Still I rise from every fall
I am myself surprised how I have managed writing this column week after week for 13 years, missing a column only twice, first because of a problem of communication from out in the open sea, and second, only recently, because of deep emotional turmoil. But even those failures became subjects of my columns, too.
Perhaps writing this column has been something of a fateful calling. This column is generally about seniorhood, and I was called to begin writing it when I was well into that age—71. By then, I had been brimming with suitable stories to tell, and among these stories were those about my own family who lived in prominence at a most interesting time.
That time began when the first Alejandro Roces landed on our shores, a colonist from Asturias, Spain. His son, another Alejandro, begot my own grandfather Rafael, the sixth of seven children, himself born, as happened, in Spain—in Barcelona.
Their stories are in a book written by the youngest of nine uncles of mine, Alfredo (Ding) Roces, a resident of Sydney, Australia, since escaping martial law, now 92. That book, “Looking for Liling,” goes into that history as the writer searches for the eldest brother he has not known, who died a martyr in the last war, at age 32.
Fate and genetics
Going closer to my theory of fate and genetics possibly playing a part in my column writing, our side of the Roces family produced four opinion writers out of those nine sons, all schooled under the Jesuits of the Ateneo, born of Rafael and Inocencia (Reyes) Roces. Before making their separate marks in other fields, all four wrote for family-owned newspapers—three for The Manila Times, one for Tribune, before the Japanese sequestered it during the occupation.
It was the lost brother Liling, Rafael Jr., who had written a column for Tribune—“Thorns and Roses”—and was beheaded as a guerrilla during the war. In the late 1940s, my own dad, Joaquin (Titong), wrote his “My Daily Bread” for the Times. It was literal, not at all biblical: his column put bread on our table. Or so he claimed, for he was also a professor of law at the Reyes-owned Far Eastern University. He went on to have his own corporate law practice before winning a seat in Congress, representing Manila’s business district. Martial law abolished Congress and cut short his fifth term. He resumed his column writing briefly, for Joe Burgos’ newspaper, Malaya, in the dying days of martial law.
Alejandro (Anding) reversed Liling’s column title to make it his own, “Roses and Thorns,” in the Times. He was a National Artist for Literature, 2003. He had already been an author when he came back from studies abroad to become dean of Arts and Sciences at FEU and later appointed Secretary of Education by President Diosdado Macapagal.
Ding also wrote his “Light and Shadow” for the Times. An author himself and a well-known painter, he is the family historian.
Coming from the same stock is about all I could show that is indisputable for landing a column. In any case, it constitutes a high point in my life, and I have done justice to it with longevity, if nothing else: it’s been 13 years, outlasting star writers in my section, who either retired or passed away, and even the newspaper editor, herself now gone, and my section editor, who has moved on to digital publishing on her own.
Life at twilight
I meanwhile continue to do as I have done, write my column drawing on life at twilight, but living the present with an acute sensitivity to the simple joys still mine for the taking. Writing has actually helped me look back on the past with a sense of freshness and a profound gratitude. Indeed, I find it gratifying to know that my stories have resonated with consoling familiarity with fellow seniors and excited expectancy with non-seniors.
I didn’t intend to go out with a bang, but the most dreaded fear of seniors happened to me on Sept. 27, at around 4 pm. If bad experiences came in threes, this should end the jinx.
I tripped, fracturing my big toe, on the uneven sidewalk of my street, and went on a free fall, my body going along mindlessly, arms and hands useless, as if not there at all. I hit my head against a building wall, cutting me just above my forehead. I dropped on my left knee and lay motionless there, in a fetal position, my left cheek on the sandy, slippery pavement. I didn’t pass out. I had just clocked 6,000 steps. My Fitbit was sending up fireworks.
An ambulance delivered me to the ER at Makati Med. My CT-Scan showed everything under my skull fine, but the cut required three stitches. My x-ray revealed the worst of it—fractured kneecap and big toe. I was home at 4 a.m. and began counting my six to eight weeks to heal.
I’ve actually had a series of disasters recently, and, lest your recollection of me be of a Calamity Jane, I’ve risen and will continue to rise from every fall, not unlike the poet Maya Angelou: “…Leaving behind nights of terror and fear/I rise/Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear/I rise…”
So, until I rise for my last column, next Sunday.
