How to grow old gracefully
To be seventy eighty or ninety years old and still healthy, still up and about and still useful to society and to community, that is how to grow old successfully and gracefully. To be a nonagenarian or octogenarian and still enjoy life and remain a value to family, friends and the country, that is my idea of a good life. Travelling abroad and all over the Philippines, visiting friends, joining family and class reunions, and reading classics once again, not to learn but to understand the real meaning of life, joining a zumba dance class, a spiritual retreat, a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and gaining more wisdom. These are what matter most in life. And I reflect on these today, my birthday.
When I become older, I shall go back to the hills and valleys of my younger years, somewhere beyond the mountains and rivers between the boundaries of the hinterlands in Argao, Ronda, Dumanjug and Sibonga. Yes, there is a land that I bought from my grandparents with a river, a waterfall and lush greeneries of untouched hills. I shall build a small chalet where I shall spend the rest of my years, writing my memoirs and reading the masterpieces of literary gems that I never had time to read. I will not be a hermit, no, because I shall organize a community of farmers and we shall build the community into a vibrant self-sustaining village of happy, united and productive citizens. About time to serve my own folks after residing in Manila for more than forty years.
Once a month, I shall go down to the town to interact with leaders and ordinary folks. I shall be active in government and NGO affairs and I shall help in education, administration of justice and community development. I shall put up a community newspaper where young and budding writers will be trained and molded by me. I will help the local teachers get funding from global institutions so that every pupil in the barangays shall have access to computers and the internet. And I shall help the government fight drugs and other forms of delinquencies and crimes. I shall be active in the church and shall continue serving as a lay minister. I will teach the Bible to the old and the young and shall organize pilgrimage to holy places.
I will visit my children and grandchildren in Manila and abroad, I shall see my brothers and sisters in the US and shall keep on holding reunions with classmates and friends. I shall travel the world again visiting New York for the Broadway musicals, Paris and London for the museums, Germany and France for the castles and medieval buildings. I shall go up to the Eiffel Tower again and climb the Statue of Liberty once more. I shall take a cruise in the Caribbean, go back to the River Rhine from Amsterdam all the way down to Austria and Switzerland, and sleep in a castle near Lake Geneva. I shall drink champagne in Monaco. Then I shall fly to Las Vegas and see the pompom girls and travel to Waikiki to see the women in bikinis. These are in my bucket list. Yes, I can afford them. Modesty aside, I have prepared to retire independently and without giving headaches to my children. Life is neither short nor long. It is just to be savored, every moment of it.
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