Of Flowers and Women

Women are often portrayed in song and poetry as flowers. Like the blossoms they go through the stages of budding, blooming, and wilting. With flowers it just takes a few days to a couple of weeks for this metamorphosis to take place, while in women it takes decades or simply stated - a lifetime. 

One has to be in the 6th decade of his life to be able to pen something like this, because the floral-like metamorphosis in women takes half a century to unfold and doing a write-up about it is often dampened by the wilting results, which is not worth expressing in words.

This blog was inspired by a recent reunion with the "flowers" that were lost from Noah's sight for about 3 decades. It is actually about a three-some who were playmates in their younger years. They share the same genes from a Spanish dude - their grandpa, although legally one was the aunt (Jo ann) and the two younger girls (Gizela/Kleng and sister Svetlana/Momo) were daughters of Jo ann's first degree cousin. Noah will call them by the names that they were endeared to him - makes sense, right?

The photos below show in perspective their age differences, which could be considered as Jo ann being an older sister to the two darlings.

the physical features of the kids in the photo 

show their Spanish heritage, while the hanging 

giant spoon in the background is glaring evidence 

of their Filipino ancestry.

some years later...

...and some more. Kleng is now catching

up with Jo ann in height.

Noah came into the life of these girls at an age when he was considered a "kuya" - not an uncle. The photo below will give perspective to that age difference.

this pool is at the Davao Beach club and the other

guys in the photo are Judy - holding Kleng, Victor

an Indonesian dude and Emmeline - mother of Kleng

and Momo.

Bonding moments with these girls were as often as a tight medical school schedule would allow. Noah in those years was fighting to survive the grind that is part of earning a doctor of medicine degree and the invitations by these girls and their mom to the beach, tennis court, parties and other gustatory/gastronomical events meant a lot to him. When you're cash-strapped and mental-fatigued, events like these are like a cool breeze in a hot desert and Noah just loved all these moments - not to mention that it was also an opportunity to be around the taller lass.

The last time Noah saw Kleng and Momo was before the flood, and this is how they looked back then.

At this point in the metamorphosis they were dazzling and it was apparent when guys started falling like dominoes while vying for their hearts. One love-struck and dumbfounded dude up to this moment - about 30 years later, can only manage to say - "speechless."

that's a shot from FB messenger. the 

yellow/blue circles conceal the identity 

of the bloke for obvious reasons.

Fast forward by more than 2 decades and Noah get's the chance to be with these girls turned moms by now and this is how they look.

Noah will stop short of describing the last set of photos above, and like the love-struck dude he would rather say - "speechless."

Thank you ladies for the wonderful memories and for staying in full bloom, fresh and gorgeous, always.