Last year, to the day, I wrote about my thoughts at reaching 69, which I said was a interesting age to be in. I again share these with you, especially for those who’ve only known me recently, my newest friends.
“Once upon a time, too long ago, I was silently watching my grandpa Ute comfortably snug in the old rocking chair in our lanai reading the morning papers and I thought, wow, he’s ancient. Not only was he a survivor of the last world war, he had also spent half his life as a veteran rambler, traveling through the country’s main islands, working the roads, eventually becoming a Department of Highways construction foreman, then in the process pursued a lost love, chased her from Cebu to Davao, then settled down for good and retired.
Of course, I didn’t see all that right away in that solitary figure resting in our lanai. Much came from my mom who on occasion, loved to talk about what he went through until his untimely death at 92.
My father too had his own share of similar adventures. A Bataan native who as a young boy evaded the Japanese forces with his mother Antonietta somewhere up in the hills of Bukidnon during WWII. He later sold vegetables at the market, then became a salesman for Dutch Paint and later a cola drink. He married my mom and had a total slew of nine. Spent his waning years in a rocking chair too, watching the world roll by until his peaceful passing at 93. His birth and young years growing up along the beaches of Cabcaben, Bataan, up till his death a few years back is unceremoniously punctuated by a mere dash in print; his birth and death defined by a mere line which in itself holds much more history.
Perhaps like everyone else from their generation, the trying times may have forged them to become very much their own man, turning out not only to be hardworking, but molded into hardier individuals and able fathers later in life. It may have been these hard times of war and strife which separate their generation from the rest of us. Because of this, it’s only fitting these rugged individuals of old should be honored as ‘ancient’ especially when put alongside our feeble kind.
I read this somewhere. If there’s anything one should stop wearing after the age of sixty, it’s the weight of other people’s opinions. I feel I must insert this somehow because I am so certain my grandpa and my father must have been so fed up with hearing others, especially the younger ones, telling them what they think. After all, lest we forget, they are the end-product of their uniquely tough environs and whatever we’ve endured is just plainly soft, compared to what they gone through.”
In a few days, I will have crossed that threshold which will mark me as a seven-decades man. A new frontier. Truth be told, there’s a certain finality in this. For one, close as it was, I can never return to being sixty-nine again. Even if I sang loudly Joe Jackson’s hit “19 Forever”, it’ll just be like wishing for the moon.
You might have heard of the expression, Act your age. The wisecrack reply is always the same: I’m new at this, I’ve no experience at being 70 before, so what are you telling me? One thing I’m going to follow though, my ’69 pledge to not be easily goaded and trapped into conventions that’ll hinder me from being my own man. May still be a tad softy softie and product of my peers, but I’m a year older. Try as I might, emulating ancients is never possible. One has to naturally ease into the role. So, from this day on, as Yoda says, “there is no try”. I’ll unburden myself with that and with what others think. As I said before, “The weight of other people’s nagging opinions is beginning to feel like flab at my sides. It should be gone.
