Outcry from a frustrated grandpa

By Herbert Vego 

THIS writer is 74 years old – or a mere 14 years young as a senior citizen. No regrets; I am still actively writing for a living, which I have been doing for 54 straight years since 1970. With good health and mental stability, I hope and pray to write for the rest of my life.

I am no believer in numerology. But curiosity drove me to consult a numerology website on what number 74 stands for.

In the Bible it is the number of people who personally saw the “blinding” presence of God on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:9-11).

In numerology, No. 74 combines the symbolism of 7 (spiritual completeness, divine perfection) and 4 (earthly fullness, creation). A person with the number 74 tends to be cooperative. Yet he tends to think things through before making an agreement or proceeding on a course of action.

I septuagenarian normally ages into a grandfather or even a great grandpa. But I am not because my only son has remained single at 51, with no plan of turning “double”.  But why should I worry when he enjoys the freedom to spend his hard-earned money with no woman breathing down his neck?

He could not forget how his mom and I had lived hard, foregoing leisure and pleasure, to see him through college. He would not want to replicate our past.

I was a young college student when the song “Father and Son” popularized the advice of a father to his son: “If you want, you can marry. Look at me, I am old but am happy.”

Since I wanted to be happy in 1972 at age 22, I emptied my bank account to marry my fiancée against the will of my parents, thinking I had the means to build a happy family.

Little did I know that I would not be so happy. A series of expensive events buried me deep in debt within the first three years of my married life: frequent hospitalization of my wife due to epilepsy, a miscarriage of what could have been our first baby, the birth of our only son and her subsequent ectopic pregnancy that necessitated surgery.

After only nine years, we separated. But that did not prevent me from footing the education of my son until he finished college; and from having another partner.

If I were to be born again, I would not marry until I would have stashed away lasting wealth. True freedom is having the means to overcome the basic problems of family life. I pity the unemployed and underemployed living miserably because they had not prepared for the vicissitudes of transition from aloneness to marital state.

No wonder, when the now Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act (RA 10354) was still being debated in Congress, I wrote supportive columns asking hard-up couples to practice family planning.

I remember a beautiful cousin (now deceased) whom I could hardly recognize as a married woman because her once sparkling eyes had dulled; her pinky cheeks had paled and sunk; and her body curves had shrunk.

Such a familiar vicious cycle merits serious attention: Parents work themselves to death to secure the future of their children, who likewise repeat the same fate. As the cycle goes on from one generation to the next, the “bright future” never comes.

Oh well, my son has broken that cycle, making me a happy non-grandpa.

-oOo-

MORE POWER’S JARDELEZA TOPS AGAIN

CONGRATULATIONS to retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Francis Jardeleza for having been recognized by the Iloilo City government as one of the 2024 Ten Outstanding Ilonggos during the commemoration of the 87th anniversary of Iloilo as a charter city. (The complete list is available online.)

In a sense, he has not really retired.  He is the Independent Director of the city’s power-distribution utility, MORE Electric and Power Corporation, better known as MORE Power.

Jardeleza joined MORE Power’s board in 2021 upon the invitation of Enrique Razon Jr., the company’s majority shareholder; and Roel Castro, president and chief operating officer.

An independent director is a director who is not an employee of the company and doesn’t hold a personal stake in any of its business (e.g., stock ownership).  He sits on board to provide leadership, improve strategy and governance, help with succession planning, and serve as liaison between shareholders and management.

Jardeleza graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Law and placed third in the 1974 Bar. He later earned his Master of Laws degree from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.