Lost and Found
I can now relate to those who have/ have had missing loved ones. Yesterday, Thursday, Tito Bino, my senile tito who’s living with us, got lost in the Sta. Cruz Church. My dad, him and my brother went to SSS to fix my tito’s pension. He’s 78 years old. And then going home, my brother went his separate way and my dad and tito headed home. They passed by the Sta. Cruz Church (like they always do) and my dad sat him on a pew (like he always did) as he went around the church to touch the saints. Two minutes later he turns around and my tito was no longer there.
My brother, dad and cousin scoured the entire downtown Manila area to find him. During his heyday, my tito would go to Quiapo everyday to hear mass and eat Chinese food. This afternoon my brother, dad and I went to ABS-CBN to drop off information and pictures to radio stations and TV shows. While we were in ABS, my cousins were going around Luneta and the Taft area looking for him while my mom and Josie, our trusty maid, went to Quiapo as my Tito was seen there last night lining up for free lugaw. And then, around 6, we got a call from my cousin that some guy on a cell phone called up the house in Frisco, where my cousins live, and said Tito was in the Alabang terminal, and then the line got cut off. So my other cousin went to Alabang with her husband while we were waiting for people in the TV shows to accommodate us. When my cousin and her husband got to Alabang, they showed his picture around and got a hold of that guy who called Frisco. He’s a jeepney driver who said he was our Tito that afternoon, talking to him and telling him to wait with him (the driver) as he was trying to contact us so we can pick him up there. But my Tito, being the hard-headed person that he is, insisted in walking away and riding a jeep to God knows where. Buti na lang, my cousin didn’t give up and went around the terminal some more. She eventually found my Tito there.
At the time we couldn’t find Tito Bino, my brother was going to all the police stations in Manila and my mom was calling her friend who had a radio station so the panawagan can be read. My best friend Karen was asking her cousin in law who was with another radio station to make announcements. I asked my friend Angela (Jaja) if we can go to Wazzap Wazzap (that’s why we were able to go inside ABS) and make an announcement. My cousin made posters and flyers with information and our Tito’s picture and was giving them all around downtown Manila. My brother and his best friend Gerry, stayed up till 2 am Friday waiting at the Sta. Cruz and driving very slowly around Divisoria area. In short, we were all at our wits’ end.
And so now we’ve found him and he’s once again safe. Never mind that he yells “Gretchen Barretto” in our living room once in a while. Or that he asks me what day today is, what month, what year, every 10 mins. Or that he takes half and hour to get ready to go anywhere, be it the park, Church or Mc Do to have breakfast (he has a very thorough ritual you see…his clothes should all be matching – the sputing top with the sputing pants and the sputing shoes; and then he puts pomade on his shiny balding head; and then he washes his hands 3 times, blows his nose and combs his hair for 1 last time, and then he’s ready to go). He’s home and safe and nothing unimaginable happened to him when he was lost. Thank God and St. Anthony. As my nephew Zach says, “Oh St. Anthony! When something’s lost that must be found.”
