The recent months have been full of alumni homecomings, especially this month of September. We recently culminated our week-long celebration of our high school class alumni homecoming with a General LCC Alumni Homecoming last Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024.
Homecoming is a good way to reconnect with batchmates, particularly with those whom we have not seen for years. It is a nostalgic, poignant, sentimental feeling to touch base once again with these people whom we spent so many years together since most, if not all of our batchmates we had been with since preparatory and kinder years. In our specific class sections, particularly, we were in the same class section all throughout the elementary and high school years!
I realized that over the many years, more than reconnection, we brought forth the experiences we had the many years we had been as students, employees, executives, business people, and even as housewives.
The preparation for a golden jubilee like ours is no joke. Each one exerted an effort to have a successful event – the talents, skills, and experiences each possessed had shown and manifested itself through the preparations. The event is a one-week celebration, particularly for our Batch, but the preparations were made for months or even a year! We are grateful to our Batch President, Ana Maria Chua-Mendoza, who accepted the challenge of heading our class. She has been very efficient and organized since day one and every team member tirelessly worked with the preparation given different assignments. Our General Alumni Association President, Atty. Benilda “Bennie Tejada” was equally very dedicated and organized.
An event like this manifests the work ethics of commitment, dedication, and discipline, especially in the observance of time, generosity, self-confidence, positive disposition, flexibility, professionalism, and other strong work values that people have gained through the years. It was also a channel through which talents of singing, dancing, communication skills, techy skills, and even eating skills (haha!) shone through!
We can see that personal values have also changed for the better. People had been more subdued and patient; there are still “Maritess,” but most in a funny way, relating the memories of the past. The bullies before, if any, had become more tamed. There may still be whiners but the rest are trying to understand them since we are like a family. Each one has a different personality – the important thing is that one has matured not only literally but emotionally. As I reminded everybody, as Emcee during the Welcome Dinner and before our program started, to throw all expectations out of the window, thereby avoiding being critical or refraining from grumbling because everybody is just doing their best to make our week-long get-together a success. Instead, I just enjoy and have fun – sing, dance, laugh, and reminisce about the past years.
Even in our dance presentation, so many of us (15 or so in all!) went through rigorous practice. I am glad everybody is “game enough” to dance before the big audience during our General Alumni Homecoming night.
We could not even believe we had reached this event – it seems that the years just flew by so quickly. We may be different people now, but our relationship with each other is still the same if not even grown stronger through the years.
As I played the video of our past bonding moments, as the opening salvo of our Welcome Dinner, I realized that there were many who had already passed away. It is a sad thought that perhaps years from now, many will not be there anymore, and many may not even reach the diamond years.
But that is life; we just have to move on and make the best of every moment, trying to set proper priorities and, more importantly, grow deeper in our relationship with our Creator. That at the end of our lives or in our death beds, we will have no regrets that we spent our lives in vain. Instead, we can look back and say, like what St. Paul said in the Scriptures, “ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith…”
(Wilma Miranda is a Managing Partner of Inventor, Miranda & Associates, CPAs, Chair of the Ethics Committee of FINEX and member of the Board of Directors of KPS Outsourcing, Inc. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinion of these institutions.)