“Hearting” birthday greetings

I turned 52 in October 2019. This statement should please my best friend, who always objects to my propensity to declare myself the age I am for the year even if my birthday is still months away. She is all for accuracy especially because she is a year younger and has no wish to "advance" her age. 

This year, I thought I would remove my birth date from Facebook (FB) because I am really more a lurker, just happy to "heart" or “like” the nice things that are happening to people, congratulate them on their milestones and commiserate when they lose someone dear to them.

At this age, I am also losing a lot of people I know, even those my age. I figured I might just as well begin the phase-out on social media.

But then my birthday came around and sister started the ball rolling by greeting me on FB. Someone picked up on that and then a friend of that someone and soon enough, I have a lot of birthday greetings in just minutes.

I am the type of person who wants to respond to each and every greeting, but when you’re with actual, physical people celebrating your birthday early in the morning with breakfast, you can’t. You can’t ignore them because you’re on your phone.

So you put it off and soon enough you’re going out and real life dictates that you spend the time doing this and that so that you can actually leave the house even as you sneak in a "heart" here and there to show the FB greeter that you love their message, which you really do except that you can’t be physically present but on the phone with the people who want to celebrate your birthday with you.

So you content yourself with “hearting” their greeting for the moment, all the time feeling uncomfortable that you cannot thank them properly.

I have only 660 FB friends. I cannot imagine how it is for those who have thousands.

But then again, I am 52 and considered old school. Maybe in this age of social media, a “heart” is really just enough.

Of course, I say this after I have replied, singly or in groups, to the birthday greetings that I “hearted” a while back.

Time is our friend in Perth

My family and I just came back from a short trip to Perth, the capital and largest city of the state of Western Australia. 

It was a very pleasant trip mainly because life ambles along in Perth, which contrasts greatly with how it seems to be in danger of getting choked in the road and pedestrian traffic that gurgles and rushes to fill any gap in Metro Manila, where I live.

We're the only ones waiting for a free ride
on a blue CAT bus that will take us
to the Fremantle Markets.

First, there is no heavy traffic, even in the commercial business district of Perth. We ride bus after bus for free, and we don’t even line up to get on one. Perth provides zero-fare bus and train trips around the city center (the "Free Transit Zone"), including four high-frequency CAT (Central Area Transit) bus routes. 

Compare this with the line of people stretching along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) to get a bus ride, with some even ignoring the danger posed by Manila’s major thoroughfare to break into a run and meet oncoming buses in an effort to get on first.  Add those waiting to get tickets to the Metro Rail Transit (MRT), whose line also snakes all the way down EDSA. 

In Perth, one can actually breathe. Look around. Walk. 

It isn’t just because we are on vacation mode.  The energy is different. People get to where they need to go; there’s just no tension about it.

The view from our room at the hotel, located
near the Elizabeth Quay of the City of Perth.

Maybe it’s because Perth is considered one of the most isolated major cities in the world, with the Indian Ocean on one side and the Australian outback on the other. The nearest city is Adelaide, which is over 2,092 kilometers away. There are some 2 million inhabitants, with about the same number of visitors in a year.

Everything closes at 5 p.m. OK, maybe not everything. Some at 5:30 p.m. and the few beyond that at 8 p.m.  I look forward to coffee after dinner and am aghast to find coffee joints closed. We get off a bus stop past 5 p.m. along St. Georges Terrace, Perth’s main street, and find stores and offices shuttered, even the main grocery chain Woolworths, where we had hoped to get some items we’d forgotten to pack. 

So we walk on, because in Perth, there are a lot of public, open spaces which we want to explore. Except that the cold, cold wind is against us. We are in Perth in September, on days when the temperature is recorded at a maximum 21 and a minimum 2 degrees Celsius. We are quickly disabused of the notion that it is better to walk late in the afternoon when the sun is low, and decide it is best to do so at noon when the sun is highest.

We see the Perth City skyline from Kings Park.

We quickly adjust to walking around, barely perspiring in the cool weather, even during hours of walking at Kings Park and Botanic Garden, which covers 400.6 hectares and is one of the largest inner city parks in the world. We are wowed by the views since Kings Park overlooks Perth City and the Swan River. But what holds our attention is the beauty, size and variety of the West Australian flora painstakingly planted and documented in the park’s cultivated gardens.

Hubby poses in front
of a 750-year-old (estimated)
Boab tree.

