Finding Ma'am Gregorio again

There must be a generous amount of sentimentality in my DNA that many times I find myself ruminating on the past. This sentimentality, however, can be called selective because I have the proclivity for playing in my mind beautiful memories. What about bad memories? I put them in kilns so they can be tendered to become lessons of my life. Then, somehow, bad memories become good ones, too.

On days when I am very relaxed, a certain recollection will pass me by and I will just find myself running after it. It always happens to me. The more I pursue meaningful memories in the recesses of my mind, the more I get entrenched to happiness. Beautiful memories act like a soothing balm to the soul.

Barely a year ago, when I first brought my niece to her dormitory in UP Los Baños, I leisurely passed by the main library of the university. The three-story library has remained massive and majestic. During my first few weeks as a college freshman in UPLB, I thought the Felipe Mendoza-designed structure was eerie and cold, especially at night when yellow lollipop-like lamps would illumine the pathway going to the library. Never did I realize that inside it was a treasure that would warm my existence in the university.

Passing by the library that moment was like traversing a road to hopes and dreams. That particular moment rekindled in me a sense of gratitude as I remembered Ma’am Gregorio, the chief librarian during my time in the campus. I first met Ma’am Gregorio in 1988 when her niece Lemons, my college friend, introduced me to her. From that time until I graduated in 1991, I was in constant communication with her.

The thought of her filled my mind from the moment I dropped my niece in her dorm, which was just across the main library, until I went back to Manila. My many memorable meetings with Ma’am Gregorio soon became a staple food for thought. It took me one year to locate her whereabouts. With the help of well-meaning people, including her nephew Jury Gregorio and my dearest college friend Alexandra Cabrera, I found her again.

* * *

It took me 21 long years to see her again. So, on the day when I visited her in her house in Los Baños, I had a jamboree in my heart.

Ma’am Gregorio or Leonor Bustamante Gregorio, that Saturday afternoon I paid her a long overdue visit, looked plain and ordinary. But there was that undeniable and infectious joy all over her face. She wore a red housedress. Her naturally wavy hair seemed to dance at the slight breeze when she escorted me to her little garden.

I complimented her for the flowering plants that surrounded her house. She smiled. I know that smile would define the extraordinariness in her as, without prodding, she recited a poem titled The Little Plant from memory:

In the heart of a seed,

Buried deep, so deep.

A dear little plant,

Former UPLB chief librarian Leonor Gregorio.

Lay fast asleep.

“Wake,” said the sunshine,

“And creep to the light.”

“Wake,” said the voice,

Of the raindrops bright.

The little plant heard

And it rose to see,

What the wonderful,

Outside world might be.

Like a child, she let go of a hearty chuckle after reciting the poem. “Childish,” she said. “It’s a children’s poem.”

“Yes,” I said, “I agree.” And my heart saw how she had not changed.

She could move around sans the aid of a cane albeit with calculated gait. From time to time, she gazed at me or pinched my cheeks, perhaps in disbelief that we would still see each other again. Or perhaps in disbelief that someone would care to remember her after all these years.

But how can I forget?

When I was younger and hungry, Ma’am Gregorio, the librarian of UP Los Baños during my college days in the late ‘80s, fed my mind so I would be full in the many days to come. Yes, many times she would share her lunch with me in her office on the second floor of the main library. But more than that, she would let me enter a new world through the many books in her private collection. She gave me access to her personal books — a collection of classic and contemporary literature — with the condition that I would take care of every title that I borrowed. 

In the beginning, she only had three rules in lending me her books. First rule: “Enjoy the pleasure of reading.” Second rule: “Clap after reading the entire book.” Third rule: “Return what you borrow.” Later on, she added: “Come back to me for discussion.”

With the fourth requirement, I was forced to read a book as fast as I could. But she cautioned me, “Reading is like traveling. You enjoy the sights and sounds. You never want to hurry. But you also never want to stay put in one place. You move from one place to another. The way you train your mind and soul from one chapter of the book to the next.”

Every time I visited her in her office, she would welcome me with a warm smile. I would always prefer to stand beside the big rotating globe in her office instead of taking a seat, perhaps because I also had that insatiable dream to discover the world.

If that globe could talk, it would surely complain of vertigo as I kept on spinning it while Ma’am Gregorio and I were discussing If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino or The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. She told me to memorize Shakespeare’s Sonnet 138 “because it is important for a man to know at least one poem by heart.” But I failed.

If we would have disagreements about the book we were discussing, we would always resort to Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, which we both agreed that time as “the best children’s book written for adults,” to douse our heightened discussion of other titles. At 16, I told her, I knew somehow I would also be a little prince someday.

She never gave up on that dream for me.

* * *

Ma’am Gregorio embraced single blessedness with a happy and grateful heart. At 78, she now lives in a relatively spacious apartment that she shares with her best friend Carmelita Austria, a former librarian of the International Rice Research Institute.

The love for reading is something she inherited from her parents who were both teachers in their hometown of Sto. Domingo in Albay.

After finishing Library Science in UP Diliman, she took her master’s degree at the University of Pittsburg in Pennsylvania. When she retired as the chief librarian of UPLB in 1998, the Professional Regulation Commission got her as an examiner for the Library Science board exam. She now busies herself tending to her little garden at home and making her own crossword puzzles.

* * *

It was almost sunset when I left Ma’am Gregorio’s apartment. Before I bid her goodbye, she asked me: “What really brought you here?”

“Gratitude,” I briefly answered. “I owe you one big hug and one big Thank You.”

The cool Los Baños breeze escorted me on my way out of the compound where she lives. Everywhere I looked, there were robust bougainvillea, birds of paradise and heliconia plants all bearing colorful blooms. I was reminded again of the children’s poem The Little Plant Ma’am Gregorio earlier recited to me.

Next time I visit her, I will recite that kiddy poem to her. Deep in my heart I know, I was once that little seed “buried deep, so deep” waiting to become a little plant. I have seen the light of the world and have somehow grown to become a tree. But if you unearth some of my roots, you will see there the indelible marks of the many lessons I learned from my former librarian.

It is with a grateful heart that I take a bow before Ma’am Gregorio. Here’s to more fun times of reading again with you.

(For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. You may want to follow me on Twitter @bum_tenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)