Requirements

Is it really important to be in the debt of gratitude to your parents after they had financed you from your sixteen years of education? Do you really have to give them your earnings as soon as you have your job in spite of receiving break-even pay?

My answer is no. It is their choice, more than the obligation, to educate you until you mature. In the entire course of being a student, were you given a choice by your mom and dad between studying and loitering in this crazy world for your entire life? Absolutely not, your parents decided for you, thinking that getting a degree is the best for you. Whether or not you enjoyed being educated for almost half of your life is beside the point. If you are under a corporate world, I would understand that you will be financially indebted with your superior or provider until you repay them with the same amount with the corresponding interest, in addition to currency adjustments. But on the first place, you are not. Your existence in this world started by belonging to a "family". A family that is 'ought' to be borne out of 'love' ; to underscore, 'unconditional love'. Money is not the primary factor that binds you together, but 'love'. You are not 'transacting' with them all your life like they are a banking institution or as if you are under a professional relation.

Customs will tell you that your parents have finished their mission as parents once you graduated and to the very extent, acquire a job of your choice. Therefore, they must not interfere anymore of your subsequent choices because you already know what you are doing. To note, we recognize being in 7 years of age as 'age of reason', while celebrating 18th or 21st birthday because the sibling is already an 'adult' and is by all means capable of having lives of their own.

When your parents decided to make love and create you in this world, is their reason from the outset is to raise the child with a decent education so that the child, after getting a job, will repay all their expenses to them? If they truly love their child, they will not let him exist just to pay debts to them in the end. They create the child out of love from each other, and the child must be loved in return. And unconditionally love the child, just the way he is (so that he will not be compelled to pretend to be another person) and regardless of the opposing choices he makes when he acquires his own reason. Now, whether or not the child will love them back, in my view, largely depends on how they love their child. Even the 4th Commandment in the Roman Catholic discipline spells "Honor your mother and your father". Given that each word in the 10 Commandments are well thought of by its Author, He must have the reason why He used the verb "honor" and not "love". Our parents are our first superiors, and may be the constant superiors for as long as we breathe, so honoring them for that matter is justifiable.

In this situation, I believe that love is, more than anything, a mere effect. Whether or not honoring your parents transcend into loving them is a mere effect - an effect, which is, again, largely caused or influenced by how much they love you. And if that love triggered your so-called conscience to feel the urgency of sharing your salary with them, no matter how meager it is, well then, it is completely fine. Repaying them literally must not be perceived as a norm. In addition, repaying them is not necessarily a form of love. A sibling can literally overwhelm them with money but wouldn't actually give a damn. A sibling can be greedy like hell but still care for them anyway in the end.

And parents, in return must not be offended or carry a serious grudge at their offsprings, nor curse them for being 'ingrata'. I believe that human beings are receptors of stimuli externally residing in their realm, and at the same time, execute their own force in order to be responded by another body in return. Human relationship is a cause-effect transaction. Whether the reaction is indifference or love is something that must be inevitably accepted by the affected party in the end.

Mourning

Twenty-four hours ago, I was standing in front of a blue coffin, feeling indifferent from the implications of his death. I had seen him before, had smiled at him, uttered a word or two, talked about him with his daughter several times, and that was it. Numbness, not indifference, perhaps. Yet it could simply be my form of defense: being in the state of denial. But in the end it was unexplainable. Part of me anticipated that his long battle will end tragically; part of me is anxious what will happen next (despite having totally no control of it); and part of me is fancying to be in her shoes. She has been lamenting and sleepless and physically malnourished for days.

Taking her place, I may have responded in a very different way. The best I can do (taking from the moralists' eyes) is to be speechless and respect the spirit of death. The worse I can do (again, taking from the moralists' eyes) is to shrug and be happy for my father, since I can assume that he's already with his object of worship.

He was loved and he loved. But he was prepared, and they would never be. Under a cloudy day wrapped in an eerie space, attended solely by loved ones who are not even whispering intrigues, that humble moment is the most solemn internment I have been into. No requiems nor eulogies yet. Just silent prayers of hope that after life exists so he may receive the eternal peace he deserves.

I even smelled his celebration, his achievement of being the pillar of the family, although they are barely beginning their lives. He still missed spurs of the moment. He will never walk with his eldest down the aisle; he failed to witness his son's first born; he will no longer see his youngest bloom in her youth. I could never say he is the perfect father, but despite his imperfections, I can feel his openness and his humble recognition of his mistakes. He must have been very sincere in saying sorry.

At that moment, something is haunting me at the back of my mind. Is my father the next in line? Am I actually foreseeing it or simply anticipating it? He has been emotional since discovering his complex sickness and was further brought down upon hearing another father's death. His battle may compel him to surrender, despite being stubborn to what he wants all his life and despite his self-acclaimed strong faith. Because albeit his love of abstractions, his feet refuses to touch the ground. He is not with us, and it sadly obscures his importance to his 'loved' ones.

Seeing Through

Look at me in the microscope and see how I am covered with bacteria. Look at how I do not dare to move away from these parasites. I am a lazy and coward specimen waiting to die from infection. Do you enjoy this festive sight? Maybe you do, for you wouldn't care to zoom those lenses further if you're not entertained.

Do you know I'm staring at you too? I can see the blackness of your pupil as it reflects my gruesome body. Sadly, I cannot see you through, even just a little beyond that part of your corporal body.

I've been wanting to witness a tear or two and see how your eyes will be dampened and blinded by despair. I've been wanting to obscure your sight so you won't dissect me with your stern eyes again. I am hoping to see how your sad eyes will look like when they are unconcealed by those glasses. I have been wanting to know you.

Milky Way

I mark this day as the second instance in my entire life that I received a cholocate: now, from another interesting person who has been so kind, intelligent, and intimidating all at the same time to me.

For quite some time, I haven't seen a Milky Way chocolate. I recongnize this entity as one of the sweetest chocolate ever submerged in my mouth. I used to compare this with Mars more than ten years ago. And this sweet nothing always ends up as a looser, moreover inferior from among any chocolate genre, especially Galaxy.

My reflexes are supposed to push me to undress this litttle chocolate sitting in the keyboard, carress its smooth brown figure, smell the cocoa spirit until my mouth waters like hell, and eat it without any regret. But this may be the first chocolate that I wouldn't care to eat nor dare to unwrap. I'll lament its inexistence, and be further saddened at the idea of having its remains folded and inserted in my old wallet, together with that sweet professional handwritten note written a couple of months ago from the same person who aimlessly threw this Milky Way to me. I don't want this to be a part of my congested memory. Don't die and simply allow me to forget you.

Reality sucks, for inevitably I have to smash this one until it disappears. But not now, not this day. Maybe not even tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow its value will be gone. It will be just another chocolate roaming around my desk. Maybe I'll think about it before I sleep. But for now, let me be saturated on looking at your jolly wrapper and wonder what are you thinking.