My daughter quickly gets lost taking picture after picture of the flowers and plants which catch her eye. Even my husband, whose only motivation for walking seems to be a game of golf, doesn’t complain. He points out the magpies and parrots that ignore us, chirping away as they arrange themselves on tree boughs and flutter to the ground every now and then. 

I look around and note the absence of ambulant vendors and food stalls, which pepper public open spaces like Luneta Park in Manila.  We agree that this is one of the reasons King’s Park retains the feel of a natural habitat, and remains pristine and clean even as my daughter remarks, “I could use a hotdog just about now.”

We visit the rest of the sites the same way, unhurried and in hand with Time: Elizabeth Quay; the Esplanade; the streets of Hay and Murray, where the malls are located; the markets and streets of Fremantle and Perth’s cultural center.

I am startled to see some men and children walking barefoot along city streets, in groceries and at the Fremantle markets. I understand that some people in Australia prefer to walk barefoot because they believe in a way of life that makes them feel more “free” yet connected to the land. I cringe inwardly at how unhygienic and unsafe it is, but that’s just me.

But I applaud at the way they take pride in things made and grown in Australia, as illustrated by the many signs put up in market stalls, cafes and other commercial establishments.  They have every reason to be proud of their produce.

At a market in Fremantle, I can only sigh at the sight of the

There are so many fruits and vegetables
we cannot bring home.

gigantic-sized bell peppers and the even larger sugar apple (atis), which I know I cannot bring home per a 2015 joint circular of the Department of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and the Bureau of Customs which prohibits bringing in fresh or frozen unprocessed foods - even in quantities for personal use - into the Philippines without prior clearance from the Department of Agriculture of the Philippines.

There’s a burst of energy on Friday nights, it seems.  The streets come alive as professionals break out of their offices to fill watering holes and end the week relaxing and drinking. We are not drinkers so we avoid the bars, even if we cannot escape the din from joints like Public House Perth along Adelaide Terrace which stretches all the way across the street.

With the St. Mary's Cathedral in the background.

The rest of the days, it goes back to slow, even crawling to a near stop on Sundays. A last-minute decision to visit Rottnest Island falls through so we decide to explore the heritage buildings on Perth’s east end after attending Mass at the nearby St. Mary’s Cathedral. 

Aside from the beauty of the church and the solemnity of the Mass, two things stand out to me: Majority of the boys who were installed as new choristers after the Mass bear Filipino surnames, and there are customized envelopes for tourists, allowing them to make contributions via credit card.

We take the time to buy souvenirs, confirming what we already know: In Perth, things are expensive. Because of Perth’s relative geographical isolation, you have to pay a bit more to cover the costs of freight and logistics in getting goods delivered. 

Too soon, it seems, the trip ends. We end the time warp we find ourselves in Perth and go back to busying, hurrying and running around in the humid, wonderful familiar that is our home country. 

But if given the chance to visit Perth again, we certainly will to explore the places we missed and catch up with friends we did not get to see. And yes, to renew the friendship we made with Time in Perth.

Babang Luksa

It is customary in the Philippines to mark the first death anniversary as the end of mourning or “babang luksa” as the Tagalogs call it. The word “baba” means to lower, referring to a veil customarily worn to mourn the passing of a loved one.

As prescribed by tradition, my sisters and I offer prayers for my mom and celebrate with a meal, signaling that the period of bereavement has ended. It hasn’t and I doubt if it will anytime soon.

But we are dutiful daughters. My sisters in Cebu go to Mass, visit Mommy’s grave then have breakfast together. The rest of us attend Mass where we are located. As usual, I go on overdrive. I have the 7 a.m. mass said for my mother at the nearby chapel of a Formation Center, then again at 6:30 p.m. at the Parish Church and one at the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Manaoag in Pangasinan. Except for the last which is celebrated some 200 kilometers away from where I live, I attend both masses.

I am not the only one. My youngest sister also has two masses offered for Mommy on her death anniversary. Everyone, including those in the US, have flowers bought for her grave. One of them puts out an ad in the local paper to honor her memory. What harm can it do? My sisters and I laugh about it over the phone, in between bouts of crying. No, this mourning period is not likely to end anytime soon.

I think these traditions for the dead are more about enabling the living to cope with their loss and to feel that they have dutifully mourned the passing of their love ones.

