The Lesson Plan

We just got home from dinner at Sugi, Greenbelt 3 to celebrate my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. The food was excellent — arguably the best Japanese in town — but too bad my brother wasn’t able to come. Anyway, there will be Sunday.

I realize that I haven’t written much about my family on this blog. It is one of those ‘personal things’ we put aside for other avenues I guess. But in my profile page, I thank my parents for teaching me everything I know. I’ve never said why until now, so I guess this is a perfect time as any. After all, they did bring me into this world and allowed for every moment of my life to happen.

So I apologize if I haven’t gotten any gift yet, and I won’t make any lame suggestion that this entry is it. One day I will give everything back but for now, I hope it suffices that I tell the whole world how great you are.

Of us three children, I am the only one who wasn’t clearly cut from either my mom or dad. My brother follows a lot from my father. And my sister follows my mother a lot (so we can imagine how that ends up). I’ve always considered myself a perfect mix of both, and here is why.

From my mother I got my creativity and my sardonic sense of humor. She can be a really mean joker, although she never shows it in front of us kids, but I know it’s there. She’s also a fantastic writer and I often had my student works edited by her. I always dreamed that one day I would surpass her (as do all students wish to surpass their masters), so I guess now she just finds it fun when she spots a typographical error in my blog.

I also got my temperament from her, as we often relate to each other with how we deal with stress. We’ve always been buddies in a lot of what we do, from badminton to movies, from shopping to chatting about society and children. If I am a good teacher or kuya, it is because she is a good mother. She is very compassionate and has a deep sense of how people work. Sure, she gets frustrated at times but that never stops her from being better in what she does best. And for me, what she does best is to love.

It is from her that I learned to do what I love. And now I wish mom the best as she conquers the next big challenge in her life — being a full-time mom! While he has been one for quite a while, it is only know that she’s really making waves here at home. She is shaping up to be a fantastic cook, making it doubly hard for me to keep my weight down given my sporadic work out schedule. She is also dealing with raising a teenage daughter who she loves infinitely, and is sending off her second son to college. I often see it in her eyes how time seems to go by so quickly, but as a mother she has learned long ago to hold on and to let go. And thus we can’t help it here at home but to love her.

From my father I got a whole lot more than I ever thought I did. While he wasn’t around during my early childhood, it is impossible for me to say that he wasn’t there. And while he got even busier as he came back from Bahrain, he was always there. People have the common image of a father as someone who’s always cooped up in work and never has time. But there will always come a point where we realize why they have spent those many hours in the office. I have come to that point now.

From my father I got my sense of commitment. My dad is the most committed man I know. His work isn’t easy. He is surrounded by tremendous pressure to make tough decisions, and the people he encounters every day aren’t necessarily allies or friends. It’s all politics, he would often say, and he is right. But often we would ask why politicians do what they do, why they put up what they put up with. And often I’ve asked that about him. Now, I know. At the end of the day, there is only one place he comes home to. And that would be us, his family.

I saw it in every time he helped me out when my car got hit (or I hit a car). I saw it in all the times he would go out of his way for me, and not even get my gratitude, and still he would do anything again for me in a heartbeat. I saw it in all the things he would buy for us just so that we could be with him — the trips abroad, the expensive lunches in the mall, the bikes we take out every Saturday. He isn’t the ultimate provider because providing comes with a sense of duty. He is the ultimate giver, who does it out of love and commitment to everything he loves. And I am just so glad to be one of those.

All people say that their parents are the best, and they mean it. Me, I’m just stating a fact. Both of them have made me everything I am — a person proud, confident, loving and committed. I have come to be a person so willing to give everything of himself because I was raised by excellent people who have known no bounds themselves. And they have been together 25 years, and I hope 25 years more. You two belong nowhere else but with each other.

Happy Anniversary again, Mom and Dad. Thank you for everything and I love you. Always.