And a lot more gifts of all sorts; not that I’m some sort of a celebrity, far from it. It just happened that my birthdate is the same as that of a famous Filipino actress whose unique voice and countless awards both in television and cinema deserved rightfully the prestigious title, “Superstar.”
A coincidental item plucked from the grapevine, embedded in the memory neurons by many whose motivation and interest for doing so are varied; PSRS-professional sales representative or med reps—for their compulsory coverage data of assigned doctors, caring, thoughtful students, grateful patients, classmates in high school and med school whose four-year togetherness exposed the barest and rawest secrets of each other.
Birthdays in a brood of eight to seven pregnancies of a salaried engineer-father and a homemaker-mother is an occasion of thanksgiving, with the boys going to church dressed to the nines—hair plastered to their scalp with pomade (Dixie Peach, Colonial, and Emilia brands) with their faces almost white with layers of Johnson or Mennen baby powder. The day is capped by dinner with native chicken tinola or fried chicken with drumstick for the celebrant and the other for our only sister Teresa, except when Joel and Noel celebrate their birthdays; a simple Ilocano activity done annually for the siblings so that by the time we enter secondary school, it’s enough we go thank the good Lord for another year.
Reaching 60 was a momentous event, a milestone, with every detail still fresh in my mind, as the head of the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs and Federation of Baguio Senior Citizens Associations (FBASECA) handed me my senior citizen ID, with purchase booklets for groceries and medicines.
Lots of high-fives, group hugs, and endless beso-beso, thank God no COVID then—interspersed with raucous laughter and shouts for blowouts. I did, with pansit, juice, and pandesal. Before I knew it, someone plastered on my back “dual citizenship” while the rest of the officers kept on joking that as seniors, we are now “refreshed, unstressed, retired.”
As a matter of policy, Saint Louis University retired me from their undergraduate programs but then Father Hechanova welcomed me into their graduate studies as a visiting professor.
Busy with my daily clinic with patients mostly elderlies, plus my part-time teaching job in other schools in Baguio on top of my weekly health column with a local newspaper, the days, weeks, months, and years simply followed the smooth changes of the season with the obedience of the calendar. Except for Christmas, when my family has a simple exchange of gifts—t-shirts hankies, socks, small bottles of cologne for my mother and sister—birthdays are not party-celebration style. However, cards and flowers were placed on my desk at school by students, seniors brought their specialty dishes, the amount of which could feed a whole barangay. Time has wings, it flies fast. At 70, I felt like I was transitioning from “feeling older” to “feeling really old” a reality bolstered by researchers at Stanford University who said that “aging does not happen in a gradual linear way, rather our human cells show accelerated changes by age 44 and 60.”
As such, birthday presents became more practical. The rocking chair becomes a comfortable hammock for my 30-minute after-lunch power nap, the cane secures stable balance especially after a titanium apparatus was inserted into my right femur, and the magnifying glass becomes useful only when text messages come in small letters.
To ward off Alzheimer’s, I mentally recite Desiderata, enumerate the 12 cranial nerves in the correct sequence, or challenge my neurons with the step-by-step degradation of starch—rice until it is digested and absorbed into the blood as glucose. And I don’t mind at all if friendly Mr. Parkinson, whose fondness for seniors is legendary, won’t drop by for a visit.
The number 75 is magical; for couples who can’t believe they stayed blissfully in love up to their diamond anniversary, never mind the blisters; for nervous, anxious pupils and students with cliff-hanging grades or among Filipinos who realize with gratefulness, they have passed the average lifespan of Juan de la Cruz.
The eyes in my mind see a funny smile remembering that just a few years ago, I was playing in the piano the Beatles’ “When I’m 64.“ Now, a nostalgic yearning “nagtatanong lang sa’yo, ako pa kaya ibigin mo, kahit maputi na ang buhok ko.”
My trance-like musings were interrupted by the passing of a blanket of clouds above the city lights so that after whispering a little prayer of thanks, drifted into dreamland with a fervent hope to wake up greeting more glorious sunrises and witnessing more sunsets.
To God, I rest my case.
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Victor Romulo Gallardo Dumaguing is an internist/volunteer physician of Baguio FBASECA Seniors (1999-present). At 75, he bid goodbye to the academe and had just published his book, “So You Want to be a Doctor?”