I believe in praying for the repose of our loved ones’ souls and/or offering the Holy Mass for them. God is with us, whether it is in this life or the afterlife and He has dominion over all. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

But I do know that we, myself included, overdo things because we feel that somehow, we need to do something more for our loved ones who have passed away.

I believe that Mommy is with God in heaven yet I feel the need to fly to Cebu to visit her grave, buy flowers that easily wilt under the heat of the sun and light candles that are quickly extinguished by the wind or worse, disappear once our backs are turned. Because I MUST do something on her death anniversary. Mommy would scoff at me, but she would still be touched and if just for that, I do it anyway. Because it makes me feel better.

So we go to the noonday mass Mommy liked attending at a certain chapel then proceed to a restaurant where I ache remembering the countless times she treated all of us to a meal there because the younger ones cannot have enough of the chicken skin.

Then I fly back home still aching but feeling better that those of us who could, gather in prayer for Mommy on her first death anniversary. I am glad we all made the effort even if honoring the babang luksa does not end our grief over losing Mommy. In my heart, I know Mommy is glad for any reason for her children to come together, even if it is her demise.

A Message from the family of Evelyn R. Luab

(Delivered during the book launch of “Light Sunday” - selected essays written by the late Evelyn R. Luab for the regular Sunday column of SunStar Cebu - which were compiled and published into a book by Class '72 of Sacred Heart School for Boys - Ateneo de Cebu)

To the Sacred Heart School for Boys Class of ’72, led by Mr. Jose Soberano III, our friends from SunStar Cebu, Saint Theresa’s Alumnae Association of Cebu City led by Ida Magallon, all of Mommy’s close friends who we are privileged to call “Tita” and “Tito” from the bible study and meditation groups she attended under the Cenacle sisters and the Redemptorist Fathers, and those from her Ayala hiking group, friends ... good afternoon.

I wish Mommy was here. I wish she could see all this. I wish she could feel all the love, support, respect and the high regard with which you hold her. She would be very thankful and quite touched that her former students have chosen to honor her by publishing an anthology of her essays written for “Light Sunday” of SunStar Cebu.

This book has taken a long time in the making. Class ’72 tried to do this while Mommy was still alive but they found her at a stage in her life when she no longer had the energy to do the work needed to do this book. She was also too proud to take me up on my offer to do the work for her. Nothing that my sisters and I said could convince her that to take on this project for her would not be a burden to us.

As you know -- as anyone who knows her well knows – Mommy did not want to be a burden to anyone.

You see, Mommy was a giver. She was the best at giving. But she was not that great at receiving. For some reason, she always felt a sense of discomfort that she had caused a person to spend time, energy, money and effort on her.

Take for instance the time she ran into Mr. Soberano at UCC Café. Mommy said that when she asked for the bill, she found out that he had already paid it. I heard this story almost every time we would be eating at a restaurant and chance upon one of her former students there. She was always anxious that THAT person would do a “Jo Soberano” and pay for our meal without our knowledge.

But that story always ended with her telling us how good she felt that a student of hers from some time back remembered her well enough to do such a nice thing for her. She appreciated what Mr. Soberano did, just like she appreciated all the nice gifts and touching gestures that people did for her and she took well to remember them, even keeping things from way back.

After she died, I found a clipping in one of her notebooks which contained her “Light Sunday” articles published in 1999. It was a clipping of GEETEEVEE, a column by Bien Fernandez titled “Flashbacks.” I saw that she had circled a paragraph where Bien expressed that he had been fortunate to have had Mommy as his English teacher in high school because not only did she teach discernment in English literature, more importantly, she taught compassion.

Indeed, she had loads of compassion. You will see this in the articles contained in this book, which offer a view of how she lived her life as a wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, friend, a member of the Cebu community, a citizen of this nation, an employer, and all the other roles she played in her lifetime.

Mommy wrote what she knew. She laid out what was real to her and what stood out to her. She did not pretend to be a connoisseur or an expert of anything. One cannot go through 1,350 clippings collected over 27 years of her writing “Light Sunday” and fail to realize that here was a real person, a woman with thoughts and experiences just like ours, laying herself and her life open in the hope that it would help someone gain something – whether it was an insight, values, strength, a realization, an appreciation of their blessings…anything.

And because Mommy was a person of faith, she made sure that even as she shared of herself in “Light Sunday,” that it would not be about her but about how God’s love and amazing grace shines in the most mundane to the most unusual of experiences, in the daily rigors of our journey here on earth and through people from all walks of life, even from those we least expect it.

