IN my birthday last week, my kids surprised me with their personally made birthday cards, which they handed me with hugs, kisses and chuckles early in the morning on the 21st. That’s what I meant in my previous blog that there are good reasons to celebrate your birthday, just as there many reasons to establish a good attitude in life. Let me say then that receiving greeting cards from the kids is the best gift ever a father could have on his birthday.
My three kids are a good bunch of inspiration for me. Seeing them in the morning completes my arsenal for staying on, moving on, and hanging on in every setting of my life. Of course, I flare up sometimes, scold them, and find less time with them. But I will not dwell on that. A child is a child, sometimes naughty, demanding, and sometimes sweet; as father must always be a father, and always in him a soft spot or a weak spot. As a father, I could be so busy with my daily schedule and routine that I could have become so clueless.
To my kids, there’s no better way to express their love than to put them in words and colorful artworks. Here are my kids’ recent masterpieces.
This one is from N-yel, my eldest.
Yes, that two photos are Manny Pacquiao’s which he (or with Mom as co-conspirator) had clipped from an old newspaper. My wife and my kids love to tease me that the world-renowned boxing champion and I are like peas in a pod, especially when I sport long hair with a split on the middle and bangs hanging on the sides, and when I made myself unshaved for two or three weeks. But read on, did my son scribble the word handsome? But I rather take the whole message to mean, “Hey, my dad’s the champ!”
This one is from Dudoy, my second child.
This boy hasn’t grown up his love for dinosaurs. Not yet. He still loves to collect dinosaurs, to watch dinosaur movies, to read about dinosaurs, act like dinosaurs, and think like dinosaurs. So what do you expect when he thought of something to represent me on my birthday card? A T-rex with a big mouth ready to devour its prey would be it (but instead he cropped my picture and drew a cake as prey this time). Now I realized my dinosaur lover of a son loves burger than anything else. But for “dinosauring” me, I won’t treat him not even a bite of his burger. Just joking.
And this one is from Eya, my youngest.
My girl with a toothless grin loves to write love notes and to doodle on paper scraps and on pages of her notebook. (Last time, I heard her Mom telling her to stop sending sweet-nothings to her classmates, one of them a boy.) And for this one from her, she used a colored paper and a scented pen for a change (why not, it’s her dad’s special day). The erasures must have been due to her brother’s editing. And the unusual cut on the corner must be hers, because she still messes up her artwork with the scissors.
Just like their other letters and impromptu cards I received from them, I will keep these cards in my personal drawer. I know that anytime soon, they no longer do this for me or for their Mom. One day they will no longer recognize themselves in what they wrote. The he-he-he’s and emoticons, the dinosaurs, and scented notes with erasures may soon be a thing of the past, and they may not be as sweet as they do now. And like many of my fondest memories, they’ll be anchored on things that no longer exist. But I just hope they won’t stop sending me those handwritten cards.
My kids love to write sweet-nothings and flaunt their creativity when they make cards for their Mom on her birthday or on a Mother’s day, and for each one’s birthday, and during Christmas. Even when there is no occasion at all. My youngest, when she has the mood, draws stick figures with I love you’s and I miss you’s naturally matched with heart shapes and smileys. Then, pointing at the figures for me to see, she chatters with her sweet little voice “This one is you, Daddy, this one is Mommy, this is Love, this is our house, etc.”
A GOOD music in the morning to pep me up, a hearty breakfast with steaming black coffee, hugs and kisses from my wife and kids, the smiles of neighbors you meet in the street. I try hard to establish that attitude of joy in my life, because I want a day that is filled with happiness, not sorrow. Especially when it is my birthday.
And that will be tomorrow September 21.
I was born exactly a month before the Plaza Miranda bombing in Quiapo, Manila, and exactly a year before President Marcos declared Martial Law in the country. But the later event is more significant. The presidential declaration is considered as the most crucial episode in our history that ushered in the long reign of Marcos dictatorship. Since then, September 21 has become a very memorable date in the country, and just like those birthdates that fall on holidays or any historical date, it has an easy recall.
