December dream

Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Youngblood
First Posted 23:19:00 12/26/2007


There’s something about the month of December that makes me want to stay in it forever. Perhaps I’m still stuck in my childhood merriment and I don’t want it to slip away.
When I was a child, my mom used to deck the house with Christmas trimmings as soon as the ‘ber’ months began. She always did it, and did it very creatively, and scored this with her all-time favorite Gunter Kallmann Choir record, which I liked better than Ray Conniff’s, which she alternately played.

You’ve probably heard Gunter on the airwaves or inside the malls, and mistook it for Conniff. I could name the song or recite the sequence of songs in the entire medley which ends with ‘Hark the Herald’.
Mother once warned us, ‘Loose or misplace any record or album but not Gunter Kallmann’. We didn’t; the old cassette tape is still with us to this day, now with a CD back-up.
Once I wrote her a letter with an article on Brown and White Christmases. The former represents the ideal Filipino celebration, while the latter is just ‘cold out there’. (My piece was left untouched, but the letter came back edited.) I have since reconciled the difference, if it means not counting the telling signs. I know now why I ‘happen’ to be so alive and frivolous in December or on Christmas: it is because we get together and make our wishes come true after patiently waiting for them to happen all year long.
This is our second (now sixth) Christmas without her. There’s a figure missing in our once complete nativity set, the same one that is on a portrait that rests on the console with her infectious smile. I have held back long enough to say that there’s a missing piece of love and joy, like an odd puzzle with an unwanted space on it.
‘Wherever you are, I will always see you in the eyes of your beautiful daughters and your memories will live on through my father.’ Those were my parting words before a church crowd, prior to her interment in September 2006. I have never parted with her since, just as I have never split with Gunter. It makes me feel more alive, and every Christmas means much more to me than ever before.
There is one song in Gunter’s Christmas album that cannot be found in any other album, and it goes: ‘I see your smiling face in my December dream. I dream of laughter and the songs that you’ve been singing...’
Mothers make the perfect Christmas, and children are gifts that make mothers make it happen.
As we celebrate the birth of Christ, let us embrace motherhood and childhood once more.

P.S.
We decorated in October.
Played Gunter Kallmann first week of November.
A complete miniature set of the nativity now rests on our console.
Haven't written any personal letter in a very long while; no mother to edit it anyway.
Still Christmas is the best for the family.











Mga Komento

Mag-post ng isang Komento

Mga sikat na post sa blog na ito

3rd SONA draws mixed reactions

Imahe
Two years in the office as President of the Republic of the Philippines, Benigno S. Aquino’s third State of the Nation Address (SONA) has not escaped ‘like and dislike’ from both supporters and critics who scrutinized every line and statistics blurted out by the President.     Some ‘likes’ were tentative or seemingly half-hearted while some dislikes were extreme as expected by the allies of the current administration.  Senator Jinggoy Estrada said that it was the most realistic SONA so far.   His father said the same of it, adding that it is “well-crafted”. Political analyst and University of the Philippines professor Prospero de Vera thought that the SONA has more pluses than minus, but said “it is a long speech and short and limited legislative agenda”.  Zambales Representative Mitos Magsaysay said that it left more questions than answers. Some quarters also questioned the veracity of the statistics on criminality.   The Philippine Nat...
More »

Pageant: a reality check

Just like the Oscars, the Miss Universe can be unpredictable --- and also predicable in the choice of winners.  For any country whose occasional happiness and temperament are latched on either a demigod or a modern-day hero, any result of any competition – from a small-time barangay contest to one that is national in scale can be questionable.  And no amount of explanation or justification whatsoever will vanquish any misgiving on an unfavorable result. Call it extremism, fundamentalism, obsession --- they’re all one and the same – fanaticism, a do or die. If things written about the recent beauty pageant are not enough, here goes another mouthful.  Yes, there is a pattern and a formula too.  And in between, spring surprises which by the way, are all part of the grand scheme or confluence of things we spectators will never fathom.  Leave them to the experts who are as confused and adamant as the hard-core, when their predictions wander from the actual result...
More »

Slow pace of Maguindanao massacre trial scored

Imahe
massacre photo with backhoe It has been two years since a most heinous crime happened in the town of Ampatuan in Maguindanao province in Southern Philippines. On Nov 23, 2009, 58 persons were killed, 32 of them journalists and media workers, earning for  the Philippines the  notorious tag as the second most dangerous place for media practitioners in the world, next only  to Iraq. Suspected perpetrators of the crime were members of the Ampatuan family, the political lords in the province. Two years since that tragedy, 103 of the 196 suspects remain at large and only two of the principal suspects have been arraigned. The case remains snagged on hearings on petitions for bail of the accused.
More »