Memories of life and love
On a balmy Monday afternoon, that time of day when you’re raring for a nap after a good lunch, you find a horde of energetic people in a happy huddle at the roofdeck of the Sunshine Place Senior Recreation Center on Jupiter St. in Makati. The room is filled to the brim with fun, laughter and camaraderie. Outside, the sun has never shone brighter than in this part of the throbbing metro.
They came from varied professions and are now gainfully retired. If they have one thing in common, it is that, yes, they’re all seniors and have come today to share their stories. Stories of their lives, of bittersweet love and broken hearts, of sweet secrets they’ve never dared to share, of basking in the sunrise and chasing dreams even in the twilight of their years.
“In my privileged youth, it was inculcated in my mind that I should marry a doctor or a lawyer; if not, I should get an Indian chief because at least he’s a chief,” relates Len Torres Fernandez, the former much-sought-after belle of the ball. “I married a doctor and ended up as a doormat wife who did everything I was told. “One day, I looked in the mirror and reality just slapped me in the face.”
Len, who turns 74 this month, gives this advice to women who may find themselves in the same predicament: “Stand your ground, be your own woman because women should not live under their husband’s shadow. When you marry and become a mother, you give up everything and always come last as far as your family is concerned. Now that you’re an empty nester, it’s time to focus on yourself.”
Susie Lim Yap, granddaughter of World War II hero General Vicente Lim, recounts breaking her leg in a freak accident that left her immobile. “It took me two years to be able to walk again,” she painfully recalls. “It was a wake-up call that made me realize that everything can be taken away from you just like that.”
Young love
And suddenly, it was summer and Dada Crisostomo, a pretty colegiala from St. Therese’s QC, was a volunteer, helping raise funds for an NGO. And one day, she met this handsome young man in church, but that’s getting ahead of this beautiful love story.
With the same twinkle in her eyes as the day she met her one true love, Dada shares: “We had a cake sale for the Willing Hands Organization and I was assigned to sell brownies at a churchyard. We spent two summers going to the Good Shepherd Convent, giving cookies to the children and teaching catechism and music. In our cake sale group was Annie Trillo from Assumption College. Her brother Joaqui came to fetch her and I told Annie I was going to bamboozle Joaqui into buying the few remaining brownies so we could go home. Joaqui bought the last of the brownies. After that, since Joaqui knew the brother of Anna Albert, who was with Annie at the sale, he asked for my phone number. He called me and said, ‘I had a bad stomach with the brownies I bought from you.’ I felt so guilty and I told him, ‘I’ll return your money.’ It turned out to be just a trick, an excuse to see me.”
Dada married Joaqui right after college. They had four kids, one after the other: Luigi, Paolo and Francesca, born 11 months apart, and Carlo. “Now, they’re just like my gangmates,” says the proud mom of her accomplished kids.
After 50 years of marriage, and as she ages gracefully, Dada Trillo shares these snippets of wisdom: “First, there’s nothing in life that can’t be learned. I didn’t take up banking, I took up foreign service, but ended up working in banks, and somehow I survived. Second, in the midst of adversity, never complain. You just live with it, survive with it and in the end, you ask yourself, ‘How did I pass?’ And you did, with flying colors!”
Neny Regino, the gregarious PR/communications consultant for SM Foundation and BDO Foundation, asks, “Have you ever hit the bottom?” as she recalls a time when she was jobless after quitting a job she was not happy in. She needed to find a job, ASAP, as her husband’s income was not enough to support her family’s growing needs. She must have sent over a hundred application letters to countless companies. Finally, there was this recruitment company who recommended a job that suited her qualifications. After being interviewed and grilled for hours on end, guess what happened? She did not get the job!
Vicky Lopez, a dreamer, talks about “a wounded sparrow in the tree. Your wing is torn just like me.” And the sparrow says, “I will carry my cross for one more sunrise, for one more sunset, one more song. For the flight to heaven is very long.”
When Barbara met Loy
If the walls of Sunshine Place could talk, they’d tell the heartwarming love story of the late writer/former advertising executive Barbara “Tweetums” Gonzalez and semi-retired lawyer Loy Ventura. In this happy place, time stood still when Tweetums, 73, and Loy, 79, met in 2017 and found love again. They got married — and they danced, laughed and loved — and were, in Tweetums’ own words, “exuberantly happy” in the next five years until Loy passed away one early morning in January this year, 11 days short of their sixth wedding anniversary. His beloved Tweetums followed a few months later, in May.
“Even as Barbara was dying, she made a wish that she wanted her wake to be held here and she wanted it to be a very happy wake,” discloses Lizanne Uychaco, president of Sunshine Place and executive vice president of SM Investments. “It was the first time I went to a wake that had no sadness, where no one was crying. It was just full of happiness and laughter.”