But do I really need to celebrate for all the world to know? Is it supposed to be a purely personal celebration?
For the first time in many years, right before I write this blog, I remember my former boss (God bless her soul) and her antipathy on birthday celebrations.
She wasn’t keen on celebrating birthdays. If she had her way, she didn’t want us in our department to greet her with lavish gifts or throw a party for her, much more to celebrate on her birthday. A birthday to her is purely personal thing, a time for her to introspect and evaluate her life, so why throw a party just to have fun and tell the whole world that it is her birthday. Once, when we invited her to attend one sumptuous party for an officemate who was celebrating her birthday, she naturally declined the invitation.
My former boss was one of my mentors when I first worked in Rex Publishing, but her stance on birthday celebrations didn’t suit me well. I had theories why she hated it: she might have an unhappy memory about birthdays, she had no family of her own as she was unmarried, or she didn’t want obsequious people to use her natal day to strut their skills on her. Or she just tried to rationalize things in her or the company’s favor, that when we do a party we are practically cutting our working time in the office.
That started then my own introspection and reflection during my birthday. I began to reflect on purely personal terms the significance of my natal day.
To me a birthday is a cause of celebration. There's always a certain expectation and significance for it. Just like anything good that happens to you, a good report card from your kids, a great day at work. I believe that life is about rejoicing. Every good thing is significant and always a cause of celebration and you want to share that with your family and friends. We are all for a party, anytime.
So when one celebrates his or her birthday, it’s one way of saying, Hey, I live for another year in this planet and let’s hope for more years to come. Who cares if a birthday would just add another year to your age? You grow old year by year, even if you don’t celebrate your birthday anyway.
I rather think of another year passing, what I have accomplished so far and what I haven't. I tend to focus on the first. And this gives me some reason to make merry. There must be good reasons to celebrate.
I don’t usually have particular plans for my birthday; except that, I must be sure that I will have a nourishing dinner or lunch with my wife and kids. Last year I treated them with an early dinner at KFC in Caloocan, just that one, and then we went home.
Because it is non-working holiday tomorrow (this year it falls on a Ramadan, now a national holidays upon the official declaration by Malacañang), I might have a real party this time. It means I have more time with my kids; and I expect some important guests, particularly my brother and two sisters, and some of my in-laws from Malate to come over.
I’m not twenty-one anymore but I can still pretend I am. I can always think of my birthday as a milestone, another marking up of my chronological age, but not my outlook in life. Grow old, and grow wiser than ever before, seems to me a good dictum.
SOMEONE has said that human nature is so weak in the bookstore.
There’s truth to that, with what happened to me one Wednesday morning while I was in a bookstore that exclusively sells secondhand books, at Waltermart near Muñoz Market in Quezon City.
It’s 11:30 a.m. on my watch, and I still had 30 minutes to spare before I go to work. But that half-hour dragged on until past 12. I knew I would be late, but I had not yet decided which book or books I must buy. And worse, I only have P400 in my wallet for the rest of the week.
With a very limited time and budget, I must pick with any one or two of many books that I had selected. Dammit, there’s so many for picking that morning when in some regular days, I could only see two or three good ones for me. I picked up Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (P65), John Lennon by Alan Clayton (P180), East of Eden by John Steinbeck (P180), Mitla Pass by Leon Uris (P45), Mexico by James A. Michener (P65), and Presumed Innocence by Scott Turow (P85). But I must choose only one or two if I hold on to the more expensive titles, or at least three if I chose the less expensive ones. The clock was ticking very fast.
To think that a day before that I also ransacked a stall of secondhand books at a lobby in Trinoma, another mall along EDSA within the city. For almost an hour of rummaging, I was able to bring home five good books: Got Shorty by Elmore Leonard, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, and Roger’s Version by John Updike, a Magic Tree House’s Dingoes at Dinnertime, and Happy Feet (junior novelization of an animation movie)—the last two were for my two boys who have also been fond of reading pocketbooks.
