And much more presents of all kinds; not that I’m some form of a celeb, removed from it. It simply occurred that my birthdate is identical as that of a well-known Filipino actress whose distinctive voice and numerous awards each in tv and cinema deserved rightfully the distinguished title, “Celebrity.”
A coincidental merchandise plucked from the grapevine, embedded within the reminiscence neurons by many whose motivation and curiosity for doing so are diversified; PSRS-professional gross sales consultant or med reps—for his or her obligatory protection information of assigned medical doctors, caring, considerate college students, grateful sufferers, classmates in highschool and med college whose four-year togetherness uncovered the barest and rawest secrets and techniques of one another.
Birthdays in a brood of eight to seven pregnancies of a salaried engineer-father and a homemaker-mother is an event of thanksgiving, with the boys going to church dressed to the nines—hair plastered to their scalp with pomade (Dixie Peach, Colonial, and Emilia manufacturers) with their faces nearly white with layers of Johnson or Mennen child powder. The day is capped by dinner with native rooster tinola or fried rooster with drumstick for the celebrant and the opposite for our solely sister Teresa, besides when Joel and Noel have a good time their birthdays; a easy Ilocano exercise completed yearly for the siblings in order that by the point we enter secondary college, it’s sufficient we go thank the nice Lord for one more yr.
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Reaching 60 was a momentous occasion, a milestone, with each element nonetheless contemporary in my thoughts, as the top of the Workplace of the Senior Residents Affairs and Federation of Baguio Senior Residents Associations (FBASECA) handed me my senior citizen ID, with buy booklets for groceries and medicines.
A lot of high-fives, group hugs, and infinite beso-beso, thank God no COVID then—interspersed with raucous laughter and shouts for blowouts. I did, with pansit, juice, and pandesal. Earlier than I knew it, somebody plastered on my again “twin citizenship” whereas the remainder of the officers saved on joking that as seniors, we at the moment are “refreshed, unstressed, retired.”
As a matter of coverage, Saint Louis College retired me from their undergraduate packages however then Father Hechanova welcomed me into their graduate research as a visiting professor.
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Busy with my every day clinic with sufferers largely elderlies, plus my part-time instructing job in different colleges in Baguio on high of my weekly well being column with an area newspaper, the times, weeks, months, and years merely adopted the graceful adjustments of the season with the obedience of the calendar. Apart from Christmas, when my household has a easy alternate of presents—t-shirts hankies, socks, small bottles of cologne for my mom and sister—birthdays will not be party-celebration fashion. Nevertheless, playing cards and flowers had been positioned on my desk in school by college students, seniors introduced their specialty dishes, the quantity of which might feed a complete barangay. Time has wings, it flies quick. At 70, I felt like I used to be transitioning from “feeling older” to “feeling actually outdated” a actuality bolstered by researchers at Stanford College who mentioned that “growing older doesn’t occur in a gradual linear method, quite our human cells present accelerated adjustments by age 44 and 60.”
As such, birthday presents turned extra sensible. The rocking chair turns into a snug hammock for my 30-minute after-lunch energy nap, the cane secures steady stability particularly after a titanium equipment was inserted into my proper femur, and the magnifying glass turns into helpful solely when textual content messages are available in small letters.
To keep off Alzheimer’s, I mentally recite Desiderata, enumerate the 12 cranial nerves within the appropriate sequence, or problem my neurons with the step-by-step degradation of starch—rice till it’s digested and absorbed into the blood as glucose. And I don’t thoughts in any respect if pleasant Mr. Parkinson, whose fondness for seniors is famous, gained’t drop by for a go to.
The quantity 75 is magical; for {couples} who can’t imagine they stayed blissfully in love as much as their diamond anniversary, by no means thoughts the blisters; for nervous, anxious pupils and college students with cliff-hanging grades or amongst Filipinos who understand with gratefulness, they’ve handed the common lifespan of Juan de la Cruz.
The eyes in my thoughts see a humorous smile remembering that only a few years in the past, I used to be taking part in within the piano the Beatles’ “Once I’m 64.“ Now, a nostalgic craving “nagtatanong lang sa’yo, ako pa kaya ibigin mo, kahit maputi na ang buhok ko.”
My trance-like musings had been interrupted by the passing of a blanket of clouds above the town lights in order that after whispering just a little prayer of thanks, drifted into dreamland with a fervent hope to get up greeting extra wonderful sunrises and witnessing extra sunsets.
To God, I relaxation my case.
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Victor Romulo Gallardo Dumaguing is an internist/volunteer doctor of Baguio FBASECA Seniors (1999-present). At 75, he bid goodbye to the academe and had simply printed his e book, “So You Need to be a Physician?”
