When, indeed, is it a good time to do anything, and at our age, too?
Waiting for that right time, my cousins Ninit and Sylvia and dearest pal Bea and I took all of 50 years to finally make our sentimental journey back to Europe, particularly to Spain and France; we had promised ourselves not only to be back as soon as we could but also as often.
At any rate, it was all bound to happen sooner or later, guaranteed by the coins we had thrown into Rome’s Fountain of Trevi. It just had to be put off after marriage, and the rest of real life happened to us within the first four years of our homecoming.
Ninit went first, at 18, with her sweetheart, 13 years her senior, whom she met in Madrid. Bea and I both went to college and married after our graduation, at 21. By then Ninit was already on her second child. It was Sylvia who enjoyed her single blessedness longer; only Ninit was around to see her off on her conjugal journey. Bea and I had left for abroad with our husbands and children, she to London and I to Houston, where we each had our fourth child—Bea would still have a fifth.
We RATS, as we called ourselves—Regina (Ninit), Ana Belen (Bea), Teresita (me) and Sylvia—stayed in touch by letters and, when Bea and I returned, continued meeting regularly. And we never stopped planning, although somehow our plans got shelved until even well after our children had been married and given us grandchildren. For by then it was our parents who needed our care.
After my mom died—and Sylvia’s, too, on the same day in September 2007—my dad, 89 and without Mom, grew increasingly weaker. Ninit’s own husband had been suddenly taken ill. Anyway, in that autumn of 2008, feeling ourselves running against time, we decided to go no matter what; Sylvia was just off sickbay herself, and just as we were waiting for our visas, her special child was hospitalized with pneumonia.
Irresponsible
Many of our elders thought us irresponsible to ignore all these signs; indeed, the way things were going, it seemed now or never for our trip. So, emboldened with husbands’ and children’s blessings and cheers at a despedida dinner, we flew.
It turned out to be the best selfish decision we’d ever made. How proud we were to see our schools in Madrid and Paris far improved. The journey, probably the last for us together of such distance and sentiment, only further cemented our closeness; we had known all along how we made excellent travelling companions, but we hadn’t been so happily silly by ourselves in a long time.
Halfway into the trip, I got the cryptic call from my stepmom: Dad had another stroke. Vergel called to report that he had seen him in the emergency room and that it looked like he’d lick it, yet again, conversing sensibly in his fighting stance—legs crossed in bed. Vergel told me no need to cut the trip short, and am I glad I went on.
Back from the trip, I caught Dad in Intensive Care still, but he recovered enough to be allowed to go home. He lasted yet until April the next year, five months short of 92.
We RATS had promised ourselves to do it again, but have never gotten around to it, which is just as well. It doesn’t mean we don’t manage shorter trips, road trips to Bea’s vacation house in Malarayat or Ninit’s in Tagaytay. But it was our sentimental journey to Europe that beats all journeys, a perfect time (whatever they say) for a perfect dream.
My daughter and her friends, the Assumption “tarts” (named for the famous pastry sold at their school canteen), left their children, all grownup by then, with their fathers, and went on a gang trip—to Turkey, just as trouble was brewing along its border with Syria. I had my own apprehensions, but, as in our case, there was no stopping them, and things did work out well. In fact, no future time has proved better: Things have since deteriorated in that part of the world.
Indeed, much of the world is becoming less and less attractive, especially for older tourists like me. Europe is as beautiful as ever, but life is radically changing with a difficult economy and unwanted immigrants. Friends have come back with stories we couldn’t ever imagine happening in the Europe we knew. Nevertheless, my husband and I are prepared to take a trip, given the chance. What are we saving ourselves for, anyway?
It was Dad who told me, “In life, kiddo, timing is everything.” I may not have agreed with him, but he was convinced, for instance, that the time to marry was not when you have finished school or landed a job or gotten a raise. Dad, ever the romantic, believed, “The time to marry is when you meet the one you want to marry.” He was 19 and jobless when he eloped with my 17-year-old mom, and had no regrets. Well, I don’t know about Mom.
And so it seems with the rest of life, it happens when it should, at the perfect time. At our age, however, I don’t have to tell you why, we should not wait too long before we act on our dreams.
