To Love Alone
It has been a discussion amongst my friends if you can in fact love alone. Yesterday, I accompanied my tito to the church to hear mass. As we were stepping out of the house, he looked to the heavens and said "Aba, neng, look. Ang ganda ng buwan. Are those clouds. Hmm..ang ganda noh?" "Yes Tito Bins." And so we set off to the church, which was 5 houses down. I told him to flex his hands as they appeared to be swollen. He was walking a bit ahead of me, diligently exercising his hands as I asked him to, and then I blurted out, "Tito Bins, who am I? What’s my name?" "Aba ewan ko sayo, tinatanong mo pa ko kung sino ka." was his reply, while quickening his step and waiving his hand dismissively at me.
But there are days when I’d go to his room and chat with him and feel that he knows I’m his brother’s youngest daughter. When I invite him for merienda he asks me where we’ll go to eat, if the food’s yummy. At night he tells me when he’s going to bed, "neng tulog na ko ha" "Goodnight Tito Bins" "Goodnight neng, God bless." "Tito Bins magpajamas ka" and then 5 minutes later he shows me he’s in fact changed into them and says goodnight to me again. Somehow I feel he remembers who I am. It’s me, Rics, the one who reminds him to brush his teeth, and fixes the his hair at the back when the lack of manual dexterity prevents him from reaching it with a comb. It’s Rics, who talks to him about current events, and asks how his day went even when she knows he’s spent it lying in bed for half the time. It’s Rics who checks if he’s taken a bath, who wakes up when she hears him going out of his room in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, who goes out to the sala when she hears him wandering in it when he checks if the doors are locked and if the lights are turned off. To him I’m just neng. He knows I’m not the maid, maybe he remembers we’re related. I doubt if he misses me during the school week when I’m not home. In good days he knows it’s the weekend when I’m home and asks if I came from school, what school I go to and the course I’m taking up. This morning he treated me to taho after breakfast. Other days when I kid him to make me libre merienda he curtly replies "To each his own."
Yes, Virginia, in this regard we can love alone. But in the realm of the person, in his own heart and his own mind, he must know that inspite of loving alone, he loves fully, with every ounce of energy he can muster, allowing the mustard seed to grow bigger and fuller in time even when he alone remembers, even when he alone understands.
Someday Tito Bins will know how much we all care for him. And I hope at that point he’ll be able to feel my appreciation — he has made me a better, more patient person, without meaning to.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This afternoon while manning the adoption week booth, a blockmate of mine told me how his ex was an emotional vampire when they were together. "She talks about her problems all the time. And when I tell her how my day went, she’ll pick up on something I said and monopolize the conversation again." What makes life complicated? Context. Because every conversation has many layers, and all possible meaning and nuance can be culled from them, in that his "hi" to her is different from his "hello" to you, in that "uh-huh" is worlds apart from "yes" and "maybe" is a shiny, pointed knife compared to the earthen, rounded mug that’s a "let’s". Who would have thunk that a meeting of the minds could take on a deeper, actual, metaphysical definition.
It is the saddest thing not to be understood, to talk to someone who is not there. It is sorry to rationalize in you head how in fact you comprehend each other (when you don’t really) and how you fool yourself into believing he’s able to touch the, Bruce Springsteen willing, secret garden inside (when he doesn’t even have the faintest clue that there’s plenty sides to you). Nobody should live like that.
You know how you have fixtures at home, say a vase, and you pass it everyday when you go to the kitchen and back. And for years you’ve known the vase to be there, you’ve known it’s blue-ish and that it has flowers on it. But then one day, on your way to the kitchen to get a drink, you look at the vase. And. You. See.It. You actually see it. That blue-ish is actually royal blue with a few lighter streaks because of uneven painting. That the flowers are sunflower yellow with red dots in the middle, outlined by golden protruding lines. That the vase could have been baked because to the touch it feels like clay. That the part where the two yellow flowers seem to be embracing is the most artistic part of the whole vase, and you turn it so that that part can be seen by everyone who passes it to go to the kitchen. People can be that vase. Years and years later, you look up from whatever it is you’re doing and you see him for the first time. I see you, you tell him. If only he could hear. Please see me, too.
What to do. There’s still tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that. As the Fuzzy told me, "Courage, Marie. No unsupported conclusions. Honesty. No expectations. Independence. Don’t fret. Choices. Tomorrow will take care of itself."
