MEComposing

Some 20 years ago, a phone call during supper heralded the bad news that my Mother was hit by some car.

Some 15 years before pagers and cell phones, we didn't know where and how to contact her... all we could do was wait... worry... and pray.

And then, after two hours or so... who really knows for how long, time either stood still or we all were placed in a vacuum where it doesn't exist... knocks on our door announced the fact that my Mom was somewhere near our then BLISS apartment in Taguig... actually, she was sprawled in the sidewalk, near the waiting shed for jeepneys...

I was still very much a child... my older cousins living with us, teenagers... We all rushed to where Mom was and I didn't know what to make of the situation... the sight of her lying on the sidewalk, supported by all these strangers... blood all over her legs...

Again, I was still very much a child then. My cousin, with the help of the strangers, brought my Mom to the house.

Weird that I can't remember her being brought to the doctor... or being confined.

I also don't remember her bedridden for days... or hobbling about with a cane...

I'm wondering now if my memory blocked those days... although I highly doubt it.

Weirder still that my Mom was supposedly hit somewhere in Cubao, and yet she managed to come home to us in Bicutan, unable to walk as she was that night.

*~*

This is the memory that forever haunts me whenever I see really old men and women travelling on their own.

Offering an arm to help them board jeepneys, or to sit, or to fill up an information form... I do very much automatically...

Mornings would often find me with someone old in the same jeep am riding... bound for PGH for check-ups or whatever... Sometimes, accompanied by their child, or their granchild, or a younger sibling, or their spouse. Sometimes not.

And in the times when they're alone, I can't help but wonder where their progeny are...

And I can't help but utter a silent wish that I hope, when my parents grow old and start going about all crooked and wrinkled... alone... some strangers would take it upon themselves to be kind... and offer them a hand.

*~*

It may be self-serving that I actually go out of my way to be kind to old people, as a karmic investment for others to be kind to my folks. Not that we shouldn't be kind to people in general...

It's just sad how, from what i've observed, kind strangers are becoming an endangered species... and I fear for my parents because despite their imperfections, they really haven't done anything to deserve rudeness from strangers.

Everybody now seems just too preoccupied with their deadlines and worries and concerns... most people are just masungit...