ON BEING PARENTS

Here are the folks with their first grandchild Meta (whole name: Metaphor, Naya’s cat). : )

            

And here’s a message for Kuya Ziv and Naya, who I miss the most at Christmas …

You know how the folks never say much about how they feel?

Well, yesterday was a bit different. Maybe they’re growing older, maybe it was the frustration from Lola’s demands — she was driving everyone batty on her first Christmas with us — Papa says she reminds him of Tony Soprano’s conniving mother! Hehe.

But as I sat on their bed, in between Papa watching the races, they talked about being parents. And where they think they went wrong.

Mama said they had been so controlled by their own folks that they decided as parents, they would let us find our own way in life. But she worries now that they went overboard and made us feel they didn’t care. Especially Naya who grew up in the midst of their biggest work stresses. She thinks Papa may have made Naya unhappy. She told Papa he should have made more of an attempt to ask us about our lives.

Papa said all he ever wanted to teach us was to share the best of ourselves with others through our work. To be the best we could be and give whatever that best was. To not focus on our own thoughts and concerns, to not be small-minded, to never be corrupt, to not seek riches but to live a life for others.

I told them that the three of us know they love us very much and they tried to be good parents. And they are good parents!

To tell you the truth, we have the coolest parents I know of … : )

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From early Christmas lunch with the folks, I went to early Christmas dinner with Roli and Aya.

Aya is a kindred spirit who shared some of my best days this year. In summer, she took me to the A-11 galleries in Harrison which I’d never been able to find before. I took her to Pinto Gallery in Antipolo which she’d always wanted to see. We explored museums together, even the mind-bogglingly new Singapore National Museum over her sem break, when Roli was too busy to hang with us.

Oh, Aya is Roli’s 19-year old daughter. A 3rd year UP Fine Arts stude, trying to decide if her internship should be with Kenneth Cobunpue or with the San Miguel packaging design team. Yup, you know I’m voting for Cobunpue.

She has the funkiest fashion sense, which is why I got her that t-shirt she was wearing tonight. The same day she bought herself a pair of skinny, bright yellow jeans.  (I don’t know anyone else who owns skinny, bright yellow jeans.)

It’s because of Aya that I know I might love being a parent someday.

Tonight she was asking me why there were so many mass graves in Cambodia. So I had to try to explain Pol Pot and the genocide and how the landowners and intellectuals were executed during the war. Roli picked up with his take on Communist ideology, their effort to reeducate the masses and the impact this had on artists like her.

I could see the fascination in her eyes and that she was going to check this out on Wikipedia when she got home. I realized  the world gets smaller and less overwhelming everyday for her because of the things she learns from us.

Whatever happens, am praying hard that Aya will always be part of my life.