A Mother's Prayer

The circumstances by which my mom’s prayers were answered was told in a blog (http://sunnimoreno.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-blessed-testimony.html) that I wrote more than a decade back. What was lacking in that account was the other side of the miracle that happened many years earlier. 

In the year 1986, my dad passed away, and since mom was left in Iligan City all by herself, she decided to move back to where she lived and grew up prior to her marriage and migration to Mindanao. In Manila, she had a sister who was also widowed and she reckoned that at their age they might work out a way to enjoy the last years of their lives together. My sister was also doing her residency in Pediatrics at a hospital there, which was a perfect set-up for that moment.

Mom was 63 years old then and needed to socialize with people of her age to keep active and happy. It so happened that there was a group in Christ Commission Fellowship (CCF) at Pasig City that was organized for this purpose to which mom’s sister belonged and so mom decided to join them. At this point in the story the only information that reached me in Mindanao was that mom was attending some Sunday activity, that she had an accident while riding on a horse during one of the out-of-town sorties and that she was happy and contented with her life. I didn't have any idea that my Seventh-day Adventist mother - a pioneer in the SDA educational work and a pastor’s wife was regularly attending Sunday worship in Manila.

In the Mid-1990s I decided to bring her back to Mindanao to live with me in the school campus of Mountain View College - the school that she and dad helped pioneer and where they retired after serving for so many years. This place is the bed-rock of SDA education in the central and southern Philippines and it is here where the doctrines of the church are aggressively guarded. 

Mom was very discreet with the new beliefs. The only thing that was apparent was her frequent communication with someone by the name of Danny De Guzman. A name that was the addressee of the regular letters that she asked me to mail for her. She also received mail and parcels of reading material on a regular basis from the same guy. Another thing that could have given her beliefs away was when she would sometimes wash her clothes on a Saturday - the adventist holy sabbath. I thought that maybe she was just mixed up with the days of the week and forgot that we should not wash on the sabbath. I also noted that she wasn't particular about the food that we ate in the restaurant - if there was shrimps or pork, etc. But all in all I never suspected that she had a change of heart in terms of religious doctrine. 

In retrospect, I think that she was hesitant to open up to me due to my position and employment and it could be possible that I would react negatively towards her.

In the year 2000 mom passed away and 3 years later I had that moment of divine calling that I mentioned in my other blog. About a year from that fateful day I happened to visit Manila to attend a work-related convention, and I took the chance to visit my mom's sister. It was there that I told her of my conversion and the trouble that it was causing my family and the institution that I was serving. My aunt was ecstatic and said that the prayers at CCF were finally answered. She invited me to the Wednesday night service while I was there and after the meeting she took me backstage to meet someone - Pastor Danny De Guzman. All she said to him as introduction was "...meet Sunny Boy," and pastor said "a-te Priscy's son?" When auntie answered yes and added that "he's already born-again" Pastor Danny exclaimed - "a mother's prayer has been answered. Hallelujah!"

Mom prayed and cried and prayed for her children - there's no doubt about that, and I know she had that peace and confidence that her prayers would be answered even if the answer came after she passed away. 

Old school memories: Virgil

It’s not often that this blogger - Noah, finds enough words to portray a friend. To qualify for a spot in his blog, one has to be a close pal who was at his side through many memorable times. Some call it “thick-and-thin” or “in good times and in bad.”

This particular blog is possible by all of the above-mentioned and also because the person concerned stood out among the many friends in varied aspects worth mentioning.

Virgil came into the life of Noah when he enrolled in the same class. Not only for that particular subject, but for the majority of subjects that they had to accomplish to complete the pre-med course - BS Biology. 

He had a reputation that preceded him upon entry into college - thanks to a teacher who had a focused disliking on him to the point that she predicted that no amount of schooling would get Virgil anywhere and that his future was bleak and ruined. In return Virgil kept stressing her with his antics. Ironically, but it was this teacher's son who fulfilled his mom's prediction for Virgil by not making it through medical school.

