A Retrospective of Mother’s 100th
How many of us will get to say “Happy Birthday” to a 100-year-old? I am proud to say I did for the first time in 76 years! That’s why I persevered and stayed beyond the cooler month of March into the heat of May to greet my mother on her hundredth year, May 18, 2023..
There was so much anticipation leading to this day. The travel restrictions during the pandemic had given me pause as to whether a trip to the Philippines would be possible. Thank Darwin! COVID had been reduced to a footnote. It was a recurring concern for us all, not only because this scourge could prevent us from attending the celebrations, but, more importantly, the celebrant had been too bullheaded to get vaccinated.
The thought that she may contract the virus and never reach her 100th hang over our heads. We all have tiptoed to her room, all masked up during the months leading to the big day. Invitees were notified to stay put if showing signs of even a sniffle. During the public party on the 20th, many invitees stayed put on suspicion of COVID. But there she was, making speeches and greeting everyone with nary a mask.
A timely Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) Editorial on the 20th titled: “A million ways to honour seniors” graced the Opinion pages. It says our average life span has reached 72.12 years ( Google says 71.66 in 2023 ). Twenty years ago, it was 68.9 years. (Canada has 81.75 and Japan at 84.62 ).
Today, there is a total of 662 centenarians in the country. ( there are 9,500 in Canada ) 85% of all centenarians in the world are women.
In the Philippines, there are only two 100-yr old per 100,000. No matter how you look at it, it is pretty special to reach this milestone, so much so that an overwhelming majority of the House of Representatives has approved a bill increasing the cash gift for Filipino centenarians who reach 101 from P 100,000 to P 1 Million and applies to Filipinos leaving abroad as well ( presumably dual-citizens included )
The editorial is clear about how laws (in the Philippines ) are put into practice: “Quite a number of years may pass before the benefits are fully distributed and accounted for” Translation: you’d be dead before you see a cent!
What does it mean to be 100 years old? From a Philippine perspective, a person born in 1923 took place during the U.S. colonial occupation of the Philippines, in the U.S. presidency of Calvin Coolidge.
It means she had never missed a Philippine president since Manuel Quezon right to the current president Marcos Jr. all of the 16 since after the U.S. Insular government. My mother missed Emilio Aguinaldo by only 22 years! The so-called “Roaring Twenties” was the birth of important things still in use today: Traffic Lights, T.V. Penicillin and insulin, to name a few.
The “Charleston” was the dance craze of that era.
The constant lament I heard from my many conversations with her was how poverty had forced her to give up a promising academic path to go to work on behalf of the struggling family.
She was valedictorian at specific grades in elementary and had been accelerated at least once in upper elementary. Indeed, she could engage in complex topics like climate change or evolution in her nineties. Once her eyesight dimmed and her hearing challenged, reading was switched to the radio, playing old favourites.
Now, even at 100, she plays bingo almost daily with her two P.A.s (because she has outlived all the bingo players in the neighbourhood). Her lesson here is the importance of “engagement,” which can extend our cognition much longer than average.
PARAÑAQUE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: “SENTIMENTAL NEANDERTHALS”
“Longevity comes with the added benefits of respect, even reverence…and the recognition of one’s endurance and wisdom born of experience,” says the P.D.I. editorial. You would think the municipal government of Mayor Eric Olivarez of Paraňaque City would be head over heels beating a path to my mother’s residence, a mere stone’s throw from the Mayor’s office.
If there was ever any centenarian deserving of the local government’s attention, it must be a “lihitimo” ( native of Paranaque ), born and raised and lived all her 100 years in Paraňaque.
Two months before her birthday, not satisfied with making a phone call, I visited the Mayor’s office ( the Mayor was not in at the time ) to submit a letter of invitation. I could not have been more pleased with the courtesy and attention I received from several “assistants” who filed my request.
It was the kind of coup politicians would be happy to oblige. Several people were around singing praises, with effusive displays of “backslapping” and unsolicited praises for the Mayor, but there was a feeling of “fakeness” to it all.
There were just too many bodies around, I thought.
Despite my discomfort, I tried to play the part, a role so foreign to the approach I had gotten used to. What I call “No Drama Canada”; no bull, no fanfare, but we get things done.
And would you know it, over six weeks have passed, only about a week before the party, there was absolute silence from the Mayor’s Office. I started calling with the contact number and the assistant’s name on the copy letter.
He said he would pass it on to the Mayor’s executive secretary. Sensing a diminishing chance of the Mayor’s appearance ( and cursing myself for being too naive ), I gave them an alternate date and venue and “maybe a mayor’s representative” if he has other prior commitments.
