Longings of An Adult Childhood

“Where are you going and how long will you be away?”

That’s my youngest child Abby asking. My former students at the Manila School of Evangelism would remember that little girl five years old in 1989 who kept telling them she missed her mother and that she wanted to go home, but she would not without her daddy. Her way to defy parental separation was to leave her mom for a while and live with me as I kept transferring from one job to another. Yes, she was that close to me when she was young. But the long night time in that school room that became our sleeping quarters after school hours would often pester her heart like a virus. She would cry out for Dioly’s motherly presence and her way to connect with her was to pour tears over Mr. Felipe Cariaga’s junk phone, and I would grant her that wish—in my newfound skill of mastering the art of make believe— and she would cry on that phone the whole night, stopping only when sleep invited her to rest, and then she would blurt out in her gentlest way, teary-eyed and tired, “Pauli na ta” (”Let’s go home,” meaning to Bacolod, meaning leave this job). This rite repeated itself from day to day, from night to night.

Brother Rudy Gonzales of Olongapo City would probably remember that little child who would not separate from me even in her sleep. We slept for a night in their house in Upper Kalaklan. This is so because after that stint with Manila School of Evangelism we found ourselves bound for a new job at San Narciso, in Zambales. (Thanks for the hospitality and the good memories, brother Rudy!).

Abby’s cousins in San Narciso would remember that little girl who was always trying her hand at everything, including adjusting to the new environment I had forced her to adjust in, and she did, albeit with much fear. Months later her longings found satisfaction when her mom came to take her home. Abby was the child who in her innocent way did things to keep our family intact. She was my wake-up call. From that time on, there was no more separation.

As she grows older in our home in Cebu, she has come to enjoy her freedom–lots of it, including coming home very late at night. These days her mom is not home. And when I said I am leaving for a few days, which means she would be solo, she was back to her old childhood again. “What will I eat?” She was smiling of course. She has a job.

I think of my kids as three little boats. Time to let them loose on the ocean. Will they manage?

That too is a good question for me.

There is always that little child in our adulthood that suffers the empty nest syndrome. Because this world is not meant for living alone. Because this world is not a homestead in the jungle where you could try staking out your claim with just an axe and a hoe and a box of match sticks minus a wife or another company. God knew that, so He made an Eve from an Adamic rib.

Am 62 and an orphan, and I admit the child in me longs for that fatherly hug and motherly comfort too. I had lots of it when I was young; and they were as regular as the beatings of the ipil-ipil stick as big as my ring finger, which my parents had in handy, the better to ring me in whenever I thought of rebelling. I remember my ancestors, however, not for the stick but for the love they splurged on me.

Our daughter Karla is lonely too and she’s now a mother. Part of the solution is to get son and get mom. And so: Hello world. I have just entered this new state of my life: A grandfather without a grandson. A husband without a wife. And what separates us is a plane ticket and an hour’s flight.

I can’t help longing. When an adult 2 plus 60 years old starts to long, he becomes a child between 2 to 6. It is a system coming full circle. The adult child in me wants to resurrect my parents, the grandfather child in me wants to call back my grandson to my side. What would life be without Jacob? It is no longer a question of “Will he manage?” but “Will I manage?” When we start longing, we also miss our sense of balance.

We long for someone because our lives are diminished by their absence. Will denial diminish that feeling? My grandson Jake has come to master the art of grandpa snubbing. When I called his phone a week after they were gone, I heard a childish voice answer, “Cebu Pacific, may I help you?” I said I am looking for my grandson. “This is not Jacob. This is the ticket seller.” All right, may I reserve a ticket for Manila. April 26. Want to visit my grandson. “Sorry, Sir. All flights are fully booked. Please buy your ticket next year.”

I miss playing the game of make believe with the boy on the other line.

It is not fun when the ones you miss are not beside you. Cellphones may have shortened the distance. True, with a laptop and a webcam, via Yahoo Messenger, the voice and the face behind that cellphone becomes half of the reality that you are missing. But with these gadgets, communication becomes brief; the aches, the pains, and the fears are consigned only to a few sentences, sometimes with verbs without subjects, sometimes with subjects without verbs. We violate grammar rules to make communication concise. Even the tales of the squabbles are lost.

Ah. We still miss that reality’s other half.

Earthly longings may be forever, but the Lord has put it there for a purpose. The best longings is one for the real place up there. We long for our real Father. We miss our real Home.

Sometimes I think of heaven as one reality where I can be a child again. There I know I will be safe from all harms. There, the little child in us will find the real connection that made us one great heavenly family.