Virgil was a gangster. Certified by the local mafia that lorded over the eastern part of the city and went by the name: Familia D. In those years being a "familia" member kept you above the average kid in the block and your reputation grew with the number of cases that you got involved in. Noah was not from his city, but had frequent visits there. The connection to Virgil meant that he could trespass their turf with a confident swagger.

He was the silent, unassuming and simple type of guy. No fancy stuff or embellishment. What was loud about him was his laughter, which was quite contagious and if there was a group of dudes laughing out loud you can be sure that he was there. He hated hypocrisy and openly lambasted the hypocrites in our midst.

He loved fun - the sort of fun that was not allowed in the campus and which was practically the source of excitement akin to a cloak-and-dagger operation. He and Noah and about a dozen of other friends played around this type of fun to the consternation of the school officials. It was actually the spice that made college life livable and memorable. A narration of all the 'illegal' outings could fill an entire blog.

He was very intelligent. Now this explains why the drag of college life wasn't appealing to him. Chemistry was his forte and he could feed you all the answers in an exam if you sat close enough to decipher his unreadable penmanship. 

One unforgettable episode was in the senior year when the next step after pre-med was being contemplated. All the graduating seniors were definitely proceeding to medical school, but the MCAT exams had to be hurdled first before one could be assured of a slot in medical school. You can imagine the nights spent reviewing for the exams, which would take place in Cebu and Manila. It was at one point during a prayer meeting for this purpose that Virgil announced his plan. He said that if he failed the MCAT he would proceed to Chemical Engineering so that he could work at the San Miguel Corporation - a beer company. That night, amid visions of frothy mugs of ice-cold beer, they all prayed that he would fail the MCAT.  

Virgil and Noah parted ways after college graduation. They took up the medical course in different universities and 38 years have gone by without them seeing each other or even communicating through phone. Apparently Virgil is focused in his role as top surgeon and head of the surgery department of the Iligan City Hospital that Facebook and other social media are not even within the periphery of his consciousness.

Cheers to a memorable friendship!

Old school memories: Earthquake

The inspiration to pen another story appears in a myriad of forms. For this one, it came as a photo of Virgil a.k.a. Jingjing in Facebook that startled a slumbering mole of neurons in this blogger’s head. The tsunami of memories that it caused was so great that it pried open the laptop and this cascade of words commenced.

Several years back, a photo of Warren’s balding head (again in FB) elicited the same reaction, but failed to produce a written account due to employment-related time constraints. With this blogger now retired and free, he might as well let the mole out of the cage. The last time he checked his blog, there were no readers who were younger than 55, which means that the shocking stories of his colored past is in no danger of grossing out some generation-x reader.

Time was when the activity to earn a degree took place in a boarding school. This school was situated in the isolated mountainous recesses of a landlocked province aptly named - Bukidnon (vernacular for mountainous). If the ancient Israelites had the 10 commandments, this school had a "Student Behavioral Code of Conduct" booklet that spelled out each rule and corresponding punishment - the meanest of which was coined "sent-home." Taboo activities included lovers-walking-hand-in-hand, kissing, consumption of alcoholic beverage, smoking, among many others. Food in the cafeteria was vegetarian and competitive sports was not encouraged. Does this scenario sound exciting? Quite the opposite for us young guns, but very much appealing to the parents who may have lost hope and patience in their hyperactive and mischievous kid. It was not difficult for people to see that this school was some kind of a last resort thing even if it really wasn't, but admittedly, the chances of a naughty kid getting a college diploma were much better here than in a school down by the city.

They say that birds of the same feather flap their wings together, and bored teenagers who needed to eat something delicious, washed down by some alcohol-tainted brew and blown up in a puff of smoke found each other by instinct and necessity. The bonding was instantaneous, apparently.  To get this done one had to secure a gate pass to be able to leave the guarded campus. If this was not possible due to a previous offense or by parental instruction, the next option was to beat a path through vast corn or sugarcane fields and hitch a ride on a cargo truck some distance away.

