Inspired by a mantra we are not promised our tomorrow. We all made personal sacrifices to meet each other.
One drove from Temecula to pick up a classmate from Oceanside, ordered lunch from a favorite turo-turo place, then they both drove to San Juan Capistrano to pick me up.
That makes it 60 miles for our classmate, who lives in Chicago part-time and has just become a California resident, to be a doting grandmom/uber driver to her talented grandchildren.
I woke up early to park my car and to catch the Amtrak train at 1010am and arrived at San Juan Capistrano at 1130am.
We all went to visit our classmate in Mission Viejo. We had the longest lunch, quite sumptuous indeed, and the best part was the sharing of stories of faith, family, surrender, God’s mercy and goodness, cancer, heart attacks, illnesses, holidays, end-of-life real estate, even green apple puff pastry using green apples from the backyard.
Our last reunion was about countries to travel to; then, the pandemic hit, and our collective health has changed. We realized more and more that each day is a gift from God, who gives us the ability to breathe with a healthy body. We now pray for more years with pain-free bodies and good health.
As we gain in years, the coming of age we used to feel has become more fragile day by day that we now are more open to stealing joy, laughing over our high school memories and mistakes, and belly-aching laughter. It was an afternoon of “we love you.”
The funny part is the girl in yellow dress, Elsa, was picking me up, with my back turned away from her, taking photos of the clock tower. There I was, there she was, we ended calling each other, and we both turned around and laughed, as we were a foot distant from each other.
It was a leisurely long lunch that lasted 4 hours, and the best part was homemade halo halo with real kayumanggi macapuno, leche flan, ube halaya, sweetened garbanzos, beans, green pinipig, crushed ice and Arce ube macapuno ice cream from Island Pacific in Lake Forest.
It was grace upon grace, free parking, free shelter from the sun courtesy of the bar waitress who served my classmates’ ice-cold water and tipped her $5, a friendly oasis in front of Santa Fe Capistrano, free #iylagranola for my classmates.
It was a beautiful family that we visited and we all had such a warm, sweet, joyful classmates’ bonding!
Thank you, Natimarie Pagayucan for planning and driving the distance, Elsa B. Azote for coordinating and organizing, and Linda Rozales for being a gracious host, cooking the pinipig and macapuno and much thanks to Tonton for crushing the ice.
I went to pick up #princess2015la and she handed a bag of #iylagranola to M, the 100% Filipina caring, sweet school guard. #princess2015la told me yesterday to make granola for her. Her features hinted of Mexican, Latina, and even African American.
M cried upon receiving the granola. It turns out her grandmom passed away this day, last year, on the anniversary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She said: “Can I give you a hug?” She hugged #princess2015la and then me.
“You remind me of my grandmother. She would be as sweet and caring as you, if she were alive.”
I gave her another hug. I complimented #princess2015la as sweet and caring too and M said that she takes that from me and senses the close bond between my granddaughter and myself.
In the car, my granddaughter shares the water play activities they had. You can see that she enjoys her after-school program a lot. Yesterday she took ten minutes more to finish her artwork.
She then shared how first grade was tough for her and she was lagging behind. Then her parents got her a tutor.
“You know what Grandma, second grade is exactly what my tutor tells me. I can even do third grade math now. Maybe fourth, fifth grade math?” She paused, “Just kidding,” Grandma.
“Grandma, remember you said you like to spoil me? That you love me? Because you said that, do you think you can wash my wet clothes from our water play? You kinda have to, Grandma because you said you like to spoil me.” I had to do it, indeed!
She washes her hands, eats her early dinner, cleans up after herself, asks for her mango juice and now, laughing so heartily watching a kids’ show on her laptop.
We also read together her grandpa’s texts from Pamplona. She understood that he is doing a long long walk.
Lesson for the day: Love as much as you said. She remembers, as she is listening.
We are not promised tomorrows. My yesterdays exceed my tomorrows. So, this am, I visualized I am in a Camino and walked for 45 minutes, 15 minutes short of an hour, sweating the whole time at 7am. Drips galore.
I stopped at a nearby Black-owned coffee shop. The usual joyful owner was getting into a disagreement with his childhood homeboy who was dressing up, changing his shoes, his pants, using one of the coffee tables. He had to enforce boundaries.
I too got into the discussion, I said: “Listen, the owner of this coffee shop created an oasis here for the neighbors. You should not change the good vibes of this place. You need to act like you are of royalty as you are God’s beloved.”
Wow, that changed the ambiance. The guys stopped their bickering.
Later, I talked to a father of a 5yo girl who was looking for a solution to bullying. I shared my son-in-law’s parenting style that effectively taught my #princess2015la how to stand up to bullies.
Here goes: “Look them in the eyes and say firmly, Stop it.”
#princess2015la: Grandma, the second grader boys said, “What are you gonna do? Call the police?”
Me: “What was your response?”
#princess2015la: “I told them that this is not a matter for the police. That this is a matter that needs to be resolved between you and me. You need to stop.”
Context: My 7yo granddaughter was playing with her friend by putting all the dried leaves in a pile, so they can help clean up the yard. The boys wanted to crush the leaves to test their strength.
Conclusion: The bullies stopped in the schoolyard.
The bickering and shouting of grownup men piped down and they started to play checkers.
I bought a bag of roasted beans to show my patronage and my expectation of a calm, friendly coffee shop.
The owner thanked me for reminding him he is the king of his coffee shop and his rules must be respected even by his schizophrenic childhood friend, which he finally did.
The sidewalk is back to being clean and peaceful.
All it takes was good communication and respect of a small business and its customers.
Inspired by all these, a heartwarming thank you card from my cousin, who celebrated her golden jubilee aka 50 years as a Holy nun. I love how families: Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Whites were well represented at the congregation’s jubilee. I cannot ever turn off my journalist’s perspective so I took photos to document the jubilarians celebration and my photos were made into a photo book.
Also, a somewhat full moon, candles and a very beautiful Hawaiian flowers’ wreath at a wedding we attended.
My cousin and niece celebrated my birthday with me, today. Oh grace upon grace, I am so grateful! My birthday was in mid August, extending to today, Labor Day weekend.
I love my niece Jennifer. From the moment we met, we were in a soulful journey of being our best selves. I bonded with her in SF, then when I visited Hawaii with friends to attend a wedding, we bonded for a day with her hubby and newborn son.
As a mom of two young infant and toddler, it warms my heart that she’s joyfully giving care to both of them. I love that she anticipates their needs and carefully organizes the organic meal of T, her two yo son.
Then, during our dinner by the waterfront, she breastfed her 5 month old infant, D. while her supportive husband, K took care of the older boy. They were both calm when T cried wanting to go to the ocean and simply allowed him space to understand that ocean is not for him to swim in.
Thank you Jenn and K for taking time to connect with us.
