A Wish…
It was Christmas three years ago when I went to Raja Soliman with my best friend. We actually planned for a picnic with another high school friend so we bought sandwiches and bibingka in a fruit basket and sweets too. I remember hanging out there for several times. It is one of those commercial spots in Manila. Imagine a late sunset: a very late one where stars begin appearing in the pale sky where tangerine is only one fourth of the sky and darkness eats up the tangerine light that reflexes to the far side of manila bay, where the dirty water of the city clashes to the cemented part of the park, where coconut leaves dance with the wind from the open, where you can see almost every kinds of people; businessmen with their crazy neckties, street children, balot, ice cream, popcorn and fishball vendors, couples in PDA, passers-by, students, senior citizens, every kinds of them. This is just a side of a multi-faceted place. Notice a whole lot of air pollution too. Every year before Christmas when our family would spend the season in Manila from our province, my best friend and I will make it a point to visit the baywalk and of course to toss a coin over the fountain and whisper our little wishes.
Last year’s wishing scenario was different. It was different from those Christmas wishes when we just threw coins there. I sat in one of the benches near the circle of the fountain. I heard street children doing their caroling. It was normal, every kid in the world do this caroling before Christmas but there was really this very experience where I was stunned from a reality. I was ready to throw the one peso coin over the multi-colored water that flashes from the colored lights around the fountain. It was really beautiful. My attention was obstructed by a young girl. I think she was eight to ten years old that time when I met her. She was wearing a simple smile, her hair was short and she looked so thin and then she approached me out of a sudden.
“Ate pwede po bang akin na lang yung piso nyo na ihuhulog sa fountain. Pangbili lang po ng candy para sa kapatid ko.” and pointed towards a little girl who sat in another bench a few feet away from us sobbing and looking austerely from a candy stand with three more kids sitting there. I dig down my pocket to find any other coin inside but there was no any. I pulled my coin purse out from my back pocket but there was none. My best friend doesn’t have any coins too except from the two pesos change from our fare. So I paused a moment and thought if I’m going to give my one peso coin and my very important Christmas wish for my mother to get well in his terminal stage of cancer while the young girl stood near my sight and also waited for my decision.
I threw the coin over the fountain and wished….
The young girl turned her back sadly and disappointedly and walked towards her dear sister. I followed her and gave them the fruit basket with sandwiches and the sweets we bought from the department store. “Tahan na may pagkain na tayo.” said the young girl consoling her sister to stop sobbing. Apparently, a big smile was painted in the little girl’s lips from crying upon seeing the fruit basket. As we left the bench and headed for the balot vendor to eat, my friend said “Nako, binigay mo lahat ng pagkain natin eh pang-balot na lang ang meron tayo”, these five kids went near us and started singing “we wish you a merry Christmas… we wish you a merry Christmas…” they caroling was all around us.
You know what was my wish over the fountain? It was for the young girl to have a merry Christmas.
I guess they really had one. They also wished us a merry Christmas in their caroling. They gave back what we have wished for them. That was amazing. We had one merry Christmas too.
Plastic Cup…
I remember riding down home from Alabang's Metropolis. It was during my last year in high school. I bought things for school since the senior year was just two weeks away. It was getting dark. I looked at my watch. It's already past eight o'clock.
The traffic light turned red as we passed through the side of gateway mall in Cubao. As I turned my gaze towards the sidewalk, my attention was caught by a man lying under the only light of a lone lamp post. Philosophy tells that sleeping positions tell the situation of a person. "His" is a position of a castaway from afar represented by a wavelength of guilt at his body's expressive gesture, maybe a late landlord over his bountiful roots, abused, which possessions were grabbed or somewhat stolen by his tenants, a man who was fooled by another that led him to his deterioration. Beside him was a plastic cup ruled over his left hand while his right hand was positioned over his stomach like a horizontally perfect manuscript of Christ leaning over his cross getting ready to be nailed. He is obviously suffering from hell. Hell on Earth. I am talking about the people who had done this to him. I don't know but I feel quietly sure about my perceptions and I can merely hold on to my instincts as well. I'm also talking about the world he knows that is so cruel, full of rejections, full of sufferings, burned over the fires of hell. I could definitely see how he was suffering from all of these misfortunes vented to his life.
One lady wearing a formal suit with his red stiletto, matching her red expensive bag passed-by and dropped one, two, three coins on the dirty plastic cup of the man without ever looking at him. Suddenly, I felt a sense of happiness. It is really a world of strangers. People may look at him with pity in their eyes. He is a stranger to everyone. Does anybody know this stranger who lies in a damp dark place like this sidewalk of Metro Manila? Who has nothing but a dirty plastic cup and just nothing at all?
As I gazed at him literally, I could say it's really a living hell... sleeping without covers, waking up with an empty stomach, alone without any family to take care of his aged health, as if waiting for his death hopeless for a nice burial. But as his picture flashes on my mind and recalled the only light of a lone lamp post, I know its God. The only one who does know this stranger very much? There's still a place of harbor.
When he woke up, I knew that he would be happy to see the coins in his plastic cup.
Grains of Rice….
At seventy-six years old my grandma could still wash her own clothes and her grandsons’ elementary uniform. All her life, she lived a peaceful and contented life in the province where I grew up and have been raised for 15 years there. Her life was so simple. She cooked in a dirty kitchen where you have to make up a fire: you know… put chopped woods together and waste scratch paper and burn until the wood flare up and fan it or in another easier method, pour out a gas (that’s how the people in the province call the Liquefied petroleum gas which is a mixture of hydrocarbon gases that is used as fuels for heating appliances) first over the chopped woods and throw a flaming red match into it and burn. She was married at twenty-six with my grandpa and had seven children. Another thing, she also lived a very superstitious-conscious life. She lives all through out her life believing into superstitions. I remember eating in her house with the rest of our family every Friday night after attending the mass. I was only in my third grade that time and every time she saw droplets of rice over my placemat and my other cousins’ placemats, she would suddenly become hysterical. She would say that every grain of rice that we would waste during our lifetime, we would pick all of it when we finally died, our souls will suffer and then we would get so afraid that we will make it sure that no grain is wasted or dropped over the placemat or the table. My grandma taught me this one thing: learn how to give importance to everything.
Their family, our family in fact is made up of emotional and strict people. One time, I was so riveted from a one hundred peso discussion with my Lola. My mom called for a hundred peso in our little store stall in the market to buy medicine for my grandma’s arthritis. Upon walking back home to give the wrapped 100 pieces of coins in a cigarette’s foil, one peso coin dropped from my palm and lost it. When I get home, I gave them ninety-nine pesos. My grandma started getting hysterical again about the one peso coin which I had lost. She said “kapag tinanggalan mo ng piso ang isang daan, hindi na isang daan yan”. The very lesson I learned about what happened is also the first lesson I learned from the grains of rice.
When you lose a little part of the whole, no matter what you do, you can’t erase the fact that it is not the whole anymore so learn how to give importance to everything.
In life, the story about the only wish in the fountain, the dirty plastic cup, and the grains of rice is interwoven with three deep conspiracies. Like the peso coins depicted in the each of them… ask beyond the coins… Which kind of coin are you? The coin for the dream come true? The coin for the pathetic stranger in the sidewalk? Or the coin wasted and lost for a person in your life to realize that they need you?
--OusideTheConventAndSeminary--
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