Reflections on My 75th Birthday

As I grow older, birthdays for me begin to be less exciting. Thus, when I celebrated my 75th birthday this week, I wanted to treat it just like any other day. My Vegas family of six – my daughter and her husband and their two young children plus my wife and I – had a dinner in a cozy Japanese restaurant and later we proceeded to my daughter’s house where we had mango cake for dessert.

My birthday celebration was a non-event until my daughter’s family in Texas Facetimed, and their 10-year-old son, Xavier, facetiously reminded me that I’ve already spent three quarters of a century. As if on cue, I realized how fleeting life was.

Since I am now in the fourth quarter of my life, I find it appropriate to share my reflections on why life, as I have experienced it, is like a roller coaster, with its ups and downs, successes and failures, hopes and disappointments.

I was born in Sipocot now a first-class town in the province of Camarines Sur. The town then was like a big family where everyone knew each other. Our town was peaceful, and crime was at its lowest. Our teachers were genuinely interested in our education. They taught us good manners and right conduct. With the values that my teachers and my parents inculcated in me, I grew up knowing right from wrong and believing that life is precious and should be lived to the fullest.

As a 16-year-old, the hormonal changes in my body as a teenager set me on fire. I learned how to smoke and drink. I thought I was invincible. I was daring. I committed minor youthful indiscretions, and I was unrepentant. But I soon realized that mistakes could be converted into opportunities for growth.

How I wish all my dreams would come true. But life is not a straight line. There is no such thing as absolute certainty in life. I joined the Jesuits after high school thinking that I would be ordained a Jesuit priest someday. But fate was not on my side. When Martial Law was declared in 1972, the more I prayed, the more I was drawn into a life of activism. As the Marcos government cracked down on activists, I landed on the military’s wanted list.

Afraid that I might end up a victim of salvaging – a term for extra-judicial killings practiced by the military during the martial law years – I left the Jesuit Order and joined the underground movement full-time. I may have left the Jesuit Order, but I continue to remain faithful to the Jesuit tradition of being “a man for others.”

One poignant reminder about the fleetingness of life is the passing of so many people I know and admire. Many of my priest-professors and friends at the Loyola School of Theology (LST) like Frs. Catalino Arevalo, Tom O’Gorman, and Carlos Abesamis who all had a great influence on me are gone. A good number of my high school classmates at the Ateneo de Naga had succumbed to various illnesses. A few of my activist friends had been killed by the military. Death may be inevitable, but I never learned how to prepare myself for its coming. The pain created by the permanent separation between the living and the dead is simply too much to bear. But amidst the pain, I have learned to go on living.

In my entire adult life, up to now, helping the poor and the marginalized has been my passion. At one point – and call me an idealist – I was prepared to sacrifice even my life to achieve my goal. But life had a way of testing and challenging myself until I realized that there were other ways to make myself useful.

Writing was one of the ways I thought could be useful. I started writing seriously during the martial law years when I was a college student at the Ateneo de Manila. I would submit articles to The Guidon, the university’s school paper and sometimes to selected national magazines. My rule in writing is simple: Write with a social conscience. I learned this from Carlos Bulosan, the US-based Filipino immigrant in the 1930s who once wrote: “It was only when I began to write about life and people I have known that a certain measure of confidence began to form as my periscope for future writings.”

I’ve met people through the years who don’t agree with what I write. I get it. But the payoff for writing about the marginalized who have less in life is worth it. Writing about their fears, their aspirations, their dreams gives me an ownership over what I can do which no one can take away from me. True, I sometimes feel emotional when I write. Sometimes I feel pain. Sometimes I feel at a loss. Sometimes I am upset. But most of the time I am grateful.

I can’t believe how fast the years have gone by. But as I like to tell my friends, there are some things that matter most in life that we cannot ignore - one of which is family. Family is everything.

I am lucky to have been supported by a family who has always been there for me in good and in bad times. My parents gave me the foundation for how to live a meaningful life. My wife continues to be a caring person and supportive of all my plans. My children are great mothers to their children, and they never fail to show their love for them.

There is nothing more that I can ask from my family at this time of my life.

My wife and two daughters posted about my recent birthday on Facebook. Consequently, I got hundreds of greetings, well-wishes, prayers, and comments on Facebook. But what really made my day were the gifts my grandchildren gave me.

Nora, our 7-year-old granddaughter, made a paper computer complete with a keyboard. On the screen she glued three photos that included her maternal grandparents and me holding her when she was a year old. She wrote, “World’s best grandpa...he is known for his honesty and cares a lot for people.”

Xavier, our 10-year-old grandson, wrote a story about me titled, Loloy and the Lamp. The story is about an old basketball afficionado who is bald and who wants his hair restored. Xavier is obviously referring to me. The story ends when the blue squirrel that popped out of the lamp granted the player’s wish.

Gio, our 8-year-old grandson, wrote The Wish, a story about a grandfather’s wish to have his friend Max, who moved out of town because he felt inferior to many of his teammates, to come back and to have his hair (again) restored.

Niko, our 8-year-old grandson, gifted me with ready-to-fold paper airplanes that he and I could play with. Cassian, the youngest of our five grandchildren, wrote that the first thing he wants to do next time he sees me is to hug me. What a sweet thing for a 5-yeard-old boy to write.

Being a grandfather is a unique experience. That life continues was the ultimate joy that I felt reading the birthday comments and stories of my grandchildren. Life continues no matter what the circumstances are. And this alone calls for a celebration.

I wish I were young again. I wish I could turn back the hands of time. This is part of my dream that will never happen. I would never be the child again who would go up the stage to receive a medal from my schoolteachers. I would never be the Jesuit again who had to elude the military who accused me of being a communist because of my work with the squatters in Tatalon, Quezon City. I would never be the young immigrant again who had to endure subtle forms of racism because of the color of my skin.

If all this means anything, it means that I can always hope for something new, something better and live that hope in the7th inning stretch of my life.