MEETING WITH THE FUTURE
Today we went to San Fernando, Pampanga to meet one of Husband’s friends. When we arrived from Africa in 1996, we met many of Husband’s colleagues who were in similar situations as us: retired from a successful career and returned to the Philippines with lots of hope to share with the country what they have learned from their past career.
Dr. R was a medical doctor. He was stationed in London and worked with a UN agency. His daughter was also in London, with a flourishing career. One daughter died in a tragic vehicular accident while visiting in Africa. For three months, she lay in a morgue, and no one could seem to help her get home. I feel that the pain of her death had stayed with them until now, when they mentioned about having lost a child.
I looked at Dr. R as he ate across me. He looked like a 90 year old man. Yet he was just 80 years old, 10 years older than Husband. He brought his wife to lunch with us. She ambled slowly, and he went to her side to guide her. She, too, was just ten years older than me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How could these two people just be ten years older than both Husband and me, and looked like they were twenty years older?
Dr. R said he got sick and lost 20 kilos. The wife narrated how, one night when the phone was ringing in her house in Kamuning, Quezon City, she fell down in the stairs as she tried to answer the phone. She hit her head and has never been the same since. Dr. R said that the doctor told him to eat as much as he can. The couple ate slowly. They had gotten “long in the tooth”, where the roots of their teeth had become partly exposed. I timed their eating. They ate for almost three hours!
After coming back in 1998, Dr. R had everything going for him. He had bought a 10 hectare farm in Samal, Bataan. He planned to convert it into a weekend farm for urbanites who wanted to experience farming during their leisure hours. He also had a large plot of property at the foot of Mt. Arayat, where he planned to make into an “international playground – fishing, camping, mountain climbing, learning.” He said he had seen this model in Europe, and it was convinced it would be successful– to transport the idea here and make the “playground” accessible internationally.
Husband’s eyes sparkled as he told Dr. R of his own grandiose plans for his Morong, Bataan farm property. “I will teach the neighboring farmers how to increase their productivity. I will plant many kinds of fruiting trees. I will engage in aquaponics, which is a new concept in the Philippines, only practiced in a few areas. I belong to a network of agricultural scientists who are helping me on this.” And so on and so forth. He sounded so much like Dr. R, talking about his plans ten years ago.
Dr. R’s tired eyes looked at Husband. “I see your face gleaming with such promise. On my part, I had failed miserably.” He said that no one picked up the concept of weekend farming. No one bought the land they were supposed to till during the weekends. He entrusted it to a Keeper, and it is now abandoned. As far as his plans for the “international playground”, it met so many problems, one of which was that it was not accessible by reliable roads. End of the story.
I whispered to the wife when Dr. R had gone to the toilet that all was not lost. They had succeeded in getting their daughter to return from New York and be with them until their end. She now runs seminars all over the world, but she goes home to their place in Arayat. That must mean something for them.
After three long hours of carefully masticating their food, they ended their meal. We had another appointment, this time with the lady who will make the furniture for our new home in Bataan. We said our goodbyes. When Husband and I were alone in the car, I said to him, “I wonder how we will look ten years from now. Will your project be a success? Or a failure? Will we be broken? Or glorious?” Only time will tell……….
Was it like Meeting With The Future?
March 7, 2012
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