Lessons From Twins

Two sets of twins, one Spanish, the other Chinese, have kind of sorted their own lives, rectified human errors that caused their separation at birth, and sued their hospitals for damages.

The Chinese twins are suing a Beijing hospital because an alleged mix-up (hospital’s fault, so they say) had led to their separation for two decades, with one of them believing he was someone else’s identical sibling.

On the other hand, the Spanish twins (no names given, but they are women) who got separated at birth by nurses’ error and reunited by chance 35 years later are also suing the state-run Canary Island hospital for damages.

In both the Spanish and the Chinese cases, the “twins” had been brought up under the wrong belief that they were twins. Both sets of twins felt affected, saying “their world has turned a bit upside down.” Both sets have grown up separately, and sought kinship connection to the twin that he or she has lost.

But take this other case of twins who grew up under one roof, who competed with each other for parental favors, with the competition getting so nasty, the rules of the game becoming so unprofessional you could imagine them going at each other’s throats!

It began when a Middle East couple pleaded for a child, just one, because even after many years of marriage they had no child. But the joy of her pregnancy became the trouble of her heart. It seemed as though children—not just one child— were fighting inside her womb! (That early, the fetuses were already at each other’s throats!) “I cannot endure it,” the wife said. “This cannot be just morning sickness!” So she came to inquire of God. And she was told this:

“There are two boys in your womb, and they are actually two rival nations. They will compete with one another, they will fight. One will be stronger than the other; and the older shall become a servant of the younger.”

And sure enough, she had twins. The first was born so covered with reddish hair that one would think he was wearing a fur coat! They called him “Red,” but oftentimes he was known by the name “Hairy.” The other twin was born with his hand on the older boy’s heel; they named him “The Grabber.” Their father was sixty years old when the twins were born.

The boys grew up outsmarting each other. The older boy became a skillful hunter; the younger stayed at home, being the quiet sort, and trained to become a good cook. Just here you could say the skill of one could be a complement to the other: “You do the hunting, I’ll do the cooking!” But it did not. The older was the father’s favorite (who would think that with venison you could find your way to your father’s heart? But he did). And the younger became the apple of his mother’s eye.

The younger boy is actually one of the most important characters. You may not be attracted to him after seeing the worst side of him. He was not just a supplanter, a grabber, he was also a deceiver, “the man who drove a hard sharp bargain at the expense of his own brother, taking advantage of the older brother’s weakness to gratify his covetousness.”

I understand that the older brother did not offer to sell his birthright; he asked of his brother a kindness, to satisfy his hunger. It was the younger brother’s chance to play the part of the sympathetic twin but he did not; instead he took the opportunity to seize what was not his. The older brother was willing to barter the most important of all to escape a temporary discomfiture. “When a man is dying of starvation,” he said, “what good is his birthright?” By his shortsightedness he allowed himself to be defrauded. In the language of one preacher, “He traded eternity for a bowl of soup.”

One despicable act led to another. And to secure the blessing of the father who was almost blind, the younger brother got the help of an equally deceitful mother. “Your hairy skin tells me you’re my favorite son, but your voice tells me you’re not,” the father commented. The physical can be deceiving. Anyway, he asked that his favorite steak be brought in. And the grabber got what he wanted.

If you read the narrative, many years later his sins came to haunt him. In the parlance of Robert Southey, the writer, “The chickens came home to roost.” He too was cheated of his wages, of his first option to marry the woman he loved, of his shares as a tenant in the ranch farm his father-in-law owned.

Well, some may discredit the younger boy for his smallness and meanness, but we must appreciate the true and the strong about him, his foresight, his appreciation of what the birthright could bring, and his fine sense of values. The Bible values these as most important.

Two brothers, two siblings. While they lived under one roof, they also grew up separately. They were just two in the family, but it looked like their home became too crowded with them. Under that circumstance, the motherly advice worked best: Separate, you guys, or I will die early. Years later the twins met in a tearful reunion, each one forgetting each other’s hurts and pains.

Either Jacob or Esau could be like some of us. Members of the one family of God, the church. Spiritual siblings who don’t like each other and seem to be always at each other’s throats. My advice to these brethren: Grow up separately. Learn to forget the past. Overlook the faults. Bloom in the place where the Lord has planted you. Someday, when circumstances are good, your paths might cross, and you might learn to like each other again. Prepare for life hereafter. As my grandson Jacob, 7 years old, when asked would often say pointing to heaven: “There are no people fighting up there.”