Photograph and Memories

There was an old man in our town who seems alone in his house. What strikes me as sad is that no one visits him. His wife has long left him and his children are too scared or too mad at him to drop by and visit. He hardly knows his grandchildren. Although his mind is still sharp, his body grows weaker and frail. Already he has dropped a few more pounds and he has just come back from the hospital. It could be any day now.

I know of a man who has everything. He has traveled to the most exotic places in the world. He has earned the recognition from his peers and attained prominence in his career. He has been adored by women whom he has adored back.

Today, he is a much older man living in a small bedroom of what was once his expansive house. Not that he is in dire need of money, for he has much, but he has turned the other bedrooms into offices so he can have more money.

“You did it again!” I shriek as friend and I drive by the village security guard. “Nakita mo?! Naduling na naman siya!” I insist, craning my neck to look back at the guard at his station. “The Blue Collar Beauty strikes again!” I conclude triumphantly.

I accuse her of having a magnetic power over security guards, gasoline attendants, waiters and the like. I believe her when she says that it’s no womanly charm of flirty tactic. But it’s something her mom taught her a s a kid. She says the her mother said, “Whenever you drive by guards at the gate, wave at them. It’s the only consolation they get for their job.

The ringing of my cellphone at the crack of dawn on May 22 broke the silence in our car. My family and I were on our way to the market. I knew there was something terribly wrong the minute I heard my brother Johnny’s voice. He was awakened by the police because Mark, his 25-year old son, had been in a car accident.

When I was still a kid, I remember coming home from a day spent playing with friends; happy, hungry, tired – and covered in dirt and mud. I entered the house via the back door – no way could I walk through the front!

“ Bath . Now. This instant!” was my mother’s exasperated cry, and not until after a good long shower and lots of soap was I pronounced fit to join the family.