Forever young

As I pray over my father in the intensive care unit, I have contradictory feelings — either to detach from or to hold on to my 90-year-old mentor. We give him the best hospital care available in the country. He is attended to by specialists in the medical field, by watchful caregivers and efficient nurses at the Makati Medical Center. 

In a pristine room we try to find humor within our family. We exchange stories and mine is about an elderly lady, Glory Timario Manongdo, 91, from Poblacion Norte, Caba, La Union. Youngest among five children, she has lived many a page in history. Just one among them is during World War II with an experience with the Japanese Imperial Army. An officer accosted her and her family in 1944 while on the run. The Japanese captain inspected her family’s luggage and asked what was the book on top of her clothes. She answered, the Bible. The captain let them go, saying, “to Glory.” The son of a minister, the captain advised them to leave quickly before American and Japanese bombardment began. The woman and her children were saved by the Bible.

Who could be in a better position…an old woman alone in her home, who cooks her food, washes her clothes, cleans her home, tends to her garden in her backyard planting vegetables, which are her secrets to good health; or my dad, who peaked to be an outstanding sales executive. 

She drinks half a cup of coffee in the morning and half cup in the evening. My dad takes Ensure. She reads books as much as she can to keep her mind sharp. My dad was a voracious reader but Alzheimer’s has made his mind, but perhaps not his heart, forget whom he loved — and of course we love him so much. She always falls asleep praying for her son who passed away in 2009. We are blessed. All of us are healthy and alive. 

With some humor, she relates her unstable relationship with her husband, who gambled and was drunk all the time. She told him to go away and reform himself and to come back when he had. He never returned. My dad and mom have been in an enduring relationship for the past 50 years, but I won’t tell you specifically how long ago that was. You’ll know my age. 

There are so many tales from each of our lives. No one must compare lifetimes. We are all unique, except in thinking how carefree childhood was! I am reminded of my grandson, who just turned two years old. Renzo is a loving boy who embraces me every time he sees me. Given his positive disposition, I know he will have a fruitful life ahead of him. How lucky his future wife will be. This tyke can always look forward to getting old, which is the process of realizing one’s full potential.

People get old but the world will be forever young. Flowers wither but buds commence on their growth. And, you’re right, God is continuously creating new souls. Human beings continue to be born as other creatures mature. Scientists today who study the foundations of life are increasingly impressed by the capability of all living things to survive, to recreate themselves, and to move to a higher level of development.

Just try to analyze a small seed. It contains within it the whole structure of a tree. The minutest seed sends a shoot down into the ground and another rises up towards the light. Against all odds, rocky soil, no rain, lack of nutriments, this tiny seed with its delicate shoots moves steadfastly through progressive changes towards whatever it was meant to be and strives to become a tree. Completing its cycle it has by then produced baby seeds, which can produce new trees to keep its species alive.

Everything on earth that lives has the capability to survive and to produce new life. Newlyweds, especially the young brides, impatiently wait every month to miss a regular “happening.” We separate our dogs who instinctively want to breed to give us more puppies to feed. The world — it will always be young even if constant changes occur. Everybody will agree that nothing is permanent in this world except change. Change is an unavoidable predicament. I saw my parents, once strong and now physically spent. Why, even the climate is changing. It’s colder this Christmas season than it was three years back. The earth is getting hotter by four degrees. Himalayan glaciers are melting at a rapid rate.

Changes in our lives are not random and purposeless. We move from place to place, from home to school, to work, reaching for one book and then another, holding on to one idea then discarding it for another, spending time with this person and later someone else for happiness, knowledge, love, insight, understanding, energy and finally to be at peace.

Changes? If there is a low tide, there will also be a high tide. It’s the same as the appearance of the moon. There is the quarter appearance of the moon, and then the half-moon, following after is the full moon, then the new moon — a cycle that never ends. 

The light the moon brings is so useful for fishermen guiding them to a good catch to feed empty stomachs. The same is true with plants. After winter, flower buds appear as signs of springtime. Fruits ripen and fall off trees for us to enjoy. Leaves fall in showers on the ground, becoming fertilizer, like food for sprouting tiny plants.

It is really wonderful to observe how nature works and how the world operates. It is almost magical for a tiny seed to become a big tree that can be used to build a mansion. It is also amazing how tiny ants live and build colonies. Even tiny ants have structures that make them like humans possessing a nervous systems. This, according to St. Thomas Acquinas, is one of the proofs of the existence of God. The existence of order, of systems, of patterns, points to the idea the there is someone who is responsible for the “great design.”

Creation continuously goes on since God designed the world in perfect order. The world is a system that follows order. Once in a while it suffers imbalance yet always moves towards homeostasis — a state of balance. The world depends on Him for its very being. It is possible to say that He has given nature and us the setting for historical human dramas. All the while we have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing upon the earth. Doing what God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.” Yes we can. There are so many comings and goings. Wilting and blooming. Yet I know the world will always be young.

Thinking about my father in a hospital bed, I realized that it was all right to have mixed emotions about his condition. It’s all right to hold on to him, he is dear to us and I love him so much. I owe him a lot — of what I am and what I have. Yet it is all right to detach from him and to feel I must let him go. 

Comings and goings are part of the system of the world. And I know people will pass, plants will die, yet there will always be new life, and the world will be forever young.