MEDIUM RARE
Earthquake! Nine killed in Sarangani province. Heavy rain, floods as high as the rooftops in Catarman, Samar. Extreme climate. And extreme despondency: A 23-year-old housemaid hung herself after she could not explain what she did with money she was supposed to pay on her employers’ behalf. At such a tender age, she leaves two very young orphans. Extreme pain.
Misery stalks. We should all be thankful and fall down on our knees for being spared the miseries that seem to be happening more and more frequently all around us, just when Christmas, or the promise thereof, seems so near. It’s November, one week before the last month of the year, November that was Novem, the Latin word for nine, because that was supposed to be the ninth month in the Roman calendar. Just as October, or eight, was supposed to be the eighth month. December, or ten, was at one time the 10th month.
Time does not change, only the names of its signposts, its seasons.
What time cannot loosen are the bonds of friendship that, the older they get, the stronger they grow and hold together. At any rate, for my old gal pals in uni, it was nice to prematurely commemorate Thanksgiving Day last week, “reunion” being too big a word to describe a plain and simple meeting of four. As it turned out, lunch was an easy excuse to dredge up memories, the shallow ones as well as the deep ones, and recall the teachers and classmates we have lost over the years. What we did not have time for was chit-chat about children and grandchildren – did that make us bad people?
M has switched from growing vegetables and collecting butterflies to caring for orchids. She spends her mornings in the sun, which may explain her healthy looks and sunny disposition: “I’ve stopped wearing long skirts, they look like dusters.” S is glamorous as ever, still fretting how government regulations keep changing as they affect the family business. B takes the cake for personally taking charge of her husband’s meals, on top of which she continues her volunteer work in a religious community.
M, mindful of the Christmas traffic in November, had the last word: “No future meetings ‘til after December!”