How little we’ve changed

I finally made it to my St. Theresa’s high school get-together lunch for two balikbayan classmates. I had missed the homecoming before Christmas at the old school grounds in my old neighborhood, in Quezon City, and also the class Christmas party. In our time, we were not only classmates, but also neighbors. I was one of many who walked to school.

To be able to attend this time I had begged them to hold it on a Sunday, on the likely chance I could use our old driver on his day off from a Japanese company where he worked full time. It wasn’t the ideal day for everybody else, Sunday being usually family day, but I was obliged, so long as I was willing to go to a restaurant near them—a Filipino restaurant two towns away, in Robinson’s Magnolia mall.

Time has been kind to all of us, except of course for the natural consequences of age, from which there’s no escape for anyone. One had a walker, one wore gloves for her arthritis, one had had both knees replaced but was back on the golf course. I had an angioplasty myself, saving me from an impending stroke, not unlike the one, a mild one, that had stricken one of us. Five had none of those repairs but were on some maintenance pills, like the rest of us. Absent were two who were suffering from dementia, one who lived too far and others who couldn’t skip family day.

But nine was a good-enough number already. It felt truly consoling being in each other’s company, sharing aches and pains as well as happy memories. Such as we were, we were the survivors—many had already passed away, and we lost yet another last year just before Christmas.

Still active

I was the only one who came unaccompanied. I was dropped off by the driver and found my way to the restaurant, a long but straight walk, unaided. When we stood up, two caregivers suddenly appeared. For others, a daughter or a son or a grandson were a discreet presence, just in time, too, to take up the duty of photographer.

It would have been perfect had we ordered a small lechon and bulalo for all of us, but three weren’t keen. We decided to order for batches and be billed separately. Two batches, mine one of them, went ahead and ordered a quarter of the lechon de leche each. We added a bulalo. Obviously, we were feeling entitled.

The rest were on a diet and went for lumpia and other healthy everyday fare. But when their appetizer of crispy baby crablets arrived, everybody else was offered it. And when the lechon came, the health-conscious turned reckless and indulged in some balat. One latecomer, surveying the dismal leftovers, ordered arroz caldo for herself.

Hardly a shadow of our old selves physically, we were nonetheless still active and involved with life and abreast of current events, but only one was still doing sports—golf. She, I thought, was the most fit and youngest-looking, for which I quickly gave no small credit to a priest son, a Jesuit, who sends me his homily every Sunday from his parish in New York. The other very fit one, a marriage counselor, is hoping her still single son would enter the seminary. All of us remain active in our communities or church. Our widowed medical doctor is who we turn to for medical referrals and emergencies. Of the nine, three still had spouses—I’m one of them—two never married and four were widows.

Fiercely proud

We were all good students in high school, although we didn’t really take our studies too seriously. For that matter, we didn’t take ourselves or anything else, not even life, too seriously at that time. We all enjoyed our youth.

We lived in the golden era, when our country was the Pearl of the Orient, way ahead of our neighbors. A few of us had gone to the States as professionals or became professionals there. That was generations from today, when most Filipinos go abroad out of desperation where they are. Mine felt like an entirely different world.

All of us had gone to college. I myself left for Madrid after high school before going to college at St. Theresa’s Manila. I returned more self-confident, having been exposed to different cultures and arts. I had a brief but memorable experience at the University of Madrid.

I was 17 when I enrolled as a freshman for an AB degree. My high-school classmates were already in their junior year, that way we never really lost touch. Through the years, each time we meet, which is more or less regular, I’m always amazed at how little we’ve changed. We’ve remained fiercely proud of our school, for one thing. We have grown older at the same pace and probably see one another with eyes made kinder by fondness, super-imposing the memory of ourselves from better days. I think we looked better as we matured. Of course, at some point, living too many years had to begin to make a difference. But most of us would rather have our looks now than in high school. Anyone who disagrees hasn’t seen our old pictures.