Catch me true love

I caught my firefly 64 years ago," says Freda Jayme, author of Catch Me A Firefly, of her husband Delfin Gonzalez. "What I want to know is if he is happy."

"Do I have any other choice?" quips Delfin as he lovingly smiles at his wife.

Freda Jayme, which is the nom de plume of Aurea Carballo Gonzalez, says that it was actually a friend of hers who asked her whether Delfin was the firefly in her life. At that time, Jayme says, she did not know.

"But after 64 years, I am sure,"she says with a smile. "I know I would not have it any other way."

Aurea Carballo Gonzalez was born on July 19, 1913. Yes, 91 years ago. A teacher, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Education, major in English, from St. Theresa’s College in 1934, and taught at the Malate Catholic School for nine years.

"Let me tell you a story," Carballo begins, filling me in on the men in her life while she was busy teaching.

There was a young man who told one of the Belgian nuns that he would marry Carballo. "When I found out about that, I avoided that man like the plague," shares Carballo. "I was not one of those flirty girls."

While she was teaching, Delfin would come to visit her in school every day. He would park his car right across the classroom so that he could watch her teach, even from a distance. So obvious was Delfin’s love for Carballo that even her students started drawing the face of Delfin on the blackboard before Carballo would enter the classroom.

In 1941, when she was 28, they married.

During the years that she was raising her five kids – four boys and a girl – Carballo was able to make time for her favorite pastime, writing.

Since 1972, Carballo has had 60 short stories published. She chose Freda Jayme as her nom de plume, which is a combination of the names of her first two sons, Federico and Jaime. Several of her articles saw print in Mr. & Ms. Magazine.

But there is only one theme that Jayme chooses to write about – love.

"Love that is pure and clean," says Carballo. "Love as it should be. Not about jumping into bed like they do today." When Jayme started writing she made a commitment to write about love, as it should be.

She wrote her first love story in 1975. "I will tell you why," she smiles at me as she starts to fill me in on the details of her writing.

As I sit and listen, I can’t help but remember my own grandmother who would tell me stories, too.

Catch Me A Firefly’ was first published by Bookmark in Manila about four years ago. It was published again in India last year. Jayme tells us that one of her sons owns a company in India and he showed the book to his friend Krishna Kotak, who loved the book.

"Freda Jayme has given pleasure to so many in the Philippines and now we thought why not share this with readers in India? Jaime (Gonzalez, Freda Jayme’s son) managed to convince his mother about this request for which I am grateful and I sincerely hope that you too will get lost in your beautiful memories of the past through this wonderful book which brings to life a dream worth dreaming," says Kotak in his foreword in the book.

Carballo loves the cover of the second publication of the book because it was painted by street children in India. Kotak is the head of a foundation for street children in India.

Indeed.

Carballo recalls that at the time her children were growing up, all the love stories she would read in books and magazines were about couples jumping into bed and doing this and that. "Not very clean love," she adds. "So I made a resolution to write love stories that are clean. I am sure that other people think that it is not wrong to write about sex. I don’t argue with them. But for me, as I wrote in one of my stories, love is not only about sex. It is affection, ardor, friendship, passion and compassion, too."

The story she is talking about is entitled "The Greatest Sin" and is among the short stories in her book. It is about a girl who rejected a boy because she got into an accident and became wheelchair-bound. She did not want the pity of the boy. But the mother knew that the boy really loved her," said Carballo. "In this story, her mother tells her daughter that love is pity, pleasure, desire and all those wonderful things, too. And if love is true it will go beyond what is physical."

These are the kind of stories Carballo chooses to write about, stories about love like it was when she was young. After all, she says, values do not change, they remain constant through time. Carballo says she knows that young people might find her stories "old-fashioned," but in the end she says that they, too, will see the values that these love stories bring.

"Is it not better to know that a man truly loves you for who you are?" she asks. "Maybe that is why there are no more fireflies. Maybe all the good ones have already been caught."

Carballo’s stories have remained consistent over time. Matter of fact, the last one she wrote was in 2004 and still she follows the same theme of clean love. "My grandchildren say that they like what I write. They might find it a little outdated," she shares. "But I don’t mind that because eventually they will realize how important the values are. That is what I want them to learn."

Where does Carballo get ideas for her stories?

"From my mind," is her quick reply. "They are all in there and I make it a point to write them down so that I can get my message across."

Longhand is how Carballo writes her stories and at her age it is something that she enjoys doing. "I love to write – and that means also physically writing the story down."

It can take Carballo a week to complete a short story. And up until last year, Carballo used to send a story every month to Mr. & Ms. Magazine.

"None of my stories have ever been rejected by the magazine," smiles Carballo. Carballo was writing another story entitled "My OFW" when she was asked by Wood Rose School to give a talk on writing short stories. She gave away the plot of the story, so this story was never submitted. "I told the students at the schools to use the story as an assignment so they would learn how to write a short story.

Soon, the teacher in her takes over as she shares with me tips for a short-story writer wannabe:

1. Read, always read. If your parents allow you to watch TV for an hour, cut it in half. Spend the other half of the time reading.

2. They ask me what shall they read? I tell them to read anything that is clean and wholesome and to their liking.

3. Keep a diary. Even if all you write is one or two lines a day. Just make sure that you write something every day. This way you will develop a love and the skill for putting your thoughts into words.

Carballo, of course, reads anything she can get her hands on. But when she goes to the bathroom it is there that she likes to read poetry, "I love reading poems," she says, "I also like writing short poems. Most of the time they are not very serious. I just jot down my thoughts at the moment."

Thinking of retirement is far away for this wonderful 91-year-old lady.

Truth to tell, plans are afoot for her second book, which she plans to publish soon. "Someone is already handling my other set of short stories," she says with a twinkle in her eye. "He is looking for someone to publish them."