Retirement
Mom garnered three degrees under her belt, just waiting for Dad to finish his Medical degree. She wanted to take up Medicine, just to be near him. But her Father, Lolo Papa, told her “It’s a waste of time, energy, and money”. I wonder what he finally said (to himself) after she spent all those years in college. She might as well have become a doctor. She finished two Bachelor’s degrees — in Science and Pharmacy, and a Master in Science degree in Botany.
I know that Lolo Papa complained about her expenses. She lived in a Dorm. Mom said that one time, Lolo Papa commented on her purchase of shoes. She never forgot about this incident, since she still recalled it to me 25 years after the fact. I also saw a letter written by Lolo Papa to her Dorm, allowing Dad to visit her. Apparently, the Dorm was getting worried about his frequent visits to her, and formally asked Lolo Papa whether he allowed it. The tone of Lolo Papa’s letter was a bit whimsical, even philosophical. I don’t have the letter right now in my hands, but he said that if that was her wish (to see Dad all the time), he would trust her decision. It was obvious that to be with Dad was at the center of her existence at this point.
Mom had a rough time all her life. This included the time when she was a Professor of Botany in a downtown University in Manila.
Before Dad was assigned back to Manila, Mom used to commute by bus. (Nowadays, “commute”, is a noun to signify taking a public vehicle.) It was a 10-minute walk to the bus stop in Kamuning, then she would take the bus to the University Belt. The neighbors would always say as she passed by, going click-click-click with her 3 inch high heeled shoes, “There goes Mrs. Franco on her way to school.”
It was hard for Mom to combine running the home with three children and her career at the same time. She was never lucky with maids. Then by the late 1950’s, she started buying property and building on them.
When I turned 18 years old, Dad was already back in Manila. Dad had gotten the hung of the business. He borrowed $67,500 from the bank, and bought Mom a Mercedes Benz. He also used part of the money to construct on one 900 sq.m. lot they bought on the way to the airport, and to renovate the old house where we still live in.
The Mercedes Benz was probably why Mom’s co-teachers didn’t like her. She didn’t “belong”. She also went to a beauty parlor every week (I went with her) to have her hair done. She bought this 3-carat diamond ring from Hongkong and wore it everyday to school. The only co-teacher who stood out like Mom was Mrs. Anson, the wife of movie star Oscar Moreno. She was mestiza and good-looking, but I doubt if she had a Mercedes Benz and a 3-carat diamond ring every day to work.
This Downtown University was a commercial school. Mom taught in classes the whole day. She came home with loads and loads of laboratory papers and test papers. A few years before she retired, she hired someone to check the papers.
I saw her letter to the University asking them to allow her to retire before the mandatory age of 65. She was 64 years old, and had written a Manual on Botany for the beginners. She expressed hesitancy in retiring, but it was something that she had to do for her personal life. Now that I look back, I wonder:– did she find out about Dad’s infidelities? I know that Dad retired at the same time, 1977, after he suffered a stroke. Did he leave for North America during this time, and she felt she should join him?
I never got to ask her that question. I never asked her personal questions.
Elsietampong's Blog 
May 10, 2010 at 10:46 am |
I was talking to cousin Toto while we were lining up to vote today. He has this humongous blog on his family, and I wanted his comment on my blog. His blog is entitled, “Remembrance of All Things Awry”. I told him about my blog, and I confessed that most of what I wrote was about the small things my parents fought about. He dismissed it by saying, “All parents fight all the time.” (Hey, Toto is 20 years younger than me.)
I find myself talking about Dad’s “infidelities” in my blogs. Honestly, to be fair, no one really had proof of any infidelity on his part. He never brought home a “woman”. He never had any “children” from any of his liaisons. And he loved Mom so much. In fact, in the end, it was Mom who had these ideas in her head. They were not true.
For example, I asked a doctor who was Dad’s trainee, to come to visit Dad once a month. He came regularly, and he brought along his wife, who was his business manager. His wife happened to be the daughter of one of Dad’s half-brother, who lived with them while Dad was studying. But she was much younger than him, and Dad only had eyes for Mom at that time. When this doctor started to visit Dad, Mom started a story in her head that Dad had a child with this woman. And that the reason they were visiting Dad was for the doctor’s wife to take her inheritance from Dad once he dies. Mom tortured Dad about this, to the point that he confessed that the doctor’s wife was his, even if she wasn’t. I saw him crying saying, “Yes, she is my child……” just to shut her up. Poor Mom. Poor Dad. The doctor’s wife, to this day, never had any idea of the pain her presence during those visits, caused the couple. And she never made a claim on any inheritance.
Mom also claims that, one day, Dad and his nurse had told her that they were running away, together. That was another absurd story she had in her mind. How could Dad run away with his nurse? He was dying! And why would a nurse want to run away with this 90-year old man? How could they run away? Where would they go?
I think Mom had been hurt many times in the past, that she was convinced of these “infidelities.” When Dad died, she asked to be alone with Dad who was already in his coffin. She never shed a tear. Then she came back to us and said, stoically, “I told him I forgave him.”
I was happy that Mom had her mind intact during the last years of her life. She never slipped into any of those debilitating diseases– Parkinsons, Alzheimers… Of course, she wanted to continue holding the rein to her apartment business. That was tough for me on a day-to-day basis. She egged me to put up my own business, not to sit on her laurels. I tried to explain to her that it was more logical for me to improve her properties, rather than for me to neglect them and start my own.
In the end, a few days before she died, she told me, “Money is not important. What is important is life eternal….” During this time, she could no longer speak. I let her write what she wanted on a slate, and I have kept these words on that slate, and the slate is in her house in San Luis.
LikeLike