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.