Factors that Make up my World

                One time at our bed room Flora my mother was busy organizing my clean clothes and me playing with my toys when I suddenly broke up the silence by raising a question “Ma… Who are my parents?” I couldn’t really figure out on how in the world I was able to formulate a complicated question like that, as young as 3 or 5 years old a child should not start to talk and question that way face to face with somebody who is from the very start had become my bodily incubator when my formation was still at a cycle and had fostered me with so much love and care during my first steps of breathe in this world. She had stopped what she was doing before she faced me and we start to have the eye contact, fortunately I didn’t see any signs of anger or disappointment in it before she start to ask in a very soft and gentle voice “Where did you get the idea?” for about seconds of silence she had made another word when she knew that I wouldn’t be able to make even a single thought to come out “I see…” I don’t really get what she mean about that; was she able to read what I’m thinking and realized that I don’t have any basis for the question or she was expecting that I was only influenced by what I see in television, hear outside or something else that I could had been possibly be affected. She knew I was confused when she saw those tiny wrinkles in my forehead, so she asked a very basic question still maintaining the quality of her voice “Is there anyone else who are known to be your parents?” I just rolled my lower lips to remark my answer was negative and I instantly returned my focus on playing my toys ending up the topic instantly.

In the year 1997 there came an Asian Crisis, it had negatively affect the economical status of most countries that are part of the continent including the Philippines that had caused many companies to layoff employees and some to be bankrupt because other companies had avoided lending some of their shares to those who are part of the epidemic crisis. Our family had felt it; my mom had just received her early retirement and my dad had his last payment for his job cause the mall where his working with was bankrupt due for the reason. Though they want to have another job they can’t because both of them are college undergraduate. We still have our savings in the bank but that is not enough to hold our stay in the city so we decided to just migrate in Mindanao where my father owns a small piece of land that produces copra every 3 months though the income is not that big as had been expected at least it will give us the hope that our pockets will not get empty. We lived in Davao City for 1 year before we fully transfer to a province at Davao Oriental where we’ve made our permanent residence.

The life in the province is very different from the life in the city; no malls, no bars, very silent, people are civilized but not that much for there are still the remarks of influences from ancestors who believed in folklore and beliefs like witch crafts, fairies and other else. The first days of my stay were a bit harder, as much harder when I became the topic of rumors to some people living there. I thought the issue of adoption was only an idea of my past when I was about 3 or 5 years old a topic from nothingness or either scenes that we only see in televisions or somewhere else, but when I start to hear it from others connecting me to the topic it had caused a little fear of “What ifs” to arise, but then I made myself convinced that it was only a rumor from people who were not really part of the family and I shouldn’t listen to what they say cause their only people who are nothing to deal with. One early morning I ate my breakfast together with my mom and dad, when we were in the middle of the meal Danny my dad had started to talk “Er…(My nickname) if you are to encounter Sally and Arnold anywhere or have a talk with them, call them the same way as you have been calling us” I was shocked to what I’ve heard, I knew that Sally was my fathers younger sister and Arnold is her husband and to hear those sentence coming from my dad was very unusual to me so I responded instantly “Why should I? Their not my mom and dad” dad had uttered “Even though… You can still treat them the way you treat us” before everything else burns I start to pack up my things and say in instance “That doesn’t make the idea clear” and had my way to school. I couldn’t clearly hear what they had in response but I only had my rush way heading to school very confused and hurt to what the idea had brought me about, to realized that the thought of the rumors I hear from people and the idea of that talk during the meal were just pointing to only one idea that I always hate to think was for real. I still made myself believe that it’s only just a fiction to make my living still the same as if nothing it had happen to cause me and my life goes on the same until I reach the last year of my elementary years. About a few months I’m going to graduate in elementary and all of us are very busy in fixing many stuffs till one of my classmates got so bored and made the step to begin scanning the records of our teacher who was at that time is in the other classroom negotiating for some important things that needs to be negotiated in connection to the upcoming graduation rites. My classmates had started to call the attention of that pupil saying that it wasn’t really a good idea and she replied “It won’t be if we only remain silent”. With all curiosity I myself got also tempt to approach the table with her and take a share scanning it, I try to read it carefully and had find out that it was a book of biography for each Grade 6 pupil in our section. I kept turning each page to search for my name and it didn’t fail I found my name written on top of those plenty of sentences which in assurance was all about me, I try to take span of the all the sentence and words till one sentence had stroked my attention “… he was an adopted child of …” I became absent minded for about seconds I lost the presence of my mind that should allow me to be aware of the surroundings, till one of my classmates had decide to push me that awaken me like being from a deep sleep setting me a warning that our teacher is coming and had to fix those things like nothing had happened. Yes nothing had happened that for about a single moment I felt like a bomb in my chest was about to burst, I don’t have to finish the whole written story in that short biography to puzzle out who was being identified by that single word that had quoted my mind “Adopted”. Rumors from people who had been able to interference with my personal life are not the once of whom caused the pain that had sprout within me, neither the topic that had been opened during our breakfast or either the sentence I had read and discovered from my teachers’ biographical book but the wholeness that connects each ideas that made me realized the truth. I got hurt, confused and frustrated with what may come up next but I have to endure the pain if I don’t want to make my life busted all along the process.

The confirmation of the truth was truly painful and it was not even an easy way to accept it, but one thing I have realized is how it took me. The love, the care and support that my second parents had given me are definitely a great gift and blessings that I had treasured all those years I’ve spent my life with them. I could not change the fact that I’m an Adopted Child but being one is not a curse instead it’s an extraordinary experience, not because I’ve been to so many painful ways and process but it’s despite of that truth that had been with me all throughout my life that I was still able acquire the love, the care and the support that is much more than what I should be expecting. And all throughout the experience I have realized the true meaning of becoming a son is not just by being called by the title but having to felt it as well is much more important.

Daniel has a wife and daughter but he separately lived far from them. Through my high-school days I only heard a little about them until we have started to migrate in a province area here in Mindanao where he also lived a few months earlier.

This man had decided to live afar from them without knowing what his reasons were, he does not even tell a little about his family or even to make a question of how they were doing.

If I was not wrong his daughter Annie is about 2 years older than me and is about to graduate in high school. The last time I saw her was when I’m just 4 yrs old and after that I never had the chance to make any personal reunion with her; she’s truly intelligent and cheerful and one of the most adorable student of their school making her own history in academic performances since elementary till high school, I knew about that till my parents were last updated about them, but after that, no more news did I hear from them.

One morning I saw him in the Living room wrapping things up going to the municipal town to meet with some friends there and enjoy spending time with fiestas, hang-ups, parties or wherever they want to go, that was just usual, but only one single thing was seems to intriguing me; he left pieces of pictures on the table just located close to him while his busy with his routine; I came to be very curious about it so I waited until he got finished and have to move on his way. I made the chance to glance on them; the first picture I saw was a girl sitting down on a chair she was definitely smiling, she’s wearing a navy blue long skirt paired with a white blouse so I was able to say that she’s a student, on the second image she was with an older girl; awhile before I make it on the next picture at hand I tried taking a gaze at the back of each picture to find whether there are any notes written on it that would introduce them to me and I was right, I saw these very short sentence “Hope that you would be here. Things would be very different for me if our family would be completed on this most memorable day of my life” below those sentence were written in a well hand written prospective “Your loving daughter Annie.” That was just the time when I was able to figure out that those picture were Annie and her Mother in school and they were asking him to be with them on her graduation day that would be two months from that day.

Few weeks had passed and I never heard anything about that invitation, so I tried asking mom if she had heard anything about it and answered me nothing as a remark that she has no extent to know his decision, which had brought me to the conclusion that he has no interest about it anymore. 

I don’t find it very easy to analyze his routine in life, enjoyment is the basic means of his living; always making his dependency on his father and mother’s income. Sometimes he would owe money from other people with that big amount that puts his parents name into shame. There would be times when he would not go home for several weeks or even months not knowing where his spending his time and money everyday, and the time of his disappearance would provide fear to our family of what was going on with him, if he could still take care of his health and make time to still remember that he has a family waiting for him or if he could still go home alive or the worse is with the opposite that nobody of us would dare to think, those were only few and supposed to be easy questions but neither anyone of us has nothing to make an assurance of giving any definite answer except for rumors we heard from other people.

I have graduated high school and had transferred in the city to continue my studies, that time I only heard a little about him not about his family that he doesn’t put into his routine anymore, but about the worries he provide the same when I was still living in the province.

For about a few little years that had passed after I had left our town my father had made a phone call and say some little hello to me, the conversation had flowed all about my studies and my life apart from them till I got the chance asking of how life was going on for them and responded in a very low voice “Not very fine.” The conversation had lasted for about 30 minutes and I was able to got the idea that Daniel just got an illness which causes him to suffer from a severe pain just from within his abdomen part; as we dig it deeper I was just able to comprehend how hard there situation was. They’ve sent him to a doctor and spent a lot of money just to cure him but neither those medicines prescribed were not fair enough to cure the pain, so they decided to send him here in the city to be seen by an expert which would cause him to leave his new family there in the province where he now have 2 daughters (not including his daughter from his first wife), but unlike from the first one he didn’t got engaged with his second girl.

Again were able to live at the same house where I was temporarily living for the reason of my studies. I could not just illustrate how I got pity on seeing him crying at the moment he would feel something was putting a deep drawing pain of line in his abdomen, I may not be able to count how many nights he was not able to make even a little rest because of that tremendous feeling, I could not do anything but try to buy those pain relievers prescribed to him that are absolutely expensive just to make him rest his day. For about a couple of weeks he lost the shape of his round body. Sometimes I would think that he was not Daniel anymore. Now things had changed; the days of enjoyment is now changed into months of tears and the days of spending had now changed into months of visiting the hospital and that is how his doing now for the previous years he loved living outside the house hanging around, but now even a single stand he got it hard to make because of the force that is dominating within him that causes him so much sacrifices due to the way of how he lived his past life.

Sometimes we thought were tougher than what actually we are, and doesn’t even needed the help of anyone around us like making a thought that it’s only us who could make things go right. It hurts when we’ll just realize how hard it is to live all alone, without the people of whom we need at our side and it’s just a little too late grasping things all over again, to make things work the same, like what they were before. As we get older demands were increasing, pressures come across our lives, challenges becomes tougher ever than before; they may change us in such a way but never the fact that our action greatly influence our living. Time is just running too fast yet I’m making a slow move working on things up like tomorrow I’ll be able to pass that way again; it’s past and never it happened in the history; that history jumps itself to the present, not even in the future, but I have to accept the fact that it’ll only be a past itself remaining intangible from any possibility of alteration, but I could make a change of the future making difference of how my life would be and should not be hanging myself for those fortune teller out there telling us what our destiny would be; and like this quote “if they change their minds the vision may change” from Twilight written by Stephenie Meyer, it only says one simple thing that our decision is still what would matter of what we will be for the future.

It was morning of February 2, 2008 and everyone in our place was so busy preparing for such an occasion which will be held few days from it. It was a funny thing for a person like me cause that was only one of the few time in my life when I was reminded of how many occasions had already passed and I don’t even put any of those into my own routine, maybe of many busy things that I need to give more priority in life than giving more time in enjoying. I don’t even have time to take a glance of myself and take a little time to reflect of where I ‘am now. Only one thing I keep on thinking to achieve and that is to obtain success.

I’ve come this far and I keep seeking for what I was really trying to achieve, as time goes by things are becoming much more complicated than they were before. I’m trying to acquire things which I thought would give me contentment, but not even one of them do satisfies me just to be able to say that I’ve completely knew the meaning of my survival. I tried seeking for what I want in anyway that I know, I dive in the deepest and inner most of my mind but I found no answer, I’ve tried to compromise with the things that others do but I don’t find it that interesting to give more time, I’ve tried to work hard, but after a few days, I will just find it like no sense at all. I’ve tried to define life in my own words and I never knew that it’s more than what I always thought it was. When I came to the point to explore life I fought that it would be the same as how I read a book that every idea were just written and hidden in every leaf of its page, till I discover that there were more things to discover more than the ordinary way of just reading a book. That was the turning point on my journey of knowing the true meaning of life that I’m very much interested to discover. Revealing its’ secrets is not as easy as I knew before, there were much to know, there were much to discover, even the best scientist might not be able to have an exact explanation to it such as why people live, and what’s the reason for their existence, why everything are reacting just to survive, why others still feel being happy, hurt or even feel hatred to others and if were curious enough to know we’ll just find more answers in the reality each of which would surely have no definite idea, but we live with it, because it’s how broad life is because many facts about it were kept hidden and needs a lot of time to be able to grasp the true meaning before we’ll be able to sought the perfect answer to the question why there is life in this world. And as I go along I’ve just realize that one answer may not be a final answer, but it’s only apart of those few answers that answers only what you really want to know about your life, and will not always be consider as what others would also like to know.