This is why we agreed to have this book published. In our hearts, we are sure that Mommy appreciates this tribute. However, we must be honest and tell you that she did not expect one and she did not really want to have a lot of fuss made over her. She had even left instructions to this effect before she died. “The less people who know I am gone, the better. I came quietly into the world – my passing should also be quiet and simple,” she wrote us.

Obviously, this did not happen. I think Mommy never fully realized the impact she had on people … or the power of Facebook and social media.

So, we would like to take Mommy’s lead and make this book not about her, but about the mission that she had set for herself in writing “Light Sunday.” She saw her column as a way to spread God’s Word in her own words by telling stories of how His Love prevails in our lives in times of joy and sorrow and even in the midst of problems and obstacles.

Thanks to Class ’72, her work outlives her and we hope, inspires readers both old and new, to do all things with Love – Love of God and of fellowmen, and to keep believing that with God, all things are possible.

We would like to mention in particular Mr. Soberano not only for leading the group in taking on this project but also for believing in and supporting Mommy. We also thank the other major sponsors -- Mr. Erramon “Montxu” Aboitiz, Robert “Bob” Gothong, Benjamin “Boojie” Lim and Jasper Tan.

Raymund, we are amazed by your creativity and the amount of work you did in so short a time with your wife Estela and your kids. There are 73 articles in this book, which Raymund got his kids to encode – and this does not include those that they encoded and which did not make the cut. Thank you for the patience and sensitivity you displayed in handling our family and for respecting what Mommy wanted for this book.

We also thank the members of the core group working on this project – Mr. Bien Fernandez, Roy Emil Yu, Danny Kimseng, Rene Villarica and his son Carlo and the staff of Cebu Landmasters.

We also thank SunStar Cebu, without who this book would certainly not be possible. Mommy always counted as among her greatest blessings the fact that she was able to do what she loved, which was to write, in the service of the Lord.

To all those who are here, I cannot name you one by one, but please know that you are as much a part of this book as all those I mentioned earlier. Some of you, literally and by name. We are all part of "Light Sunday" because we are all part of Mommy’s Life.

So let me end by thanking everyone the way Mommy usually thanked someone for a gift or a gesture that was so big that she knew she could not repay it:  “Thank you very much. This is exactly what we wanted for Mommy. Ang Ginoo na lang ang mahibalo kaninyo (The Lord knows best how to reward you).”

Good afternoon.

Buildings of faith

The black pulpit contrasts
starkly against the all-white
interior of the Theatine Church 
of St. Cajetan in Munich.

My humanities professor would have been thrilled.

Prof. Carmelo Tamayo is the reason images come into my mind when I hear the words Baroque, Rococo, Romanesque and Gothic architecture – which he used a lot when he took us on a tour of churches in the south of Cebu.    

I remembered him  when my family and I had the chance to visit churches in parts of Germany and Austria recently.  Would he have remained articulate in describing and explaining the influences on the architecture and design of the churches in that part of the world, or would he have been rendered silent by their magnificence?

Because I was struck dumb. There are no words. It’s all feeling. The first few minutes inside the church doors are spent trying to take it all in. There’s just so much happening at once and it’s all beautiful.

The towering alter piece called
Fall of the Angels(1782) by Karl Georg Merville
inside St. Michael's Church in Vienna.

The altars are majestic, and not just the main one that you walk into, but even side altars. There is just so much detail – in the floors, columns, walls, ceiling, doors, pews, etc. The amount of painstaking work that must have gone into building these cathedrals and churches when mechanized construction must have been nonexistent is mind-boggling.

I do not know how many churches there are in Europe, but we were able to visit 18 churches and three chapels during our two-week stay in parts of Germany and Austria.

This view of the Old Town of Salzburg reveals as many as
three churches in one area: Kollegienkirche (Collegiate
Church), Franziskanerkirche (Franciscan Church)
and the Salzburg Cathedral.

Most of these visits were unplanned. We simply walked into these churches because they were in the vicinity of tourist spots and within walking distance of each other.

In Germany, there was the St. Nikolaus Church in Muhldorf am Inn; Theatine Church of St. Cajetan and Frauenkirche (Cathedral of Our Dear Lady) in Munich; Shrine of Our Lady of Altotting or the Chapel of Grace, Basilica of St. Ann and Brother Konrad Church in Altotting; and the Parish of Maria Himmelfahrt Partenkirchen in Garmisch- Partenkirchen.

