This is now about two weeks overdue, but I just have to oblige myself. For this time, I would be writing about me. I just hope I would not overdo it. Nevertheless, I guess no one is more accurate to write anything about my life, except me myself. It may be somehow biased because I can be selective, but even when someone would do the same for me, they would just pick the items they deem find interesting according to their perception, sort-of. So let me just go on with this and see how it goes. I'll just try to be spontaneous. I hope my mind will work well with my keyboard.
I was born and raised from a very humble family. We were never poor as classified and portrayed over the media. But we were never abundant, or even rich, and not even close to belong to the so-called middle class. We were just some few hairlines above the level of survival. But damn we were fulfilled.
There were not much complains. Just so much to thank for. I am the eldest, and my childhood seem to be so colorful in any sense. I grew up from a normal surrounding, a very peaceful community. I was never socially deprived. It was a very comfortable environment.
Having a perfect set of parents, I was blessed with a sister; four years younger than I am, and a brother; also four years younger than our sister. The quite long gaps was the strategy of our olds. The planned phasing in sending their kids to college would give them a breathing cushion, financial capability wise. But why, the shortest baccalauréat is four years. So our olds must be the thinking parents. With not enough compensation as calibrated to the future needs of us three siblings, our father has even left us to work abroad for a greater pay. Or in the old days they would call it as "greener pasture". That's how they prepared for our education packages. They should be devoted parents, so to speak.
But somehow, the four-year gap each that we have among siblings had tiny drawbacks. As we grew older, we spent time in different age brackets. We absorbed different influences. We learned to think individually. But that should be normal. An inevitable process of growing up. We can not be under one set of wings all the time, for eventually, we will go separate ways. But at least every given Sunday that we are together, we would hear mass from the same church. And most of all, the teachings from our parents remained consistent.
So that even before our father passed away, I and my sister already have families of our own. And a few years more after he died, my brother also had his. At first we were situated just a few blocks apart, and our mother can still expand her wings to cover all three bases. Just a few steps from one strategic location and she can have the next meal with her other child's family. She could play with all her grandchildren any moment she wishes. Sans Dad, we could still go to church altogether. It was a very simple routine for her then.
But as nature would put it, we siblings were bound to live with our own lives according to our own plans. Mommy was in no way in control anymore. She realized that we were going as when she left off her parents' watch too.
It was in this situation that somehow, I must have overplayed my role. In our culture, the eldest child should oversee the welfare of thy siblings, at least in the preservation of family ties, and constant connection amongst. But instead I guess I tried to fill-in the shoes that my father left. I went to my mother's side, sort of telling her how she must divide her time among us. I may have had the purest intentions. Afterall, "we" are family.
And with such show of attitude that I have, and since our mother would most of the time listen to me, not necessary to each and every single word I say, I would hear people say that I am the favorite child. At first I loved it. Until it became irritating. Because I knew it was never true. Mommy may have treated us differently, but must have loved us equally.
Well, there could have been favoritism in some ways, but those were according to the times as the callings would arise. I can say that. After all, I am now a parent myself. This child would be my favorite today, and the other can be by tomorrow. But the love for each child is never lesser for one and more for the other. The volume of love from any parent to each child would depend on the need as required for each condition, but the essentiality shall significantly be always perfectly the same. You may embrace each child one at a time, but surely you would embrace them all in no time. You don't caress a jolly child over the crying one, but at the end of the day, you would certainly caress each and everyone.
And so despite of her declining physical stance, Mommy tried to balance her time binding us all. At one time she would be in my sister's place, and next to my brother's, and then to mine, not necessarily in that order. But every after each juggle of us three, she eventually would go back to our old family house for a breather, enduring a fourteen-hour long trip, with her hurting back due to a slip-disk operation. This became her routine for a while, until my youngest brother have to migrate Down Under. But despite the distance, the routinary cycle must go on. She followed to live with them for a short period. She has to spend time with her youngest son too.
Each stay with each child would bear a different experience to her. All three of us being married, how can I miss to consider that we have brought in new members, our spouses, to the humble family that we use to have. That they were raised differently from the way our own set of parents did us. And they must have different mood swings too. And in no difference to mine, how could I forget that all three of us are old enough to have our own minds too, and so it should not be a strange thing for our mother to have a different condition living with each of us. Either way, we were opposite poles in some ways. But just like the branches of a tree, we still belong to the same trunk.
And so, just like any family having visiting in-laws to live with, our mother became an unwitting element of some unwelcome scenarios. A lot of what-ifs and what-nots to think about, but things are just bound to happen. The wheel of life has to roll over. There is never a reverse gear. Quite sad, but there is nothing much we can do about.
The upside is, everytime a thing or two would come along that would involve our mother, the minds of us three siblings would meet. We discuss things. We dissect each concern. Each one would listen. And we would thresh out applicable solutions that we think is best. No any different situation was treated with a different approach. The gameplan was always the same. And it always worked.
But predestined maybe, certain occurrences had created some spats among us three. And so there came unhappy situations that we have to live by. Each one of us three siblings doesn't have to take sides. We don't have a fight. We just know that deep inside within us, in every which way we do, say or feel, our love for each other will always be there toeing each life's challenges. After all, we were raised properly. We must know how to balance our sensibilities. Or I could be so assuming...
And so this time suddenly it became totally different. Last 26th of April, except from my mother who gave birth to me, it was my very first birthday that I did not receive a warm greeting from my closest kins - which I must have much expected inspite and despite of the dramas that painted our lives. There was this deafening silence that I was never used to. But when everything became calm, and all had sinked-in, I realized that I must understand. Because if life begins at forty, I should be a newborn. And like forty years ago, there was just me and my mother. And so my dearest sister shall come by when I turn forty-four. And my beloved brother when I turn forty-eight. That by the time I turn forty-six, coming from school, I would bring a banana-cue present for her. And when I turn fifty-two, I shall play tex-cards with him again. These two guys, I grew up with them, and they grew up with me. Life was fun having them around. I know one day we'd grow up and have fun altogether again. Whether they are happy about me, to me is irrelevant. To my heart, I should only care of how I feel about them.
But awhiling, I wonder where could be our Dad is now, and how would he be seeing us today. I believe he should be tight-lipped, just guessing what may happen next.
And Mom? I wish that she come home soon. I guess I badly need some breastfeeding. Also that she must take care of her health too - for within the next two leap years, she is to conceive of my sister and my brother. And so that even just in thoughts, we could rebuild those happy memories.
Hopefully altogether...
Again...
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