She looked at me. She was still beautiful at 74. She had less wrinkles than I, the same fragile beauty that would make a man feel protective over her. We were classmates from Kindergarten. She lived a few blocks away from us.
“We had a big lot, 800 square meters, along Roces Avenue. It was an orchard. We had a lot of fruit trees. We had pomelos. That is what I miss about my life now. I have no space for a garden. I live in a condominium in Makati, but I miss having plants around me.
“ We sold our house along Roces Avenue for an hoity-toity place in Greenhills. It was the place to be at that time for rich people. Then my father died, my two siblings moved to the States. After a while, they wanted to have money so we sold it, and my mother and I moved to Makati. When she died, my daughter and I moved to a small condo at the Residences on Greenbelt. It is a convenient place, but there is no garden.”
I looked at my own condition. My parents had also died, and now my siblings want to demolish our house to make another modern house. I have another house in an upscale residential subdivision north of Manila. I plan to move to a small unit in the commercial building that I inherited. It would be hard to return to the “new house” after I had all my belongings.
Then she talked about being alone. Her husband died 40 years ago. He had just graduated from the prestigious Philippine Military Academy, and he was sent to the war-torn area in Mindanao, where the young graduates had no knowledge of the war terrain that they were brought to.
“ I saw a young man with a badge “Special Forces” brazened along his chest. Immediately I went to him and said,
“Never betray your country. Don’t let my husband die in vain. Love your country and be true to it.”
She went on, and this conversation touched my heart.
“I still cry when I think of him. I know he is still with me. After he died, he came to me, faceless, but I knew it was him. He kissed my lips and embraced my whole body with pressure.”
“I could have married someone else after him. I was so young, I was only 27 years old. But I couldn’t divide my attention between my only child and my new husband.”
“It is not sex, but you really want to share your life with someone. There are some times when you can’t talk about something with anyone including your child, and there is no one.”
I looked at my own life. A beautiful house far away from Manila. A virtual paradise. But I am alone all the time. My children dutifully try to spend time with me by visiting me one week a year. I spend all my hours alone with my computer. I talk to my computer all day and until I go to sleep. Well, I do exercises and entertain myself with retail therapy, but that’s only a small portion of my day. I go to my Office for one hour a week to sign checks. But that’s all. I communicate with my Office via my computer and over the phone. Well, that will change when I move to the building where the Office is located. I wonder how they feel about that. Me breathing down their neck.
I look at my neighbors who are more advanced in age then me. Two of them are in wheelchairs or home bound. They cannot afford to have maids, so one child is assigned to watch them, a different child a day, even if they have regular work. That would be a laugh, to have one child sacrifice his/her life to watch me. They would probably put poison in my drink the first hour they have with me, so as to end this chore.
I have to think of what I should do NOW to have a better 80 years old.
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