Inside the Hospital Church of the Holy Ghost
in Innsbruck, Austria

We made stops in Austria that included the St. Jakob Parish Church in Burghausen; St. Michael’s Church, Schottenkirche (Scots church) and St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna; Franziskanerkirche (Franciscan Church),  Kollegienkirche (Collegiate Church) and St. Sebastiankirche (St. Sebastian’s Church) in Salzburg; the Evangelical church and the Catholic Church in Hallstatt and Hospital Church of the Holy Ghost and Hofkirche (Court Church) in Innsbruck.

Charming and smaller were St. George’s Chapel located inside the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Salzburg, St. Barbara’s chapel (it was more an image protected by a structure) on the way to the salt mine in Hallstatt and the Maria Heimsuchung chapel on the slopes of Zugspitze.

Taking of photos is not allowed inside the
Gnadenkapelle (Chapel of Grace), seen
here in the middle of the square in Altotting.
Behind it is the Church of St. Magdalena

I ask my 14-year-old daughter who tuned out by the third? fourth? (“see one, see all Mommy”) church which ones stood out to her and she shrugs.  “The small one that had this silver stuff on the walls and was very dark, and where people were praying.” I ask why and she says, “It was the most quiet and holy. And it was small.”

She is referring to the Chapel of Grace that houses the “Black Madonna,” a wood carving of a standing Mother Mary carrying the child Jesus, whose miraculous healing power draws over 1 million pilgrims each year to Altotting.

Votive offerings line every
available space on the chapel's
exterior ceiling and walls.

When I ask my husband the same question, he ruefully confesses that the churches are all one magnificent blur, but reconsiders. “Okay, the one with the hearts.” Like my daughter, he picks the Chapel of Grace.

It is easy to see why he remembers the silver urns containing the hearts of the Bavarian dukes, kings and prince-electors that stand in the wall niches of the chapel, “placed as a princely guard of honour” opposite the image of the Black Madonna.

He explains his choice further. “I like all the votive offerings outside the structure.” Framed drawings and pictures offered in thanksgiving to Our Lady for prayers granted line every space available on the exterior walls, posts and ceiling of the chapel.

Outside St. Stephen's Cathedral
in Vienna

For wow factor alone, I choose St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. It is massive at  107 meters (351 ft) long, 40 meters (130 ft) wide, and 136 meters (446 ft) tall at its highest point.

The mind struggles to catch up with the eye that wanders from the Giant’s Door dotted with dragons, birds, lions, monks and demons, the two spires above it, the colored roof covered by glazed tiles, the Gothic south tower which soars above the city, etc.

Inside, it is even more beautiful with giant sculptural columns soaring high over the three-aisle church. We could not enter the main section which had been closed off for an event or see the High Altar, which was covered by a gigantic projector screen. Still, there was enough for the eyes to feast on. Among them, the pulpit that spirals around a column and side altars which include the Wiener-Neustädter Altar.

The Wiener-Neustädter Altar inside
St. Stephen's Cathedral

I don’t think I have ever seen a winged altar in the Philippines, none of this magnitude at least. The altar piece has a fixed main shrine, but its wings (think cabinet doors) can be opened and closed, with each side featuring a painting or a sculpture or a relief, in color and gilded with gold.

We did not have enough time to explore the entire church, but I remember thinking that the beauty and splendor of St. Stephen’s Cathedral also makes it the most tourist-infested.

There are very few of us
inside the St. Peter's
Abbey Church in Salzburg.

There were not that many people inside the other churches, and the few we found praying inside also took pictures.  It makes me think that there are more tourists than the faithful in that part of the world.

There is material online that says a number of churches in Europe has been closed down or re-purposed because they are too expensive to maintain. The numbers of the faithful have dwindled over the years, with less and less people going to church.¹

I find this a pity because I come from a country where it can be difficult to find a seat in Church if you don’t come early to mass (and not just on Sundays), and where you can always find people inside praying, lighting candles, standing in line to pray before miraculous images and even walking on their knees all the way to the altar while praying the Rosary.

If only these churches were in the Philippines, professors like Mr. Tamayo and the country's dominantly Catholic population (80.3 million or 79.5 percent) would have a blast. ²

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¹ Europe's church creatively rethinks as numbers plummet (https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/europes-church-creatively-rethinks-numbers-plummet)

² Source: 2015 Census of Population (POPCEN 2015) conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority