Sunday, January 13, 2008 Lim: Seven By Melanie T. Lim Wide Awake
I WASN'T born with a silver spoon in my mouth. My family was not exactly impoverished but we were not what you would call “wealthy.” Still, I can’t recall the lack of money ever having been a source of unhappiness to me.
It wasn’t that I was under the illusion that we were wealthy. On the contrary, I was very much aware of our financially-challenged situation. While many of my classmates were driven to school in nice cars, my siblings and I would all be bundled up in our dilapidated jeep that almost always failed to start every morning.
This is probably about the time when I started to be prayerful.
As soon as we finished breakfast each morning, I would actually start praying—that our jeep would start after a few tries so that we could get to school on time. Dismissal was another matter. After having been parked for a while, our jeep would have to be pushed once more to get the engine running.
Still, I don’t recall ever having been upset about this annoying situation. It was an inconvenience but it was not a problem I needed to get ballistic about. I accepted it as a fact of my young life. Today, however, this situation duplicated, no doubt, would get a rise out of me.
I remember coming home from school telling my mother stories about how a classmate had an entire pad of paper in her bag or how another classmate had her very own Pentel Pen set.
An entire pad of paper in my bag. My very own 12-piece Pentel Pen set. These were the things I hankered for when I was seven. But my mother would tell me over and over again that I should not waste paper and should thus only bring a few sheets each day to school. And she would tell me that one Pentel Pen set for us—six siblings, was enough.
Whenever I tagged along with Mama to Villamor & Sons (the Toys R Us of my era), my heart would die a little bit inside every time I saw those cups and saucers on display on the shelves. They just all seemed to “call out to me.” Of course, they called out to me in vain because my mother would not grant my request to buy every cup and saucer set I laid eyes on when I was seven.
Despite all the things I wanted so badly but never got, I never really felt deprived. And an old, beat-up vehicle that wouldn’t start, I took in stride. I was probably too busy fighting with my five other siblings and just struggling to survive. But I think it might have been because the comforts and conveniences that money could bring had not yet arrived. Thus, it took so little to make me happy.
Every Sunday, I would go with Papa and Angkong to the pier. There, we would sit on the docks, walk around, feel the breeze (it was not yet smelly then). And in my hand would be my precious treat—a cone and a scoop of Magnolia ice cream. I didn’t need a crown, a prince or a kingdom to make me feel like a princess. Things were so much simpler then. Sometimes I wish I could be seven again.