For the past few months I have been buying an average of one book a week, all second-hand books. With my limited budget (look, I am a father of three, have a part-time job, and a law degree to complete), I couldn’t afford to buy expensive new releases, all bestsellers, on display in National Bookstore. Even when I buy one if I got extra money to spare, I would still have second thoughts shelling out P300 or P400 for a new book. I might rather use that amount for four or five secondhand books from Booksale. Why not, I don’t exactly need new releases when there are myriads of good old books out there that I couldn’t even read a fraction of them in my lifetime.
I haven’t read the other books—around 20 of them—that I have bought since June. But I don’t mind looking at my unread books, and that, once I’ve finished reading one, I can immediately browse at them, thus giving me a choice from which I can select the next one.
My passion for reading has been increasing since middle of last year. It all started when I got invited by a friend to open a Shelfari account. I felt good downloading from my memory box those titles, from children’s storybook to romance and bestsellers to classic novels that I have read, and compiled them in a list, complete with pictures of familiar covers and some important details. Then I began to think of those books I haven’t read so far. It was then that I realized I have missed so many books since I faltered from reading and collecting books some years ago, thanks to termites which gobbled most of my first collection of pocketbooks, in our rented place near Muñoz market.
Now to catch up on my reading, I read while in a vehicle as I commute from our home in Marilao, Bulacan to our office in Quezon City, which is a one-and a-half-hour travel. And during office hours, I stole some time beyond coffee break to read pages of my book. And I’d formed the habit of reading more pages before going to sleep. So in those terms, I'm on track!
But one side effect though is that, my allocated time for my law course was now at a minimal because I have been spending more time reading fictions than reading my codals and textbooks on Taxation and Civil Procedure. So most of the time I cram in these subjects.
I don’t think it is a belated passion for reading. I haven’t stopped reading pocketbooks since high school but not as this rate that I am having now. I am starting to build up my library at home. It was my second attempt to put up another collection after that sad incidence with the termites.
Going back to Booksale, I settled on the more expensive ones: John Lennon and East of Eden. They were rare titles in a second-hand store as this one, and the copies were in good condition as if they had not been used at all by their first owners. That cost me P360, and one-hour salary less (due to tardiness) from what I would earn that day. Now you call that a sign of a weak human nature!
But it’s nice to think that when I get home I have new materials to read. Then that would inspire me to finish the one I am reading now, The Sandman: Book of Dreams, and have vowed to complete one more book by the end of the week.
My latest Shelfari account on books read
Yes, that two photos are Manny Pacquiao’s which he (or with Mom as co-conspirator) had clipped from an old newspaper. My wife and my kids love to tease me that the world-renowned boxing champion and I are like peas in a pod, especially when I sport long hair with a split on the middle and bangs hanging on the sides, and when I made myself unshaved for two or three weeks. But read on, did my son scribble the word handsome? But I rather take the whole message to mean, “Hey, my dad’s the champ!”
This boy hasn’t grown up his love for dinosaurs. Not yet. He still loves to collect dinosaurs, to watch dinosaur movies, to read about dinosaurs, act like dinosaurs, and think like dinosaurs. So what do you expect when he thought of something to represent me on my birthday card? A T-rex with a big mouth ready to devour its prey would be it (but instead he cropped my picture and drew a cake as prey this time). Now I realized my dinosaur lover of a son loves burger than anything else. But for “dinosauring” me, I won’t treat him not even a bite of his burger. Just joking.
My girl with a toothless grin loves to write love notes and to doodle on paper scraps and on pages of her notebook. (Last time, I heard her Mom telling her to stop sending sweet-nothings to her classmates, one of them a boy.) And for this one from her, she used a colored paper and a scented pen for a change (why not, it’s her dad’s special day). The erasures must have been due to her brother’s editing. And the unusual cut on the corner must be hers, because she still messes up her artwork with the scissors.
