Sunday Lifestyle

My mother, living the spirit of youth

May 13, 2012 | 12:00am

Age and the number of years one has lived are not synonymous. My mother is living testimony to this.

My mother’s age goes with the year. It’s 2012 — so she is turning 82, just a week before Mother’s Day. She lives in San Francisco. It never fails to amaze me every time I meet her. Greeting me with an enthusiastic smile and a twinkle in her eyes, she always feels so young! She has this ebullient energy about her. When you talk to her, she exudes a wonder of life. She has the wisdom accrued from years of living but there is no trace of cynicism, just compassionate, positive insightfulness. As she shows me things on her iPad, the youthful wonder and interest in life is refreshing. Going down to Napa Valley for my cousin Geni’s wedding, she exclaims, “Look at the mountains, and the scenery!”

Age is the world one lives in. As long as one can live in appreciation and interest of the world around, one lives in a world where the spirit is young.

She still plays tennis four times a week! In shorts or in a bathing suit, there is no cellulite whatsoever! It’s all the years of sports: from golf, to diving, to snow skiing. Tennis has been the major mainstay over the years. She is still strong and agile — just some problem with the knees. Probably because of all the tennis on hard courts.

My mom with five of her kids: Berta, Gabby, Me, Mon, Raffy

She has seven kids — and we all love her dearly. I have often asked her, “Mom, how did you do it? I am having problems with two kids and you had seven!” She wasn’t a doting, overbearing mother. She kind of just left us to bloom on our own without much restriction. Whatever she did, it must have worked because we all gravitate to her and love her dearly. If my children give me half of the devotion we give her, I would be contented. Sigh… I had my children after 20 years of missionary life. That was not a good foundation for a laid-back child-rearing attitude. Judging from results, her way is probably better.

She got married really young — 22 years old. She did not even have a honeymoon since right after the wedding she accompanied my father while he embarked on his studies at Harvard.

She has a Christian meditation group that meets every Tuesday at her home and has been doing so for almost two decades now.

It’s interesting because when she split from my father, she decided to move to San Francisco. Alone in this house, she discovered an “inner sound.” I know this sound. I hear it, too. It’s a sound one hears when one is still. So organically she meditates on this sound because, through it, she feels God. About a month ago, I heard a lecture from my meditation teacher saying that “inner sound” is the heart of spiritual work. So now when I wake up, during the day, I try to be still enough to hear this sound. It brings solace to me. It kind of connects me to her, because I know she does this, too. It says something about her spirituality that she discovered this completely on her own.

When I see my mother, I see the Fountain of Youth: giving love, exuding joy, still having wonder. It’s how we can all live: forever young in spirit. I look at my parents and I conclude: One way to raise really good children is to be a really good person. Period.

At the end of a perfect day, I got out of the car and gasped at the gloriousness of the moon! I ran upstairs to tell her, “Mom, you should see the moon! Resplendent, giving…” Hmm. On the 82nd day of your solar return, basking in the giving of a full moon, surrounded by love and affection, it feels to me like the Divine is sending a message of love and blessings. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

Matt and Geni Brown

Geni’s Wedding

Geni’s Wedding was on May 4. My mom’s birthday is May 5. Allow me to make a few notes on Geni’s wedding for it follows the similar mode of joyous celebration. Geni is the only daughter of the only sister of my father. Her father is Steve Psinakis. During the Marcos era Tito Steve was one of the prime movers of the Light My Fire Movement. He and my aunt, Tita Presy, were activists in the truest sense: doing what they could under a rule that they felt was unjust. Standing for principle come what may, carrying the lineage of her mother Presy Psinakis, noted for her aristocratic beauty and genteel ways — and the fiery Greek attributes of her very principled father, Geni is beautiful in and out. She was looking for something. It seems she has found it in Matt Brown.

When she walked down the aisle, I gasped. She was the epitome of graciousness — leading her father, as he determinedly wanted to be the one to accompany Geni down the aisle.

During the wedding the pastor cried, her mother was crying, her friends were tearing up, and I and many others around me had tears rolling down, too: testament to how many lives she has touched and how she has inspired. This simple wedding with family and friends held in the bosom of Napa — amidst flowers and an afternoon sun — was truly memorable. The only sour note was that Rogy, her brother, could not make it because he was denied a US visa. It’s unpredictable, these visa interviews. I genuinely like the Consul General but I think there is something wrong with a system that will not allow a brother to go to his sister’s wedding, even if that brother comes from a respectable family.

We all liked Matt and his family. His beautiful Chinese mother clearly had placed her mark in that her three boys are very good looking Chinese-Americans. When Matt and Geni exchanged their self-made vows, the energy of their love and commitment to each other was clearly coming from their deepest hearts. Both devout Christians, God at the center of their lives — this marriage is going to be solid, strong and joyful: two souls moving together through the labyrinth of life.