Last Saturday, June 7, the 158th day of 2014, I woke up to a rather smoggy morning but the murky weather was no match to my self-decreed over-powering cheerfulness and dexterity. Before I went to bed I had already a mental scheme of what to expect and how to face the following day with remarkable positivity and veritable glee…since it was an exceptionally special occasion—the day I turned sixty-eight!
That veritably fine day could have been just like any ordinary day had it not for the special treatment accorded me from the house to my workplace. I was donned neither in an extraordinary outfit nor in a specially selected wardrobe fit for the occasion since I have planned to spend that Saturday simply by being just completely relaxed and feeling great inside.
In a waiting shed while waiting for Bus #83 to Jersey City, I took a few selfies to record for posterity the very stature of my being 68. I felt satisfied about the whole thing after scrutinizing the results which gave me a “ton” of self-fulfilling confidence and realizing that, afterall, nothing much have changed … another year was just added to my age.
As early as three days prior my birthday, I posted on Facebook a selfie that instantly earned more than a hundred Likes and Comments and as of my Big Day it had already garnered over two hundred birthday greetings and wishes. Another feel-great moment for my special day!
Like in the previous years, my wife and children took charge of inviting exclusive friends and relatives for the birthday lunch party they tendered for me. And just like last year, the same faces showed up at the Tokyo Hibachi Asian Cuisine and Buffet in Secaucus, NJ.
In a especially reserved area of the restaurant my wife, Venny, principal host of the party, graciously greeted and ushered every guest to their designated tables. Present were my three sons and their families, of course: Brian with wife Knor and kids Kaia Alana and Bleu Ezra; John Cliff; and Kenneth with wife Geraldine and kids Marian Gilda and Kenzoe Roy.
Society Hill contingents included Helen “Tita Yen” Latoja with daughter Missy, and the husband and wife tandem of Adrian and Evelyn “Tita Bheng” Cumberbatch.
The PACCAL delegation was headed by its founder and President Emeritus Linda M. Mayo with the following PACCALites in tow: Past President Rose P. Javier, 2nd Vice-Prexy Rolly Javier, newly-elected President Lumen Castañeda, Cultural Art Consultant Virgie Alvarez, Board Member Ramona S. Gapasin, and newly-recruited member Marianito “Arian” Yap.
Together in a table were: Philippine Fiesta Producer Fernando “Nanding” Mendez, Care Point medical practitioner Dr. Leo A. Dela Cruz, Asian Journal Executive Editor & Editor-in-Chief Momar G. Visaya, and beauteous Prescription Shoppe & Excel Pharmacy operator Joanne Bhatia.
The vibrant ambience, my supportive family, ever-reliable friends, and scrumptious food, plus the munificent gifts in varied forms, more than made my birthday celebration worth-treasuring. This deeply personal and salient opportunity to be with my loved ones and friends during a significant event in my life was something heartwarming as it is inspiring… such rare occasion shrouded with immeasurable feeling of joy and contentment.
What made my 68th birthday even more significant and memorable was the advanced greeting I unexpectedly received from a long-lost friend I haven’t gotten in touch with for years. I woke up Friday morning to a notification ringtone that heralded a friend request from Glenda Estrellado, the sultry singer of the 60s and 70s who’s now Australia-based, somebody I have been extensively searching for in the internet and Facebook. Call it coincidental or what but the former Oomph Girl and toast of the Manila Grand Opera House and Clover Theater suddenly re-connected with me just in time for my birthday.
But the earliest treat was personally hosted early dinner tendered by Dr. Elena Buenviaje and members of the Filipino-American Medical Society of Toms River (FAMS) and the Filipino-American Community Development Center of Ocean City, Inc. (FCDC) last Sunday, June 1st, after a tedious initial Roaring 20s dance rehearsal at the former’s impressively sprawling residential garden at 1775 Todd Road, Toms River, NJ 08753. We were treated to a mouth-watering concoction of palatable courses and lobsters.
What a well-accomplished life! Such stupendous living!
As I ponder on how life is liken to a suspended pendulum with directions of either in a sinistrodextral pattern or in a clockwise trend encountering serendipitous and startling events, uncouth and perfidious characters, and bounteous challenges anywhere along the way that test the tenacity of an exigently complex survival. Living life to the fullest entails significantly numerous achievements and experiences to completely evaluate one’s worth in a lifetime.
Current well-touted health supplemental products and latest medically researched age-defying and beauty-enhancing discoveries don’t even guarantee to oppugn life expectancy. They could only either suppress or impede the normal flow of a condition but never quash its natural course.
If there’s but a single life occurrence that extremely offers a dreadful effect on me that would be an untimely retirement from all the activities I’m so passionate about. Getting me out of my comfort zone, brought about by either some unforeseen circumstances or natural causes, could definitely be tantamount to taking a fish out of the water or trimming a bird’s wing.
Another thing is growing old and gray. I know everybody is destined to age no matter what but after having had the opportunity to be born and profusely enjoyed a tremendous amount of benefits this world has to offer the state of aging could be one disheartening burden to bear.
What actually scares me is not the failure of the good things constantly coming my way but my inability of not achieving everything I wanted to do, and not having enjoyed and appreciated them when I am already old and gray. And not to forget the possibility of absentmindedness that might occur and totally expunge the significant memories profusely stored on my mind. I’m an innately sentimental person and I treasure everything that has been a part of me…and what happens if I lose them all? I value my sanity tremendously and never will switch those happy memoirs of the past for anything.
Growing old is an inescapably unstoppable phenomenon. I could only wish for a magical potion that defies the aging process that one may prolong life and literally live it to the fullest. The gradual decadence of health, as the pendulum works relentless with time, leaves one in a rapid transition: from being groovy to grumpy, from being agile and jocund to being feeble and pathetic, from wearing toothy smiles to turning edentulous, from sporting voluminous locks to having grizzles or having anglogelic alopisia (baldness), and from being hale and hearty to scrawny and weak like a lame duck.
Since life is significantly associated with birthday and the latter being the hallmark of the former’s existence, annually celebrating it with a bit of ostentatiousness and pomposity became a tradition of sort. After having survived and experienced the resulting effects of the three hundred sixty-five days of daily routinary encounters… these life-changing occurrences deserve a fitting celebration.
Incidentally, there was a long roster of equally significant universal events that occurred on June 7 in different years: In 1654, King Louis XIV was crowned in Rheims (France) when he was barely 15; in 1769 frontiersman Daniel Boone was first to explore Kentucky; in 1929, the sovereign state of the Vatican City came into existence; in 1942, the World war II Battle of Midway ended in a decisive victory for American forces over the Japanese Imperial Army; in 1972, the musical “Grease” opened in Broadway; in 1984, the occult comedy “Ghostbusters” had its world premiere in Westwood, California; in 2005, Roger Federer completed a career grand slam winning his first French Open title over Robin Soderling; and also in 2005, the British musical “Billy Elliot” won 10 Tony Awards.
Let me take this opportunity to thank all those who, in a way or another, have been part of me in my journey. I may not have thanked you enough personally or otherwise, but deep within me, your names are forever etched.
As Chili Davis once quoted: “Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional.”
Thanks every one for a wonderful life!
(Photo credits: Ramona S. Gapasin & Lumen Castañeda)
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