This is the first time in almost a year since I last blogged. Again, work and personal commitments prevented me plus the fact that I really was looking for the inspiration to write. A protracted case of writer's block if one may say.
Today, Nov.1, is All Saints' Day in the Philippines and in most Catholic countries. While technically, the day of the dead is Nov. 2 (All Souls' Day), we Filipinos have come to regard Nov. 1 as the real day of visiting our dear departed.
Growing up in Bulan, Sorsogon and witnessing a decade at least of Todos Los Santos, I can't help but look at the holiday in another light. Before, we had a lot of fun going around the cemeteries in Bulan visiting tombs of grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles and even two elder sisters who died when they were young. As a child, my preoccupation was to collect used candles and make them into a ball. For what, I was not sure. Just the simple joy of having to collect all these droppings and make something out of them.
I think this analogy hews close to what the dead are telling us - collect all the droppings of life and make something out of them.
As I age and since a lot of people I knew while growing up have died, I look for the lessons that I may get from having known them. Of course, I cannot make a generalization of how they must have lived their lives but I speak from the strength of my interaction with them and how they have helped mold my perspective in life.
The lessons from my parents, Manuel Ginete and Maria Futalan, come right up the list. They were very simple persons, my father having reached 3rd year high school only and my mother, grade 4. Yet despite the lack of education they were very insistent on everyone of us, a large brood of 9, finishing college or whatever course or degree we wanted to take. It did not matter then that they were struggling to send us to college. What I always heard from them, specially my father, is that while he does not have the material things to bequeath us, we would always have our education to fall back on and be our wealth for as long as we can apply them.
So imagine him and my mother sending four children simultaneously to college. While he was being assisted by my eldest brother, Abelardo, and my aunt, Ma Feling Lopez, my father had to be resourceful to be able to fulfill his vision of us getting our college diplomas. This is a lesson I am clear about and which I try to send across to my nephews, nieces and anyone else who would care to listen: get an education because this is your chance to improve your life.
I mentioned Ma Feling Ginete - Lopez. In my previous blogs, I wrote about her. She passed away this January but the lessons I learned from living with her and her family will always be a source of strength. She was a strict person when I was living with her during my high school days. All of us in the household (she had relatives from Pa Etong Lopez's side living with her as well then) had our chores to do. I am usually the gas station cashier and on most sunny Sundays, be the one to call all the mahjongg players via the bike. That would mean that in most weekends I would not be in Gate with my family and friends and instead be working in Bulan. To a child at that age, that was really a sacrifice. But later in life I am thankful that I was entrusted with responsibilities at a young age and this has helped me view life differently.
We come across people who have now passed on and yet inexorably touched our lives. We mirror our lives with theirs hoping that in the process we could establish our own image.
I appreciate the thriftiness of Pa Etong Lopez which together with Ma Feling ensured that his family was well provided for. I look in awe and admiration the fortitude of Manay Linda Ginete Uycoque-Villanueva, my cousin, who held on to her family despite all the trials it went through. I respect the simple life that Pay Uyan (Julian) Ginete led despite being mayor of Bulan for many times. I also admire the pioneering spirit of Pay Jose Ginete who chose to start a family in La Union, in an unfamiliar place, yet never forgot his roots.
So today, as I mark this holiday of the dead, I 'd like to thank them for the lessons I am able to draw and for letting me gain insight into what I did as child's play: collect the droppings of life and make something out of them.
Peace be to all your souls!