Of all the episodes played out in this manner, one stood out like a monument of success, since no one was caught and no punishment meted out. The day started with this blogger's attention being called by some concerned citizen that there was a stray mutt wandering around the campus. Since he owned a small calibre rifle, this blogger was authorized to cull any potential rabid threat in the vicinity, and he immediately took action - yet with a different plan in mind. As soon as the threat was neutralized, he loaded it on a red jeep and sped to downtown Valencia where the mom of one of his like-minded friends took to the task of preparing a dinner feast. Word was passed around to the gang who were in their classes that something was cooking and that they only needed to secure their gate passes for a night of drunken fun.

That afternoon only seven daring dudes managed to slip undetected from the campus. The night passed by quickly with pitchers of beer and some rum and by midnight all were stretched out on the living room floor, each in his own boozed-out state. That was when the massive intensity 8 earthquake struck, triggering a killer tsunami in Pagadian city - a coastal city of a neighboring province. This temblor rocked the living room floor like a grain thresher and thoughts of "the end of the world and the final judgment" jolted the drunk dudes into action. One guy (Beloi) found his footing amid the shaking and said: "hey guys, listen to the dogs outside go aow, aow, aow." Another guy (War) gets down on his knees and manages to blurt out a prayer... "Lord, ikaw na ang bahala - your will be done." The rest were speechless in shock while their alcohol-marinated brain cells unsuccessfully tried to take in the scenario. The shaking stopped as suddenly as it started and everyone fell back into sleep.

The next day was school as usual, but the guys had a different greeting: "aow, aow, aow..." 

Cheers to each dude in this story. Our heads may be bald and graying, but let the memories keep us young and happy.

Musings on the evolution of illness and disease

Illness and disease have taken up evolving forms and feelings down through the years as personally observed by this blogger. As a pre-school lad, a vision of different colors floating through a wide bottomless abyss was an indication that he was at the brink of a fever-induced delirium and in the background he could hear his mom mutter… “it’s 40 degrees celsius. Get some ice, quick!” Other than that, disease to him was something that deserved nary a thought nor emotion.

College and Medical School was a period where illness was something that was limited to the books, while life flew by fast without nothing serious enough to warrant a doctor’s attention or some confinement in the hospital. The last part of the medical school era was an introduction and the start of the immersion in the realm of disease and illness, but this was done from the third-person point of view. The emotions were mostly confined to the fear of making a mistake that would result in academic failure.

After medical school, with the initials "M.D." now attached to his name, disease and illness became something that had to be handled with utmost care, urgency and professionalism. It was also the means by which he made a living and how he was defined in the community. Emotions played around the concerns over a patient not getting well fast enough, the prevention of the spread of the disease and why was it taking Medicare so long to send the cheques over. Actual participation in the disease process was starting to manifest in the form of elevated serum uric acid, the deposition of the same in the joint spaces and the erosion of the gastric mucosa, which was a direct effect of the pain-killers that were used to alleviate the pain in the joints. Later, hypertension would insidiously enter into the picture - an unavoidable hereditary trait.

Retirement. This was a point in life that was expected and yet came unexpectedly. Disease concerns now was something that came as a private message or a call over the phone. It was about so-and-so who was just diagnosed for such, and so-and-so who just succumbed to such. The focus on kin and dear friends suddenly takes center stage and the emotions ranged from fear to shock to sadness and to bereavement. It was like disease was on the rampage and was sparing no one, and there was practically nothing that could be done to stem its attack and prevent its after-effects. Disease was hitting nearer and nearer home and this blogger knew that it is just a matter of time before debilitating disease would come knocking at his door to announce its grim presence.

To this blogger's kin and friends who by chance have reached this point in his observation of the evolution of illness and disease, he would like to offer a prayer for their happiness in spite of the pain, for recovery by medical and divine intervention and for continued faith and trust in their own selves, in family and above all in God's salvation.