The affair came and went, with no one from the Mayor’s office, no citation, and no cash of P 100 000 ( as of press time ). A snobbery of the highest order! An absolute “stick in the mud” kind of crowd in my book. What a disgrace; my mother would have gotten a better deal from Chow King! ( Chinese fast food )
NANAY, WHAT’S YOUR SECRET?
It is the inevitable question that props up to anybody reaching this milestone. So what is the secret, or is there really one? During the party, she addressed this question.
Her answer was unsurprising because she had alluded to this in my lighter moments with her. Simple living, everything in moderation was her standard reply to this query every time it came up. But there are some unspoken reasons why she has reached this landmark.
First, it is not a big secret in the family that a genetic factor is involved with her long life, as you would with any other human phenotype. But to say that genes play a role in our durability is only fodder for the masses but decidedly more complex than that.
A “genetic lottery” is at play here, a combination of genes that give you a “winning hand” of longevity. A different outcome could result without the right blend or even the sequencing of these genes.
Even with the limited clues gained from aunts and uncles, it’s certain that Nanay got the right “numbers,” and she’s not even through with living yet.
Even “nurture” do not stand a chance if “nature” does not have the constituents necessary to apply a tried and true formula to our well-being. Our capacity to do anything, whether physical or psychological, depends on “what you’ve got in you.”
The genetic influence goes well beyond the physical. Our emotional state, also shaped by our DNA is intertwined with our vitality and long life.
All these apply to how well Nanay has managed her life. She has retained control over all aspects of living. With the help of a caregiver and all-around support, she lives in her own house, monitors her power and water bill, chooses her food, and dictates everything within her control.
She might be more physically challenged now (falling off a jeepney years ago, she never fully recovered from an injury ); however, her mind still stayed sharp ( with minor intermittent bouts of cognitive difficulty ). In an ironic twist, her life would have been more stressful and miserable had she stayed in a long-term care facility.
She has the right combination of feistiness, stubbornness and sarcasm throughout her adult life. These can be unnerving at times with people dealing with her. Still, I believe these attributes give her the “fighting spirit” necessary to navigate her life in its more trying phases and now from the annoyance of being bedridden.
She has managed her income (mainly from father’s Police pension ) like no other. Even a few years ago, in her wheelchair, she could tie up a long line of seniors waiting for their turn to sit with a bank’s financial adviser.
Ever meticulous and frugal, a grocery trip with her was an exercise in patience as she carefully scrutinized every item before every purchase. Last year, at 99, she fired the all-around-help because she said:” she has been shortchanging her from grocery purchases.”
We all understand the power of being financially independent and arriving at a comfortable balance through a scheme of deposits and withdrawals using universal banking parlance. But there is “banking” that does not involve money, but like currency, some of us are more successful in managing it.
We accumulate “psychological deposits” throughout our lives—the currency of resilience, tenacity and perseverance. The effort and persistence that we bestow on these intangible assets give them strength and energy.
As we become more socially connected, sustained by our friends and family, we accrue many subjective boosts to our well-being.
In moments of stress and weakness, and loneliness, we draw on these “deposits” to carry on. Many of us could reach a point in our lives where our psychological and emotional needs exceed those of the physical. I see my mother drawing on these reserves in the twilight of her life. These may have been her secret “vaccination”protecting her from the ravages of ill health and stress-related illnesses. In her later years, she has reached the SOS mantra. Slower, Older, but Smarter!
One of the things that I thought I would hear from her speech, both with family and later in public, was the role of her faith in achieving her centennial. But she did not; despite some prompting, she stuck to her buzzwords of simplicity and moderation.
In the considerable times I have taken her to church, over lunch, we would discuss the importance of faith to her in providing a “scaffold” on which she connects all the other necessities of life.
I now think she understood what I have been saying all along, and that is: Attending church and praying are but one way of expressing one’s spirituality. However it is expressed, it sends a subliminal message to the brain.
A biochemical process “validates” our beliefs. But it is a “subjective reality” and is generational. What may be compelling today may transcend a lifetime but will become more and more controvertible in the future until a new “reality” takes over. And on it goes. Our 200,000-year history attests to that inevitability. All that does not matter; it is whatever is enshrined in your mind. I reminded her that 82% of humanity has other ideas that are not compatible with hers.
But I know what her unease has been. She wanted to be assured that her eldest son was not going to hell! That’s just the kind of mother she has always been,
exceedingly concerned, even all the way to my afterlife. Don’t I wish there was one!
Nanay, “HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY” With love!******
edwingdeleon@gmail.com
