Elsietampong's Blog

I look at my Husband. He is still good-looking. His face hasn’t gotten as many lines as mine. He still has a complete head of hair, except for some empty spots at the middle. He keeps his hair black. His brother has completely lost his hair, but not my Husband. He puts on a lot of hair-saving lotions, and drinks some pills that make the hair grow back. He still has a complete set of teeth. “Horse’s teeth,” I call them. I told him I married him for his teeth. I took a look at them, and decided, “Yes, this is the man for me.”

Finally, after more than forty years of being married, we finally have our own home. In our own names. All these years, we lived abroad, stayed in rented houses. Husband was a Diplomat, so we moved every four years. Bangkok, Nagoya, Kuala Lumpur, Nairobi, Seoul, Lesotho– these were all great postings. We lived in big houses because we had five children and a grand piano. If the living room was small, the piano needed to have its own room. Ah, that piano!

When our parents needed someone to be with them in the house, we decided to return to Manila to take care of them. We lived in the ancestral house. I took over my parents’ business, and the business fed us. We didn’t worry about the house expenses. It was great!

Then when both parents died, we had to divide the family business among us siblings. Things changed. My Siblings did not want to pay for the food that we were eating, the telephone bills, the utility bills. Husband had set up a house in one of my parents’ properties in Baguio, and Siblings wanted to sell the property on which the house was built. So he had to give up the house. The ancestral house in Manila was divided among us siblings. We were free to stay in the rooms that were assigned to us, but the house wasn’t ours. We woke up to the fact that we were now homeless!

Fortunately, we had saved a little money and were able to buy a lot that Husband liked. He built his dream house on this lot. This house was by the beach, but far from Manila. I looked at the Title of the property. It had both our names on it. Finally, our own home…….

The children had long since gone from our nest. After High School, they went to the United States to study. We never heard much from them, except if they had money problems. We visited them rarely, and they visited us rarely. They didn’t even invite us to their weddings. Except for one daughter. I told her that I would spend part of my inheritance for her wedding. She had a nice warm wedding where everyone attended. Our Token Wedding for the Children. We were not the close family type where we held each other close to our breasts. I raised them to think independently, and they live independent lives.

So now it is back to where we started. Him and me, alone. The only difference is that, before, it was just a tiny apartment. Now we have a beautiful new house. But because of the “beauiful house”, we have used up our savings. So we are now on a tight budget, just like before when we started.

I have staff who keep house for me, but they come from Manila, and this beach house drives them crazy. I can see in their faces that they want to take a break and be with people. I send them back to Manila for a few days. So there are days when I am alone and I have to cook and clean. I am thinking, maybe I don’t really need them any more.

It is back to Square One. Just Husband and Me. This is Retirement………..

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THE RETIREMENT HOME

You look around the house. There are no clocks. Why would you need clocks? There are no appointments to keep. There is no one waiting for you. You wake up when you wake up. You eat when you want to eat. You sleep when you are tired.

There are also no newspapers. This place is so secluded, there are no deliveries of either mail or newspapers here. The security is so tight, people carry IDs and are not allowed to walk around the area.

View from My Window

This is the view from my window during sunset. I don’t mind if the angels come directly from the clouds to pick me up from the balcony of my room– when the time comes to meet my Maker. As my Husband says, “I want to die here…”

This entry was posted on July 3, 2012 at 7:22 am and is filed under Family Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.