Getting old
Closer to the “above” somebody seems when you have to take them to the emergency room at ungodly hours. Under heavy rains my daughters and I rush to Makati Medical to see my mother panting for breath. One time, next to her was a young man who attempted suicide, an elderly man shouting “Pinapatay ninyo ako,” a child with asthma, an elderly woman slipping downward from her bed. It was a depressing sight, but we kept smiling to boost my mom’s morale. We commiserated with tired nurses and doctors attending to a crowded room.
This depressing scenario has occurred three times and my dad isn’t even aware that mother has left his house for the hospital. He doesn’t even know her at all…
Old age is disastrous. It makes me worry… about medical expenses, overburdening the children with the attention I may one day need. Besides, who wants to visit hospitals? Not even the patient’s kindest guests, not even Dad. These days, my father likes to sing and he remembers very clearly the lyrics of every song he sang when he was well.
“I’ll be seeing you in every lovely summer’s day in everything that’s bright and gay…”
We listen on Sunday to his favorite song on his cassette player. Dad stands up from his reclining chair ready to dance, leaving behind his quiet concentration. He then decides to sway alone and we sing, “I’ll always think of you that way…” and we look at each other and smile our special love, we grin and giggle. His eyes become tiny kind slits and his hands clap soundless… weakly so it remains just a contented gesture.
Watching him, my memory goes to many years back. Where once a very intelligent man who worked extremely hard, who just last year was a healthy cancer survivor, has for the past three years been afflicted with Alzheimer’s. I have but images of what used to be, and they’re all warm and comforting to an only daughter.
He used to bring me to his office and I’d watch him work as I smelled the coconut oil of Otis Street in Pandacan, where San Miguel Brewery used to be. I was in grade school then and he’d pick me up from Maryknoll on Pennsylvania St. and take me to Pandacan early evenings if he had to get work done till dinner time. I loved that smell so much that throughout my 10 years living in Tarlac I put lots of coconut oil on my hair to make it shiny black.
What’s going to happen when we have gray hair but are still strong enough to think and dance? Of course, we’ll continue working but employment for the “aged” has a life span. Should I have gotten into a private enterprise then?
“Get into trucking,” Dad suggested. “You can use trucks to load Peping’s sugarcane and in no time you’ll have a fleet of trucks.” I should have or maybe I was unconvinced. If I did, my children would be scheduling trucks from Tarlac to Pampanga and vice versa, or who knows — having trouble fixing engines or counting drivers’ payrolls and planning traffic-less routes. That’s what Dad used to do, aside from selling Coca-Cola and San Miguel products, early into his marriage. Then he did sales research and he was terrific at that. Luisita likewise took him in for product development — pencil pushing, planning byproducts, their costs, their sales and projected income. As a pastime he read and read magazines on furniture construction aside from pocket books on crime!
Every Saturday the loud buzz of an electric saw scared me… cutting wood, hammering, constructing furniture was his hobby and he had two attendants who smoothed out the wood. “Katam,” that’s what he called it and I walked over flimsy wood shavings like they were snow. His picnic furniture pieces were two-slit benches connected to an X stand holding a tabletop. The benches could be put up and down depending on the space. Then the next years he read about plastic high-heel shoes and bought a machine to make them: three- or two-inch high and wedge heels. If I had paid attention to that hobby I would have made fashion sales easier for Mai. Dad was ahead of his time with those see-through heels.
I’ve always wanted to drive but never did. But my Aunt Pacita M. Pardo de Tavera and Mom drove every and any vehicle. In the ‘60s, Makati was filled with lilies and mud. Dad would maneuver his tiny Renault, bopping up and down potholes. Driving that Renault, Chingbee, Josine and I would stick our heads out of the top of his car with the warm wind on our faces. Arriving home, he’d switch on the radio by his night table. The music that always relaxed me, old fashioned melodies from the ‘50s. I can do that now. Sit back and listen to Gershwin and Cole Porter.
How funny… We three siblings feigned sleep when Dad came home from work and looked for us. We knew we’d be tasked to massaging his feet for 20 minutes. How I wish I did that then. Now if I offered to, he wouldn’t understand why, as he doesn’t go out anymore, but sits the whole day and walks around the garden or dances and sings with me!
My parents were so close as a couple that it worked for us a few times. We’d be free to use the phone if they went out of town to my grandma’s home.
Togetherness was, however, his desire. “Let’s go, Lita, to Tagaytay.” He wanted to get away every weekend to our little house by the Tagaytay main road, one of the few then. Then one day in the ‘50s a typhoon came and the earth underneath the house brought the whole house down with it. We never repaired the structure till this year! I did, because our bantay had died but again occupational tradition goes on, we allowed his family to continue to use our garden as a viewing deck and collect a fee for themselves.
The next time it was Los Baños and we dreaded to go… our friends were all the happier watching movies at Ideal or Lyric Theater. The next time it was Binangonan and again the earth fell downward and Dad was left with cogon and a rocky, impassable road and just a slope without a firm earth base. Dad liked heights; I liked down slopes. Neither has worked for us… his lots disappear; mine become inundated.
Dad and Mom restricted me to one party a month on weekends. If the invitation read 7:30 I was at the host’s house on the dot and I was alone with the host getting dressed. Every guest came an hour late. Now everyone comes at midnight. Midnight, that’s the time I had to bid goodbye to all because Dad was waiting at the owners’ gate to fetch his only daughter.
Could an ice cream treat in Echague make me happy? Yes, in that San Miguel ice cream parlor that was freezing cold. I had mango ice cream with chocolate toppings. I’ve never taken any other ice cream except mango till now.
All too soon I was to be married. Liberty! Freedom! Now the phone could ring and I’d answer it even past 9 p.m., my curfew hour. Now Lin Ilusorio and I could speak on the phone past midnight.
He asked me a question or said a statement. “I suppose you know…” and since we were both embarrassed we looked at each other blankly. He nodded and I answered “Uh-huh.” Right after that he took a shower… a shower with his socks on. Mom called his attention to this and he didn’t even remember he’d done that in 1962. It became a family joke.
His 89th birthday just passed by unnoticed by him. Mom baked us her delicious apple pie with yaya Beth. We celebrated it with him with one candle. It was the same last Christmas.
Last Christmas came and went for him even as we crowded the house with children and noise. He was ever gentle and hospitable. My brother returned from America and we had planned it to surprise Daddy. Eagerly we asked him “Do you know him? It’s Ramon.” He paused and smiled and said, “No,” and laughed.
“Was he fooling us?” we asked each other. So I told him, “It’s me, Tingting, your daughter,” and he said “Ah… no me digas…” It’s a Spanish expression meaning “Talaga?” or “Ah, really! Don’t tell me…” and he reached for my hand and kissed it.
“Come again, I’ll wait for you,” he said.
Did he know me? No, he didn’t, but he’s ours and we know him. How he is doesn’t make us feel any different. We love him even more. He’s our patient, kind, quiet Dad forever so.
And Mom, she’s bravely recuperating. We thank God! My daughters are now watching over her. How wonderful to have girls! How sad the wheel of life turns on and on for others to carry on. We can’t stop time and aging, but memories never fade away.
