AT times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.—Albert Schweitzer

I nimbly step into the public utility jeepney, not thinking about anything else but how to get to work before eleven o’clock in the morning.

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It is during these times that you feel the adrenalin rush, or more like gastric acid rush flooding your stomach. Do all journalist at one time of their lives experience gastritis or hyperacidity?

Medication can clear up the complaint. However, an ounce of lifestyle change, more vegetables of calmness, and eight glasses of prayers will bring healing faster, I am sure.

Although you are not bound by the nine-to-five office schedule, you still want to be a good example of punctuality. Well, most of the time. That makes you smile and you feel healed already.

The early worker ant gets the morning nectar for the honey, if we may create a new proverb.

As you settle down, you feel this fragile presence on your left side, almost like a pillow in tenderness.

You turn your head and find an old woman, curved by weariness and age like the letter C. You see it in the way she sits and holds fast to her metal walking cane.

Everything about her is old: wispy, white hair; wrinkle-latticed, tiny face; smile marks around her dry lips, still pink in spite of her age.

Although there is sadness in her smile, she uses it to communicate that she is still capable of social interaction and that her warmth has not diminished now that she is 75 years old.

“So, how old are you?” she asks me. She gazes at my face as a seven-month-old baby would as he tries to scan the faces around him.

Did the old woman perhaps try to find something familiar in me?

Did she want to figure out whether I am a Good Samaritan, a Martha, a Barnabas?

I tell her I am beyond the half-century mark. She seems amazed that I am not younger as she thinks. Her voice is hardly audible and so you have to draw your head near her lips so you can make out her words.

“You don’t look your age. There is something very young about you, Inday,” she tells me.

“You flatter me, ma’am,” I tell her.

“You look young. Have you ever dyed your hair?”

“Just once; on the day I got married because I wanted even-colored hair. I wanted to have nice wedding photos, but it was the semi-permanent type. I mean the dye; not my marriage,” I tell her.

She laughs. “I have never dyed my hair either,” she says.

“We have earned our silver, ma’am, and no one can make me part with it. Besides, coloring your hair can become expensive in the long run,” I reply.

Everything about her is old, except for her eyes. They have softness although they reflect some pain, a longing.

She looks at me steadily then says, “I am begging.”

“Huh? Begging? What do you mean?”

It is not that she is wearing rags or she smells awful. In fact, she has no odor. I see that she has careful grooming.

On her hair is a simple comb; her green dress looks washed; and her cane looks expensive. I do notice that she is carrying a used plastic bag.

“I am going to Sto. Nino Church to beg for alms,”

“Why would you do that?”

“My children have forgotten me. They get mad when I ask them for some money,” she says and her eyes start to gleam.

“Do they live outside Cebu?”

“No, I stay with them. They have children now.”

“Then maybe they are just joking.”

She nods. “Maybe, but their voices don’t seem like joking to me.”

“At least they feed you.”

“Yes, they do, and the meal they give me—mostly rice—has to last me till evening,” she says as she locks her eyes on mine.

I look away from her. We are silent for a while.

“It’s difficult growing old. You have nothing. We are nothing.

We become trash. No one cares. I am going to Sto. Nino,” she breaks the spell and her eyes gleam again.

“I promise to plan for my old age. I will save money, find volunteer work—anything,” I tell her.

There’s that smile once more. “Do that. It’s not a guarantee that our children will love us back and care for us. If I had money, yes, I will be loved. Yes, they will care.”

I usually alight near Elicon Café and I see it looming ahead now. I suddenly feel the sorrow of parting.

“I have to go,” I say as I press a small paper bill on her soft and bony hand. I don’t have much. “Thank you for talking to me and singling me out.”

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on November 2, 2009.