thelma and I planned her to be the third and the last of our growing family then, our bunso, after having a panganay and then an only boy. But it was not meant to be. After 7 years, a fourth child, another girl, came. But that is another story for later.
“When did she get to be a beauty? … Wasn’t it yesterday when they were small?” I don’t know. But I knew she was going to be a beauty. She had her mother Thelma’s fair and smooth complexion and her chinita features too that earned her the distinction of being one of the Vietnamese refugee children whenever the family visited me at my post at the Refugee camp in
“Sunrise, sunset,…Swiftly flow the years.” Soon Dana was in Grade School at St. Theresa’s, the ever playful one who was not as interested in Academics as her Kuya Nico and Ate Pizza…her stint in High School at
As we marched towards the altar, towards her waiting future husband, I held her arm somewhat tightly, still hesitant to let her go like the first time I let go of her to take her first steps…
In my seat during the ceremonies, I realized the reason for it all – for my hesitancy to let go of a beloved child. It was not because I was losing her nor was it because I was going to miss her so much. No.
As the time approached for Dana to leave and get married, I started to panic. I took stock of what I feared I may not have given her that will be vital for her success in life. I asked whether I have raised her well. Did I build her self-confidence? Did I teach her how to make and keep fulfilling relationships? To cherish what it means to be committed for life? To understand the meaning of life; to give one’s self? Did I have enough time for her in the past? Express enough love? Time has run out and there's no more going back.
As a tear rolls down my cheek, I remembered my reflection sometime ago when I wrote about waiting for Dana’s wedding: “Today after reflecting on Luke 2:22, (the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple), I can now look at the rite of giving Dana away in marriage as my presentation of her to the Lord as if saying: “Here she is now, dear God. I have done my part to prepare her for life. My mission is done. Take her with you as she begins to lead a new life with her spouse.”
Yes, with some heaviness of heart, I gave up Dana in marriage to Marco last Saturday. The thought, however, of giving her up to God as a present and knowing I have done my best to prepare her for married life makes the letting go much easier and even pleasant!
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