Becoming a septuagenarian

Undoubtedly, one of the most significant milestones in a man’s life is reaching the age of seventy years. Today is that special day for me. I am now a septuagenarian unofficially belonging to vanishing breed of elderly people around whom so many humorous stories are woven.

Being still alive seven decades from the day God bestowed on us the gift of life is really a most precious occasion to remember, to believe, and to rejoice and be glad. It acquires greater significance because during biblical times age seventy was man’s average life span and that life beyond seventy was already a bonus. Hence 70-year-olds usually consider the succeeding years of their life thereafter as mere anniversaries of their seventieth birthday.

At age 70, I look at yesterday as gone forever while I don’t worry so much about tomorrow for I know not what it may bring or it may not come at all. So I just have to live for the present one day at a time thanking God every morning as I wake up to another day in my life. If in the prior decades I count the years that come to pass, from hereon, I will start counting only the days that pass by.

But even as I live for today, I also try to look back at yesterday especially now that I am seventy years old, not necessarily to rue on “what might have been” but to learn some more lessons from them and to count the innumerable blessings coming my way through the years.

Recalling at this stage of my life the seasons passing one by one is indeed the best means of cherishing the countless blessings I received despite the many humps and bumps, the successes and failures, the laughter and tears coming my way before reaching this ripe old age.

My boyhood years have the most telling impact on what I am now, my values and principles in life. They are deeply embedded in my memory because they are years spent in utmost hardship and extreme deprivation during and right after the most devastating World War II.

As a toddler during the war years, I already appreciated the importance of marriage and family unity because I experienced the pain of separation from loved ones when my father and two brothers were stranded in Zamboanga City at the advent of the Japanese invasion.

Belonging to a family of ten, I also found myself selling newspapers and shining shoes right after liberation for it was the only way to survive in a war-torn country. Such experience during those harsh times taught me the value of honest, diligent and hard work and the dignity of the lowliest of jobs. It also made me realize that the hard way is the only enduring way. They are lessons that helped me a lot in later on coping with the uncertainties of my earthly sojourn.

During my school years the lessons I learned were not only confined to those taught inside the classrooms because my world became bigger and my relationship extended to other people who are not members of my immediate family. Hence those were the times when I learned the real meaning of loyalty and commitment, when my ideals and principles were solidly formed, when my sense of right and wrong, good and bad became more deeply ingrained and when hard choices on the path of life that I would traverse, started cropping up.

My youthful impulsiveness and carefree attitude during that period somehow caused some turbulence because of the ensuing mistakes in making hard choices, and the failures and disappointments in the pursuit of momentary and fleeting goals and dreams of the young. Yet these very mistakes, failures and disappointments taught me the virtue of humility as I realize my weaknesses and accept my own sinfulness. They taught me that it is “when I feel weak that I am strong” and that “never have I been as frail as when I am blinded by my own strength”. And most importantly those were the years when I learned to stand up and begin again and again every time I fall.

After I said goodbye to my bachelor days by joyfully tying the knot with the love of my life who has remained as lovely and loveable as ever, many other colorful and memorable events conveyed other important lessons in life. I learned during the early years of marriage how precious is God’s gift of human life every time I hear the cry of our new born babies, a daughter and five sons, as they came out of their mother’s womb. For my wife Josie and I, receiving these precious gifts from God were the happiest moment in our married life always calling for grand celebrations.

My marriage and family life however is not exactly what they say in the vernacular, “pag-lagay sa tahimik”. For it is dotted with crises and trials that somehow strengthened my faith in God, made me more responsible, hardworking and prayerful. It is the time when I became more concerned with others over and above myself; when I realized that the most rewarding aspect of work is not necessarily its monetary compensation but in being able to help as many people as possible. This realization dawned on me more than 20 years ago when I started writing “A Law Each Day” in the Philippine Star and hosting the TV show Ipaglaban Mo, a drama anthology featuring Supreme Court decisions, thereby sharing my knowledge of the law with the masa. I confirmed that true success is not measured by what I have become but by what others have become because of me.

The death of our only daughter Joyce more than five years ago is another life changing event. In extreme bereavement and grief for such great and painful loss, I realized that life is short and we are not in control; that we do not know when our time is up and whenever, wherever and howsoever it comes, all the worldly things we amassed amount to nothing; that the glory of this world passes; that we are mere travelers in this planet earth with a final destination in God’s own kingdom of eternal happiness.

Hence at age 70 and looking back at those past seven decades, I feel so blest and grateful to God for helping me weather all the storms in my life, for just being alive and still healthy although mellowed and calmed by the wisdom acquired through the years — a wisdom always reminding me that we can more easily reach our final destination by traveling light and shedding off the excess baggage of worldly attachments and sinfulness while there is still time. Cheers to all septuagenarians!