The unexpected

Dreams do come true, even if it takes 28 years in the making.

Starting in the early ’80s when I worked for Solid Industries, the manufacturer/distributor of SONY electronic products in the Philippines, I held on to a dream that I would someday get to visit the SONY Headquarters in Japan.

Year after year, I would pray and wish that I would be one of the lucky ones to be sent to the annual SONY Convention where I would get a chance to see the company, their facilities, products and of course some part of Japan.

Back then I had never had a chance to travel outside the country and such a trip would certainly have been a personal and professional milestone. Sadly, every year turned out to be my “annual disappointment” since the trip was quite expensive and the slots very limited.

After four long years everything came to a screeching halt after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. Whatever economy we were working in seemed to evaporate in the darkness of the assassination. Whatever hopes and dreams I nurtured took a back seat as I moved to a new life in the United States.

After a two-year exile I returned to the Philippines where I worked as a Resort Developer, Broadcaster and now as a Journalist with The Philippine STAR.

 From time to time, whenever I saw something related to Japan, I would be reminded of the dream that never was, of missed opportunities, and that faint hope of maybe someday seeing a world I only knew of in books and movies.

I travelled to many countries but the unfulfilled trip, the dream denied always caused a mild ache.

Last year was the closest I ever got to going when friends in the motoring press made plans to attend the Tokyo Auto Show sometime early January of 2009. But even that plan died in its tracks as the global financial crisis hit everything including my wallet.

It seemed like I was never meant to set foot on the Land of the Rising Sun or ever catch a glimpse of her beautiful gardens. I remember how last October I surrendered the dream and declared that it may not be God’s will. To be honest I had laid the dream to rest.

Perhaps that was what God wanted me to do all along. To lay the dream to rest, along with the frustrations, the memories I associated with each “annual denial”, including the “what might have been” or the “could have been”. In hindsight, there was pain associated with the dream and with that pain always comes blame. We all blame someone or something for it. When I laid the dream to rest, the blame and the pain passed away.

Now I understand in real life what they mean when people say, “Delay is not Denial”.

A week after the one man memorial service for my unfulfilled dream, our Motoring Editor Dong Magsajo called to ask if I was available to represent The Philippine STAR for the Regional Journalist Trip organized by Toyota Motor Corporation in….Nagoya, JAPAN!

Dong made it very clear that it was VERY short notice and that there would be a lot of requirements to submit. Somehow I happen to have all the documents needed because my wife thought of updating our available records including NSO, BIR, etc. So everything was submitted as required.

Yet, on the morning of our departure, I was advised not to go to the airport yet, because our visas and passports had not been released. After 28 years, you kind of get a feel for how things are not working out. Once again the struggle to differentiate Delay versus Denial was sorting itself out.

By then I was absent-mindedly thumbing through the obituary page and read about a five-year-old little girl who turned out to be the daughter of a family friend. Then I realized why things were not working out. There were far more important things to deal with such as calling a friend in deep grief. By then the trip no longer mattered.

The delay or denial gave me the opportunity to learn about my friends’ situation. I eventually got to call him and express my condolences. As a father with an only child, that was one painful situation.

 A few minutes later, I received a call to rush to the airport because our papers went through. What we didn’t know was the process would be so tough that our visas and passports would have to be brought straight to the airport just before the check-in counters would close.

I don’t think that the people from Toyota Motors-Philippines realized that they were not simply processing and arranging a “media trip”; rather they were being used as instruments to make a dream come true.

Sometimes all you need is to believe, other times what you really need to do is to release….and sometimes it’s really all about God’s timing…28 years later I am better able to appreciate everything and everyone’s part in this dream.

May your dreams come true.

* * *

email: [email protected]