Sunshine Place is home to some men, too. Like Rudy Fernandez (not the actor, although Dada jokes that he did look like the action star before he got disfigured in a motor accident). Rudy talks about the golden anniversary homecoming of his St. Louis High School in Solano, Nueva Vizcaya. He says coming home is, indeed, a very happy occasion. “More importantly, we were given the second chance or the second wind to prepare ourselves for the long autumn and cold winter stages of life. Very soon, we will be like falling leaves waiting to wilt and wither in the diminishing shadow of life…,” he adds.
A happy place
“I call this a place where loneliness is a stranger,” Neny Regino says fondly. “Here, you meet new friends, reconnect with old friends. For a senior like me, I rediscovered my creative traits, which were put on hold as I was raising my children. I honed my interest in writing. When my husband passed on, it was Sunshine Place that helped me fight the grief that overwhelmed me — friends gave me comfort and helped me fight the loneliness that enveloped me.”
At Sunshine Place, seniors nurture their hidden talents and nourish their creative souls. Various classes keep seniors on their toes. There are the creative writing classes of Oscar Penaranda, decoupage art classes under Tess Colayco, porcelain painting, oil, watercolor, ikebana flower arrangement, tai chi, qigong exercises, tap dancing under Danny Vinculado, chair dancing, ballroom dancing, dance exercises called DEKADA, piano/voice lessons, and speech therapy.
But of course, there are the familiar mahjong tables, scrabble nooks and TV nook where you can watch movies. There’s never a dull moment here; there’s always something to keep your hands busy, such as cooking demos, crafting demos (candle decorating, bottle painting/decorating, diamond painting, acrylic painting).
Sunshine Place is proud to say it has produced many fine artists out of its roster of neophytes.
Today, Sunshine Place adds another page to its students’ achievements with the launch of its second book, Bridges of Memory (Poetry, Short Stories & Memoirs), following Reflections in Light and Shadow. Certainly, those days and nights of staring down an empty page and finding the courage to listen to the beating of their hearts finally paid off. And the students’ mentor, poet/short storywriter Oscar Gutierrez Penaranda who helped shape their writings, couldn’t be prouder.
In his foreword to the book, the San Francisco-based Penaranda writes, “Welcome to a set of literary writings of memoirs, aspirations, achievements, broken hearts, poetry and stories, with writers represented from the land of the Gaddangs in the North all the way to the South in Zamboanga. Prepare to indulge in a repertoire of varied experiences with the familiar pangs of first and last times, primary sources in the study of history, but also the joys of family, partners, friendships, strangers, not-so strangers, and self; and least of all, don’t forget the self, whether in reflection or with company.”
The authors — two men and 10 women — are: Linda Atayde, Lorenzo Clavejo, Len Torres Fernandez, Rodolfo Fernandez, Arlene Gonzales, Melanie Lago, Victoria Lopez, Consuelo Regino, Mariquit Reventar, Mario Torrento, Jr., Dada Trillo and Maria Susana Yap.
The book is lovingly dedicated to SM matriarch Felicidad Tan-Sy to whom Sunshine Place owes a heartfelt gratitude “for envisioning and creating a haven where creativity flourishes, friendships are made, and dreams are nurtured.” And “for providing us with a space to grow, learn, and connect.”
Dada Trillo adds, “This book is not just a gift to ourselves as we wanted to discover what we truly are inside our hearts, but also a gift to our family and friends as we share with you our innermost thoughts, the voices within us, our dreams, aspirations, our hidden talents, even our deepest secrets.”
The authors are especially thankful to Dr. Butch Dalisay, one of the most awarded Filipino writers, for taking the time to read and comment so eloquently about their book.
Secrets of the soul
“Today, we’re naked to all of you as we bare the secrets of our souls,” Dada points out. “We are novices, but we had the gall, the audacity to invite a most distinguished author, Dr. Butch Dalisay, to speak at our book launch.”
Dalisay takes the stage before an awestruck audience and says, “People take my class not really to get a degree, which they don’t need at that point, but to make sense of their lives.”
Among Prof. Dalisay’s students back then were jeweler Fe Panlilio, Maribel Ongpin and former Miss Universe Margie Moran.
Having read every page of Bridges of Memory, Dalisay comments, “I’m glad that in this book, many, if not most, of you seemed to have come up with that one great story that you’ve always wanted to tell. I know you’re not professionals, but I was moved by many good things I read in the book, things familiar to seniors — long-lost loves, the would-have-beens, the one that got away, things we can now laugh about because we understand how life goes when we’re right in the middle of it.”
As the sun begins to sink on the horizon, we reflect on Dr. Dalisay’s parting words: “In the face of challenges, struggles and evil, sometimes survival is, in itself, a victory. But let’s not content ourselves with surviving or living. In the time that we have on this earth, let’s do the best we can to be exemplars of what is good, just, fair and hope that when the Book of our Life is written, it will be a full, satisfying and inspiring book.”
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For inquiries, call 09175155656, visit marketing@sunshineplaceph.com or operations@sunshineplaceph.com.
