There’s no denying that your influence in my life has been greatly profound. Having spent most of my formative years in your youthful company, I lived vicariously through you. I felt as though your lives were mine to live even though I was young and didn’t understand much. I have the fondest memories of my childhood in different vignettes; the music that filled the entire living room from western singers like El DeBarge and Christopher Cross to original Pinoy music makers like Side A, Freestyle, Eraserheads among many others; your fashion choices from hip sunglasses to anything Levi Strauss; the radio by the medicine cabinet before the onset of telephones that rendered handheld radios almost obsolete; your friends (though I only remember Tito Dennis and Tita Belai, and did you try to hook them up at one point?) who frequented the house at Morrow Street and who also showered me with the attention I openly basked in; and many more.
But much more than the childhood I spent tagging along, I think your biggest influence was forging a path for me to follow in. We know Towe you are the smarter one and were always lauded as such so I wanted to be exactly the same. Your meticulous study habits left an impressionable mark on me. The way you successfully passed the ECE boards on first try by self-studying was a feat I will always admire. Yet I also admire you for your other talents like skilfully playing the sport that I love the most (and to which you introduced me) and your natural ability with musical instruments. I wish I could also play the drums or the guitar or the piano just as easily as you make it look.
But Tita Lucil you are the social butterfly, always in the company of fun friends, always fashionable and somehow always with the money and I wanted to be exactly the same. The way you carry yourself, your sense of style, the way you pull out bundles of crisp bills from your purse and count them so efficiently with a flick of your thumb and forefinger, magic. It’s everything I aspired to be. Your ability to charm people with your charisma is something that cannot be learned from a textbook. I often feel that you are more like an older sister than an aunt since you’re always up for anything the bagets are up to. Also you often mistakenly refer to your children as my pamangkins.
Now that I look back, having the two of you around while I was growing up was such a unique experience because I got to have a sneak preview of what my future would look like. I studied hard just like you did Towe but I also played hard just like you did Tita Lucil. While I am now carving my own path where your influence ended, I wouldn’t have known where to begin if you hadn’t led the way and for that I felt I was already one step ahead in the world.
Happy happy birthday! Take care and love you both very much! Stay youthful!
same energy here!!!!!